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Shifting Countries, Shifting Identities? Oral History and Lesbian and Gay Migration to Australia

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Book cover Remembering Migration

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

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Abstract

Sexuality has been an underexplored element of migration history, within Australia and transnationally. For lesbian and gay migrants, leaving one country for another can bring both challenges and rewards. Oral history provides a unique means of interrogating this subject. This chapter deploys four in-depth oral histories conducted as part of the “Australian Lesbian and Gay Life Stories” oral history project in collaboration with the National Library of Australia to investigate the meanings and experiences of migration to Australia for men and women who identify as gay or lesbian. The interviews selected allow for a greater consideration of intersections surrounding gender, race and sexuality. Does the mobility of migration enable lesbian and gay individuals an opportunity to reshape their sexual subjectivities?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Eithne Luibheid, “Queer/Migration: An Unruly Body of Scholarship,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14, no. 2/3 (2008): 169.

  2. 2.

    Robert Reynolds and Shirleene Robinson, Gay and Lesbian, Then and Now: Australian Stories from a Social Revolution (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2016).

  3. 3.

    Nan Alamilla Boyd, “Who is the Subject?: Queer Theory Meets Oral History,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 17, no. 2 (May 2008): 177–78.

  4. 4.

    Australian Bureau of Statistics, “2006 Census QuickStats,” http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2006/quickstat/0?opendocument&navpos=220.

  5. 5.

    Alistair Thomson, “Australian Generations? Memory, Oral History and Generational Identity in Postwar Australia,” Australian Historical Studies 47, no. 1 (2016): 41–57 and Anisa Puri and Alistair Thomson, Australian Lives: An Intimate History (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2017).

  6. 6.

    Robert Reynolds and Shirleene Robinson, “Australian Lesbian and Gay Life Stories: A National Oral History Project,” Australian Feminist Studies 31, no. 9 (December 2016): 363–76.

  7. 7.

    Phillip M. Hammack and Bertram J. Cohler, “Narrative, Identity and the Politics of Exclusion: Social Change and the Gay and Lesbian Life Course,” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 8, no. 3 (September 2011): 164.

  8. 8.

    For international work, see Jasbir K. Puar, “Circuits of Queer Mobility: Tourism, Travel and Globalization,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8, no. 1–2 (2002): 101–37 and Nathaniel M. Lewis, “Moving ‘Out’, Moving On: Gay Men’s Migration through the Life Course,” Annals of the Association of American Geographer 104, no. 2 (2014): 225–33. For Australian scholarship, see Andrew Gorman-Murray, “Rethinking Queer Migration through the Body,” Social and Cultural Geography 8, no. 1 (2007): 105–21 and Andrew Gorman-Murray, “Intimate Mobilities: Emotional Embodiment and Queer Migration,” Social and Cultural Geography 10, no. 4 (June 2009): 441–60.

  9. 9.

    Vera Mirhady, “Canadian Perspectives on Queer Migration,” Undercurrent Journal 8, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2011): 56.

  10. 10.

    Gorman-Murray, “Intimate Mobilities,” 441–60.

  11. 11.

    “Intimate Mobilities,” 441–60.

  12. 12.

    “Intimate Mobilities,” 442.

  13. 13.

    Rebecca Jennings, “‘It was a Hot Climate and a Hot Time’: Lesbian Migration and Transnational Networks in the Mid-Twentieth Century,” Australian Feminist Studies 25, no. 63 (March 2010): 31–45.

  14. 14.

    Catherine Turner, interviewed by Julia Miller, 19 February 2015, Sydney, Australia, National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 6510/51.

  15. 15.

    Catherine Turner, interview, 19 February 2015.

  16. 16.

    Catherine Turner, interview, 19 February 2015.

  17. 17.

    Jennie Partington, interviewed by Shirleene Robinson, 9 December 2014, Denmark, Western Australia, National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 6510/49.

  18. 18.

    Jennie Partington, interview, 9 December 2014.

  19. 19.

    Sophie Partridge interviewed by Robert Reynolds, 13 December 2014, Newtown, New South Wales, Australia, National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 6510/50.

  20. 20.

    Sophie Partridge, interview, 13 December 2014.

  21. 21.

    Sophie Partridge, interview, 13 December 2014.

  22. 22.

    Sophie Partridge, interview, 13 December 2014.

  23. 23.

    Audrey Yue, “Same-Sex Migration in Australia: From Interdependency to Intimacy,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14, no. 2–3 (2008): 239.

  24. 24.

    Audrey Yue, “Same-Sex Migration in Australia.”

  25. 25.

    Audrey Yue, “Same-Sex Migration in Australia.”

  26. 26.

    Joey Yung, interviewed by Robert Reynolds, 26 April 2014, Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia, National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 6510/22.

  27. 27.

    Reynolds and Robinson, Gay and Lesbian, Then and Now, 105–24.

  28. 28.

    Joey Yung, interview, 26 April 2014.

  29. 29.

    Joey Yung, interview, 26 April 2014.

  30. 30.

    Joey Yung, interview, 26 April 2014.

  31. 31.

    Joey Yung, interview, 26 April 2014.

  32. 32.

    Alessandro Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different?,” in Alessandro Portelli ed., The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (New York: SUNY Press, 1991), 52.

Bibliography

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics. “2006 Census QuickStats.” http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2006/quickstat/0?opendocument&navpos=220.

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  • Luibheid, Eithne. “Queer/Migration: An Unruly Body of Scholarship.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14, no. 2/3 (2008): 69.

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    Google Scholar 

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    Article  Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

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    Article  Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

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    Article  Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

  • Yue, Audrey. “Same-Sex Migration in Australia: From Interdependency to Intimacy.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14, no. 2–3 (2008): 239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yung, Joey. Interviewed by Robert Reynolds, 26 April 2014, Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia. National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 6510/22.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Shirleene Robinson

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  1. Shirleene Robinson
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Correspondence to Shirleene Robinson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Kate Darian-Smith

  2. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Paula Hamilton

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Robinson, S. (2019). Shifting Countries, Shifting Identities? Oral History and Lesbian and Gay Migration to Australia. In: Darian-Smith, K., Hamilton, P. (eds) Remembering Migration. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17751-5_4

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