Abstract
Expounding the concept of political memories, Kleist shows how in commemorations of Australia Day, Australia’s national day, two different forms of memory with distinct narratives were utilized to remember the landing of the First Fleet, which brought the first European settlers to Australia’s shores in 1788. With these two politically competing forms of memory, one referring to an event as origin, the other to a process, distinct concepts of Australian society were expressed. Cultural memories of an origin implied a belonging based on communal and nationalistic notions of Australian nativism. In contrast, civic memories of processes characterized a civic belonging under the Empire’s rule and through democratic institutions. Kleist illustrates the contestation surrounding belonging and migration in a number of events commemorating Australia Day and the First Fleet, from the early settler colony leading up to Australian Federation, and during the first half of the twentieth century. The politically opposed forms of memory and their implicit modes of belonging were crucial, Kleist argues, for positioning Australia Day as an anti- or pro-immigration commemoration, respectively, and for discussing social and political conflicts of Australian society.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Archive
NAA – National Archives of Australia, Canberra
Newspapers
Sydney Morning Herald
The Age, Melbourne
The Argus, Melbourne
The Brisbane Courier
The Courier-Mail, Brisbane
The Evening Post, Wellington, NZ
The Hobart Town Courier
The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser
The West Australian, Perth
Secondary Literature
Arthur, P. L. (2001). Capturing the antipodes: Imaginary voyages and the romantic imagination. Journal of Australian Studies, 25(67), 186–195.
Atkinson, A. (1997). The Europeans in Australia, volume 1: The beginning. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Atkinson, A. (2014). The Europeans in Australia, volume 3: Nation. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Atkinson, A., & Aveling, M. (Eds.). (1987). Australians 1838, vol. 2, Australians: A historical library. Broadway: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates.
Bach, J. P. S. (1962). The Pearl shelling industry and the ‘white Australia’ policy. Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, 10(38), 203–213.
Birrell, R. (2001). Federation: The secret story. Sydney: Duffy&Snellgrove.
Blainey, G. (1966). The Tyranny of distance: How distance shaped Australia’s history. Melbourne: Sun Books.
Blakeney, M. (1984). Australia and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe: Government Policy 1933–1939. In Leo Baeck Institute (Ed.), Year book (pp. 103–133). London: Secker&Warburg.
Brändström, A., Bynander, F., & ’t Hart, P. (2004). Governing by looking back: Historical analogies and crisis management. Public Administration, 82(1), 191–210.
Carter, D. J. (2006). Dispossession, dreams and diversity: Issues in Australian studies. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education Australia.
Cheater, C., & Debenham, J. (2014). The Australia Day regatta. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Chesterman, J., & Galligan, B. (Eds.). (1999). Defining Australian citizenship. Selected documents. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press.
Clark, M. (1962). A history of Australia, vol. I: From the earliest times to the age of Macquarie. Parkville: Melbourne University Press.
Clark, M. (1981). A history of Australia, vol. V: The people make laws 1888–1915. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Coakley, J. (2004). Mobilizing the past: Nationalist images of history. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 10, 531–560.
Cole, D. (1971). ‘The crimson thread of kinship’: Ethnic ideas in Australia 1870–1914. Historical Studies, 56(14), 511–525.
Connell, R., & Irving, T. H. (1992). Class structure in Australian history: Poverty and progress. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.
Cotter, A.-M. M. (2004). Gender injustice: An international comparative analysis of equality in employment. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Crotty, M. (2007). The Anzac citizen: Towards a history of the RSL. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53(2), 183–193.
Dando-Collins, S. (2007). Captain Bligh’s other mutiny. The true story of the military coup that turned Australia into a two-year rebel republic. Sydney: Random House Australia.
Davidson, A. (1991). The invisible state: The formation of the Australian state, 1788–1901. Melbourne/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davidson, A. (1997). From subject to citizen: Australian citizenship in the twentieth century. Cambridge/New York/Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Davison, G., McCarthy, J. W., & McLeary, A. (Eds.). (1987). Australians 1888, vol. 3, Australians: A historical library. Broadway: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates.
Deakin, A. (2000). The federal story: The inner history of the federal cause 1880–1900, Ed. J. A. La Nauze. Sydney: University of Sydney Library.
Evans, R. (1988). The white Australia policy. In J. Jupp (Ed.), The Australian people: An encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins (pp. 44–49). North Ryde: Angus & Robertson.
Evatt, H. V. (1971). Rum rebellion: A study of the overthrow of Governor Bligh by John Macarthur and the New South Wales corps. Hawthorn: Lloyd O’Neil.
Fitzhardinge, L. F. (1970). Australia, Japan and Great Britain, 1914–18: A study in triangular diplomacy. Historical Studies, 14(54), 250–259.
French, M. (1978). The ambiguity of Empire Day in New South Wales 1901–21: Imperial consensus or national division. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 24(1), 61–74.
Galligan, B., & Roberts, W. (2004). Australian citizenship. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Griffith, S. W. (1897). Notes on the draft federal constitution framed by the Adelaide convention of 1897: A paper presented to the Government of Queensland. Brisbane: Government Printer.
Headon, D. J. (2004). Sycophants, citizens and the majesty of nature: Some thoughts on the history of Australian civic debate. In P. Boyer, L. Cardinal, & D. J. Headon (Eds.), From subjects to citizens: A hundred years of citizenship in Australia and Canada (pp. 33–44). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Hirst, J. (1978/79). The pioneer legend. Historical Studies, 18, 316–337.
Hirst, J. (1988). The strange birth of colonial democracy: New South Wales 1848–1884. North Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Hirst, J. (1994). A Republican manifesto. Melbourne/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hirst, J. (2008a). Empire, state, nation. In W. Stuart & D. M. Schreuder (Eds.), Australia’s empire (Oxford history of the British Empire companion series, Band 6). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hirst, J. (2008b). Freedom on the fatal shore: Australia’s first colony. Melbourne: Black Inc.
Hodgkin, K., & Radstone, S. (2003). Contested pasts: The politics of memory. London: Routledge.
Horner, J., & Langton, M. (1987). The day of mourning. In B. Gammage & P. Spearritt (Eds.), Australians 1938 (pp. 29–35). Broadway: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates.
Inglis, K. S. (1967). Australia day. Historical Studies, 13(49), 20–41.
Inglis, K. S. (1970). The Australians at Gallipoli – II. Historical Studies, 14(55), 361–375.
Inglis, K. S. (1993). ‘Men and Women of Australia’: Speech making as history (Barry Andrews Memorial Lecture). Canberra: Department of English, ADFA.
Irving, H. (1999a). The centenary companion to Australian federation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Irving, H. (1999b). To constitute a nation: A cultural history of Australia’s constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jupp, J. (2007). The quest for harmony. In J. Jupp & J. Nieuwenhuysen (Eds.), Social cohesion in Australia (pp. 9–20). Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Kemp, R. & Stanton, M. (2004). Speaking for Australia: Parliamentary Speeches that Shaped Our Nation. Crows Nest: Allen&Unwin.
Khong, Y. F. (1992). Analogies at war: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam decisions of 1965. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kingston, B. (2006). A history of New South Wales. Cambridge/New York/Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Kisch, E. E. (1937). Australian landfall. South Melbourne: M. Secker and Warburg.
Kwan, E. (2007). Celebrating Australia: A history of Australia Day, National Australia Day Council. http://www.australiaday.org.au/australia-day/history/. Accessed 12 Nov 2015.
La Nauze, J. A. (1972). The making of the Australian constitution. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Livingston, K. T., Jordan, R., & Sweely, G. (2001). Becoming Australians: The movement towards federation in Ballarat and the nation. Kent Toon: Wakefield Press.
London, H. I. (1970). Non-white immigration and the ‘White Australia’ policy. Sydney: Sydney University Press.
Macintyre, S. (2004). A concise history of Australia (Cambridge concise histories 2nd ed.). Cambridge/Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Macmahon, J. (2006). Not a rum rebellion but a military insurrection. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 92(2), 126–127.
Malbon, J. (1999). The race power under the Australian constitution: Altered meanings. Sydney Law Review, 21(80), 80–113.
Markus, A. (1979). Fear and hatred: Purifying Australia and California, 1850–1901. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger.
Markus, A. (1988). Australian governments and the concept of race. In Cultural construction of race, Ed. Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, Sydney.
Martin, A. (1988). Immigration policy before federation. In J. Jupp (Ed.), The Australian people: An encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins (pp. 39–44). North Ryde: Angus & Robertson.
Marx, K. (1978). A contribution to the critique of political economy, preface, 1859. In R. C. Tucker (Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader. New York/London: Norton.
McCann, A. (2001). Romanticism, nationalism and the myth of the popular in William Lane’s ‘the workingman’s paradise’. Journal of Australian Studies, 25(70), 1–12.
Meaney, N. (2008). ‘In history’s page’: Identity and myth. In D. M. Schreuder & S. Ward (Eds.), Australia’s empire (The Oxford history of the British Empire, pp. 363–402). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Menadue, J. E. (1971). A centenary history of the Australian natives association 1871–1971. Melbourne: Horticultural Press.
Moses, A. D. (2004). Genocide and settler society in Australian history. In A. Dirk Moses (Ed.), Genocide and settler society: Frontier violence and stolen indigenous children in Australian history (pp. 3–48). New York: Berghahn Books.
Neumann, K. (2004). Refuge Australia: Australia’s humanitarian record. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Neumann, K. (2007). Compassion is the value we often settle on. The Age, 11(11), 2007.
Oppenheimer, M., & Scates, B. (2005). Australians and war. In M. Lyons & P. Russell (Eds.), Australia’s history: Themes and debates (pp. 134–151). Sydney: UNSW Press.
Parkes, H. (1892). ‘Fifty years in the making of Australian history', a digital text sponsored by the New South Wales Centenary of Federation Commission, 2000 (pp. 456–466). Sydney: University of Sydney Library.
Parker, D. (2010). Governor Macquarie: His life, times and revolutionary vision for Australia. Warriewood: Woodslane.
Pavils, J. G. (2007). Anzac Day: The undying debt. Adelaide: Lythrum Press.
Prior, R. (2009). Gallipoli: The end of the myth. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Richards, E. (2008). Destination Australia: Migration to Australia since 1901. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Rutland, S. D. (1985). Australian responses to Jewish refugee migration before and after World War II. The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 31(1), 29–48.
Sawer, G. (1977). Constitutional issues in Australian federalism. Publius, 7(3), 21–34.
Schmitt, C. (1979). Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Seal, G. (2004). Inventing Anzac: The digger and national mythology. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology.
Shaw, A. G. L. (1973). Violent protest in Australian history. Historical Studies, 15(60), 545–561.
Souter, G. (1987). Skeleton at the feast. In B. Gammage & P. Spearritt (Eds.), Australians 1938 (pp. 13–27). Broadway: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates.
Spigelman, J. (2008, January 23). Coup that paved the way for our attention to rule of law. Sydney Morning Herald.
Stokes, G. (2004). The ‘Australian settlement’ and Australian political thought. Australian Journal of Political Science, 39(1), 5–22.
Sunter, A. B. (2001). Remembering Eureka. Journal of Australian Studies, 25(70), 49–56.
Thomas, J. (1988). 1938: Past and present in an elaborate anniversary. Australian Historical Studies, 23(91, Special Issue: Making the Bicentenary), 77–89.
Trainor, L. (1994). British imperialism and Australian nationalism: Manipulation, conflict, and compromise in the late nineteenth century. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vamplew, W. (Ed.). (1987). Australians: Historical statistics, vol. 10, Australians: A historical library. Broadway: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates.
Ward, R. (1958). The Australian legend. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Ward, J. M., Schreuder, D., Fletscher, B., & Hutchinson, R. (2001). The state and the people: Australian federation and nation-making, 1870–1901. Annandale: Federation Press.
Warden, I. (2008, May). Empire day to crackers night revels. National Library of Australia News, pp. 14–17.
White, R. (1981). Inventing Australia: Images and identity, 1688–1980. Sydney/Boston: Allen & Unwin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Olaf Kleist, J. (2017). Australia Day from Colony to Citizenship: 1788–1948. In: Political Memories and Migration. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57589-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57589-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57588-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57589-0
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)