Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2237284
A. Johnston
Situating the white masculinist archetype of the ocker and women ’ s liberation within the same historical frame, Michelle Arrow o ff ers a compelling argument about the fi lmic ocker fi gure as a form of contestation against the Australian women ’ s liberation movement in the 1970s. The ocker fi gure is linked to other “ egalitarian ” Australian character types such as the larrikin and the bushman, which originated in the racialised crucible of white 19th-century labour. Yet while the ocker is understood as a manifestation of state-sanctioned 1970s “ new nationalism ” , Arrow moves beyond questions of national identity to make a signi fi cant contribution to ongoing debates about the history of Australian gender relations. More speci fi cally, she argues that new nationalist popular culture was a key site of gendered cultural contest during a time of radical feminist challenge to Australian cultural, social, and political norms. If the afterlife of the (toned-down) ocker suggests that “ ockerdom ” emerged victorious in the 1980s as a way of representing Australia to the world, Arrow convincingly recuperates the 1970s as a transformative decade of feminist challenge in Australia, noting the resurgence of touchstones of popular 1970s feminism today.
{"title":"Congratulations to the 2022 Winners of the John Barrett Award","authors":"A. Johnston","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2237284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2237284","url":null,"abstract":"Situating the white masculinist archetype of the ocker and women ’ s liberation within the same historical frame, Michelle Arrow o ff ers a compelling argument about the fi lmic ocker fi gure as a form of contestation against the Australian women ’ s liberation movement in the 1970s. The ocker fi gure is linked to other “ egalitarian ” Australian character types such as the larrikin and the bushman, which originated in the racialised crucible of white 19th-century labour. Yet while the ocker is understood as a manifestation of state-sanctioned 1970s “ new nationalism ” , Arrow moves beyond questions of national identity to make a signi fi cant contribution to ongoing debates about the history of Australian gender relations. More speci fi cally, she argues that new nationalist popular culture was a key site of gendered cultural contest during a time of radical feminist challenge to Australian cultural, social, and political norms. If the afterlife of the (toned-down) ocker suggests that “ ockerdom ” emerged victorious in the 1980s as a way of representing Australia to the world, Arrow convincingly recuperates the 1970s as a transformative decade of feminist challenge in Australia, noting the resurgence of touchstones of popular 1970s feminism today.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"430 - 431"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78364680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-30DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2229639
Stephen Pascoe
extra-territorial power of a dependent country such as his native Brazil was always checked by regional limitations, in contrast to great powers that are territorially unconstrained to act globally. In the Australian case, it was used memorably by McQueen—Chapter 4 of A New Britannica is titled “Sub-Imperialists”—and more recently by Cait Storr in an important article for the Melbourne Journal of International Law. Fernandes cites Storr’s article but does not comprehensively engage with it, or other uses of his titular concept. A historian might wish for more nuance in the elaboration of Australian sub-imperialism over time. Fernandes outlines Australia’s contribution to imperial misadventures in the postWWII era—from wars aimed at suppressing Asian nationalism (Korea, Malaya, Vietnam), to Australian intelligence agencies’ role in the coup against Chilean president Allende in 1973, to the greenlighting of Indonesia’s invasion of Timor-Leste. Yet were the motivations identical in each case? What gets lost in subsuming each episode under the same rubric? What kinds of changes and continuities can we observe in the career of Australian sub-imperialism over the course of the past 150 years? These minor quibbles should not detract from the major contribution of this timely and provocative book. Sub–Imperial Power is polemical in the best possible sense, designed to reignite debate in an area of public policy that has been sclerotic for too long. In his unflinching assessment of Australia as a “tributary”, “sentinel” state and his dethroning of the “experts” who buttress the Canberra consensus, Fernandes makes a refreshing call for “long-term collective efforts to reveal rather than mystify Australian foreign policy” (124). It is an ideal towards which we ought to continue to strive, in spite of the difficulties. To question Australia’s participation in wars of aggression abroad in the context of our vanishing national sovereignty has never been more urgent.
{"title":"Everywhen: Australia and the Language of Deep History","authors":"Stephen Pascoe","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2229639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2229639","url":null,"abstract":"extra-territorial power of a dependent country such as his native Brazil was always checked by regional limitations, in contrast to great powers that are territorially unconstrained to act globally. In the Australian case, it was used memorably by McQueen—Chapter 4 of A New Britannica is titled “Sub-Imperialists”—and more recently by Cait Storr in an important article for the Melbourne Journal of International Law. Fernandes cites Storr’s article but does not comprehensively engage with it, or other uses of his titular concept. A historian might wish for more nuance in the elaboration of Australian sub-imperialism over time. Fernandes outlines Australia’s contribution to imperial misadventures in the postWWII era—from wars aimed at suppressing Asian nationalism (Korea, Malaya, Vietnam), to Australian intelligence agencies’ role in the coup against Chilean president Allende in 1973, to the greenlighting of Indonesia’s invasion of Timor-Leste. Yet were the motivations identical in each case? What gets lost in subsuming each episode under the same rubric? What kinds of changes and continuities can we observe in the career of Australian sub-imperialism over the course of the past 150 years? These minor quibbles should not detract from the major contribution of this timely and provocative book. Sub–Imperial Power is polemical in the best possible sense, designed to reignite debate in an area of public policy that has been sclerotic for too long. In his unflinching assessment of Australia as a “tributary”, “sentinel” state and his dethroning of the “experts” who buttress the Canberra consensus, Fernandes makes a refreshing call for “long-term collective efforts to reveal rather than mystify Australian foreign policy” (124). It is an ideal towards which we ought to continue to strive, in spite of the difficulties. To question Australia’s participation in wars of aggression abroad in the context of our vanishing national sovereignty has never been more urgent.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"73 1","pages":"612 - 614"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74137476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-22DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2224350
Bridget Griffen-Foley
ABSTRACT This article investigates the evolution of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Western Australia between the 1920s and the 1960s, covering the introduction and spread of radio and then television. It considers the visits of ABC commissioners and management to Perth, the appointment of commissioners from Western Australia, the building of radio and television studios, the creation of the ABC’s first state Advisory Committee in 1935, and the operations—in Perth—of the broadcaster’s last surviving capital city Television Viewers’ Committee. It examines local innovations in drama and in children’s, women’s and current affairs programming; the development of a broadcast news service and a symphony orchestra; and the work of key broadcasting figures, including Basil Kirke and Cathering King. The article argues that the history of the ABC in Western Australia was distinctive because of the state’s isolation and sparse population and, crucially, its time difference from the east coast.
{"title":"Aunty Heads West: The ABC in Western Australia","authors":"Bridget Griffen-Foley","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2224350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2224350","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates the evolution of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Western Australia between the 1920s and the 1960s, covering the introduction and spread of radio and then television. It considers the visits of ABC commissioners and management to Perth, the appointment of commissioners from Western Australia, the building of radio and television studios, the creation of the ABC’s first state Advisory Committee in 1935, and the operations—in Perth—of the broadcaster’s last surviving capital city Television Viewers’ Committee. It examines local innovations in drama and in children’s, women’s and current affairs programming; the development of a broadcast news service and a symphony orchestra; and the work of key broadcasting figures, including Basil Kirke and Cathering King. The article argues that the history of the ABC in Western Australia was distinctive because of the state’s isolation and sparse population and, crucially, its time difference from the east coast.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76242741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-18DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2222290
K. James
ABSTRACT Since the 1960s, Croatian soccer clubs have been an important feature of all major Australian cities, and a number of regional towns, with the most significant of these being Melbourne Croatia and Sydney Croatia, both of which played in Australia’s now defunct National Soccer League (NSL) (1977–2004). Effectively barred from the new A-League, from 2005 to 2006, these clubs experienced marginalisation and discrimination similar to that experienced historically by Irish-Catholic clubs in Scotland. This article aims to explore both Croatian-Australian identity and narratives about exclusion through the perspectives of key Melbourne Croatia representatives.
{"title":"Croatian-Australian Identity as Revealed through Soccer Club Support: A Case Study of Melbourne Croatia Soccer Club (Melbourne Knights)","authors":"K. James","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2222290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2222290","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since the 1960s, Croatian soccer clubs have been an important feature of all major Australian cities, and a number of regional towns, with the most significant of these being Melbourne Croatia and Sydney Croatia, both of which played in Australia’s now defunct National Soccer League (NSL) (1977–2004). Effectively barred from the new A-League, from 2005 to 2006, these clubs experienced marginalisation and discrimination similar to that experienced historically by Irish-Catholic clubs in Scotland. This article aims to explore both Croatian-Australian identity and narratives about exclusion through the perspectives of key Melbourne Croatia representatives.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86809942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-08DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2217822
Josh Stenberg
ABSTRACT This article proposes to view Australian Chinese cultural products through a Sinophone studies lens to clarify the position of Australia in transnational patterns of Chinese-language cultural production. Three examples illustrate how Sinophone studies can expand research on Chinese-language culture in Australia, by showing them to also be instances of wider phenomena: Chinese-language theatre, Federation-era fiction, and the foreign student literature of the 1990s. Examining how these examples fit into wider patterns of Chinese-language production allows us to expand dyadic views of diaspora or transnationalism while also directing greater attention to community diversity and marginalised texts. The Australian Chinese studies community is right to celebrate the length and breadth of Chinese cultural production in Australia, and considering Sinophone Australian literature and theatre in the context of global Sinophone cultural production can help sharpen perspectives on what is shared and what is particular about the Australian case.
{"title":"Chinese-Australian Culture in a Sinophone History and Geography","authors":"Josh Stenberg","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2217822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2217822","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article proposes to view Australian Chinese cultural products through a Sinophone studies lens to clarify the position of Australia in transnational patterns of Chinese-language cultural production. Three examples illustrate how Sinophone studies can expand research on Chinese-language culture in Australia, by showing them to also be instances of wider phenomena: Chinese-language theatre, Federation-era fiction, and the foreign student literature of the 1990s. Examining how these examples fit into wider patterns of Chinese-language production allows us to expand dyadic views of diaspora or transnationalism while also directing greater attention to community diversity and marginalised texts. The Australian Chinese studies community is right to celebrate the length and breadth of Chinese cultural production in Australia, and considering Sinophone Australian literature and theatre in the context of global Sinophone cultural production can help sharpen perspectives on what is shared and what is particular about the Australian case.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"54 1","pages":"447 - 461"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84566992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-06DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2217824
Matilda Keynes
ABSTRACT This article traces the convergence of state redress and the educational construction of citizenship from the 1990s onwards in Australia. It examines how successive settler political leaders used the education of a historical consciousness—settler citizens’ relation to past, present and future—as a core strategy to seek resolution to the problematic national past. The article examines key political speeches that sought to mediate the settler nation's past in light of growing international and domestic pressures, including Keating's 1992 Redfern Park speech and Rudd's 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations, and one of conservative backlash: Howard's 1996 Menzies Lecture. Rudd's subsequent national policy agenda of apology and an Australian Curriculum sought to inaugurate a new era in the settler nation's history. That program was embodied by the figure of the future citizen positioned to reckon with the nation's unjust past, a task inscribed in the inaugural national history curriculum.
{"title":"Rhetoric of Redress: Australian Political Speeches and Settler Citizens' Historical Consciousness","authors":"Matilda Keynes","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2217824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2217824","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article traces the convergence of state redress and the educational construction of citizenship from the 1990s onwards in Australia. It examines how successive settler political leaders used the education of a historical consciousness—settler citizens’ relation to past, present and future—as a core strategy to seek resolution to the problematic national past. The article examines key political speeches that sought to mediate the settler nation's past in light of growing international and domestic pressures, including Keating's 1992 Redfern Park speech and Rudd's 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations, and one of conservative backlash: Howard's 1996 Menzies Lecture. Rudd's subsequent national policy agenda of apology and an Australian Curriculum sought to inaugurate a new era in the settler nation's history. That program was embodied by the figure of the future citizen positioned to reckon with the nation's unjust past, a task inscribed in the inaugural national history curriculum.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89156470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2215790
C. Coventry
ABSTRACT Australia’s 23rd prime minister, Bob Hawke, is celebrated for a world record set at the University of Oxford in the 1950s for the fastest consumption of a yard of ale. The beer record is apocryphal, having five evidential flaws. However, the embellishment—or fabrication—of the record was crucial to the “larrikin-leader” dual image Hawke constructed over the course of the 1970s as he manoeuvred to enter parliament. Hawke’s dual image appealed widely from the 1970s onwards because of the rise of the “ocker”: a middle-class caricature of Australians. By the 1980s, a refined “ocker chic” identity had emerged in which the middle class could erect a national culture that feigned meritocracy. In the 2020s, politicians, professionals, performative fathers and others identify with an ahistorical nation in which irreverence, elasticated leather boots, cowboy hats, Bavarian-style cold beer, and stories of endurance in foreign lands help to conceal their privilege. While many commentators have tried to explain this phenomenon, Diane Kirkby’s formulation of ocker chic reveals the interchange between class, gender and race that has preserved neoliberal capitalism in Australia.
{"title":"Sedimentary Layers: Bob Hawke’s Beer World Record and Ocker Chic","authors":"C. Coventry","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2215790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2215790","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Australia’s 23rd prime minister, Bob Hawke, is celebrated for a world record set at the University of Oxford in the 1950s for the fastest consumption of a yard of ale. The beer record is apocryphal, having five evidential flaws. However, the embellishment—or fabrication—of the record was crucial to the “larrikin-leader” dual image Hawke constructed over the course of the 1970s as he manoeuvred to enter parliament. Hawke’s dual image appealed widely from the 1970s onwards because of the rise of the “ocker”: a middle-class caricature of Australians. By the 1980s, a refined “ocker chic” identity had emerged in which the middle class could erect a national culture that feigned meritocracy. In the 2020s, politicians, professionals, performative fathers and others identify with an ahistorical nation in which irreverence, elasticated leather boots, cowboy hats, Bavarian-style cold beer, and stories of endurance in foreign lands help to conceal their privilege. While many commentators have tried to explain this phenomenon, Diane Kirkby’s formulation of ocker chic reveals the interchange between class, gender and race that has preserved neoliberal capitalism in Australia.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"478 - 496"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90175910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2209594
Tets Kimura
ABSTRACT In contemporary Australian society, where nationhood has been built upon Western values, non-Caucasian people, including those with a Japanese background, have largely been treated as “others”. This attitude was particularly evident during the Second World War. When Japan joined the war in December 1941, some 97 per cent of civilians with a Japanese background living in Australia, including those who were born in Australia, were interned, and the vast majority of them were shipped to Japan after the war, even though they had no real connection to Japan. Based on my archival research, I argue that some of these “Japanese” who were thought to be others were, in fact, Australians, with strong loyalty to Australia. Official documents do not necessarily determine people's nationality, but instead a sense of belonging such as how they relate to a given society.
{"title":"Repatriated from Home as Enemy Aliens: Forgotten Lived Experiences of Japanese-Australians during the Second World War","authors":"Tets Kimura","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2209594","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2209594","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In contemporary Australian society, where nationhood has been built upon Western values, non-Caucasian people, including those with a Japanese background, have largely been treated as “others”. This attitude was particularly evident during the Second World War. When Japan joined the war in December 1941, some 97 per cent of civilians with a Japanese background living in Australia, including those who were born in Australia, were interned, and the vast majority of them were shipped to Japan after the war, even though they had no real connection to Japan. Based on my archival research, I argue that some of these “Japanese” who were thought to be others were, in fact, Australians, with strong loyalty to Australia. Official documents do not necessarily determine people's nationality, but instead a sense of belonging such as how they relate to a given society.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"497 - 514"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89209859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-28DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2216118
S. Pascoe
{"title":"Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena","authors":"S. Pascoe","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2216118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2216118","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"37 1","pages":"611 - 612"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81079560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-20DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2023.2211998
A. Singleton
ABSTRACT The new religion of Spiritualism emerged in the mid-19th century. Through mediumship, Spiritualists contacted the dead, believing them to have “passed over” to another plane of existence. It spread from America to Great Britain before arriving in Australia in the 1850s. This article charts the history of the world’s oldest continuously running Spiritualist organisation, the Victorian Spiritualists’ Union (VSU, est. 1870), exploring the unexpected survival of the movement in Australia. It challenges the common idea that Spiritualism enjoyed only a brief revival in the interwar period and has maintained a tenuous status ever since. Rather, I argue that Spiritualism has experienced several peaks and troughs since its emergence in Australia, including a widespread revival in the 1970s, spearheaded by the VSU. Spiritualism in Australia survives due to the development of a church movement, the advocacy of groups such as the VSU, the generous volunteer efforts of individual Spiritualists, the acquisition of church buildings, and its geographic mobility, all of which have allowed Spiritualist churches to be responsive to changing social and cultural conditions for more than a century. It is one of Australia’s largest and most resilient alternative religious movements, not simply a Victorian-era curio.
{"title":"The Victorian Spiritualists’ Union and the Surprising Survival of Spiritualism in Australia","authors":"A. Singleton","doi":"10.1080/14443058.2023.2211998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2211998","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The new religion of Spiritualism emerged in the mid-19th century. Through mediumship, Spiritualists contacted the dead, believing them to have “passed over” to another plane of existence. It spread from America to Great Britain before arriving in Australia in the 1850s. This article charts the history of the world’s oldest continuously running Spiritualist organisation, the Victorian Spiritualists’ Union (VSU, est. 1870), exploring the unexpected survival of the movement in Australia. It challenges the common idea that Spiritualism enjoyed only a brief revival in the interwar period and has maintained a tenuous status ever since. Rather, I argue that Spiritualism has experienced several peaks and troughs since its emergence in Australia, including a widespread revival in the 1970s, spearheaded by the VSU. Spiritualism in Australia survives due to the development of a church movement, the advocacy of groups such as the VSU, the generous volunteer efforts of individual Spiritualists, the acquisition of church buildings, and its geographic mobility, all of which have allowed Spiritualist churches to be responsive to changing social and cultural conditions for more than a century. It is one of Australia’s largest and most resilient alternative religious movements, not simply a Victorian-era curio.","PeriodicalId":51817,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Australian Studies","volume":"170 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76030561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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