On one page of Heritage Making and Migrant Subjects in the Deindustrialising Region of the Latrobe Valley, when discussing multiculturalism and Indigenous Australia more broadly, I stated that I couldn’t find evidence that the committee behind the Gippsland Immigration Park consulted with local Indigenous groups when formulating the panels for their Heritage Walk. I’ve since been corrected – Graham Goulding (retired teacher, local historian, and member of the Gippsland Immigration Park Committee), provided me with further information, which I will share below. I missed this, and I didn’t inter ..read more

June to August was spent researching in Sydney—in the State Library of NSW, and in the homes and clubhouses of Greek-Australian women invested in social services and welfare rights for marginalised communities. This was part of the project ‘Greek-Australian Women and Building Alternative Multiculturalisms: Grassroots Histories of Migrant Welfare in NSW, 1960s-1980s’, undertaken with the generous assistance of the CH Currey Memorial Fellowship at the SLNSW. Below are some research thoughts related to the archival material and testimonies, and in response to initial research questions. The respo ..read more

In March 2007, in the small deindustrialising town of Morwell in Australia’s south-east, a local group with a post-WWII migrant background launched a public park. In itself, this was not a unique occurrence. The region is dotted with public parks. But this particular space is unique: the Gippsland Immigration Park was conceived, designed, launched and managed by locals who seek to commemorate, memorialise and celebrate migrants and migration to the region of Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley. In Australia’s largely Anglophone heritage landscape, such a community-initiated migrant heritage space ..read more

“Greek-Australian Women and Building Alternative Multiculturalisms: Grassroots Histories of Migrant Welfare in NSW, 1960s-1980s” This research aims to build a fuller picture of early multiculturalism from the perspective of women, including those who worked at the ‘frontlines’ of migrant welfare and service provision for Greek and other ethnic-minority communities in NSW from the 1960s to the 1980s. Did you work or volunteer for any ethnic community organisations (including ones that provided welfare support to migrant communities in Sydney)? Have you participated in community discussions arou ..read more

This blog went on the backburner in 2020, like most things. But some of the research (or, at least, the solitary writing) continued. The following is an extract from an upcoming ‘micrograph’ (they’re a thing), currently titled “Heritage Making and Migrant Subjects in the Deindustrialising Region of the Latrobe Valley”. In March 2007, in the small deindustrialising town of Morwell in Australia’s south-east, a local group with a post-WWII migrant background launched a public park. In itself, this was not a unique occurrence. The region is dotted with public parks. But this particular space is un ..read more

In a 2002 article for the Journal of Intercultural Studies, Joseph Pugliese argued that migrant communities, working within heritage legislation, do not “do the homework” of consulting with local Aboriginal communities as to the meanings of a place and the Aboriginal history it possesses, or its ongoing associations to local Aboriginal groups. Pugliese interrogated the absence of Indigenous heritage values mentioned in the Australian Heritage Commission’s Migrant Heritage in Australia Kit, which was released in the early 2000s:   After decades of neglect, during which the concept of migr ..read more

Sisto Malaspina’s murder on the 9 November 2018 has been meet with an outpouring of community grief in Melbourne. Almost immediately, spontaneous memorials to the restaurateur emerged around Pellegrini’s on Bourke Street. The news media response to the “coffee bar icon” has also been substantial, prompting some critical discussion about the history of Italian immigration, anti-Italian racism in Australia (for more see Ricatti), and its ‘echoes’ in debates about ‘African gangs’. In his piece for The Guardian, Jeff Sparrow hinted at other histories: “The centrality of Italians (and other souther ..read more

A post that came out of the launch of the Australian Migration History Network, at the 2018 Australian Historical Association, in which I broadly address the relationship between memory studies, oral history and migration history and new developments in Australian historiography. My interest in migration and settlement has been framed by a regard for living memories and collective memory practices, as well as a training in the related methods of oral history and public history. Like the study of migration, collective memory studies owes much to other disciplines, including cultural stu ..read more