Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific
Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation
Margherita Benomi, Master of Cultural Heritage student accepted as an intern with UNESCO Bangkok
Bill Logan appointed to the Heritage Council of Victoria
Heritage in Asia conference,Singapore
Former Museums Studies student published in Recollections
Blue Shield Australia meets ‘face-to-face’
Reactive Monitoring Mission to Luang Prabang World Heritage site, Laos
Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages International Advisory Board Meeting
Forthcoming workshop: Heritage Tourism and Sustainable Development in Laos, 28 February
Research Workshop on Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights, 30 Nov-1 Dec 2007
The Sharing Our Heritages program draws to a close
New Museums Across Cultures - 32nd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art
Farewell to CHCAP Research Assistant Fiona Erskine
Deakin Cultural Heritage Student Receives Planning Institute Award
Spotlight on Cultural Heritage students: Cathryn Barr
CHCAP research staff to write history of the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Melbourne
Museum Scoping Mission to Tunisia
Andrea Witcomb attends Sharing Our Heritages Valencia Symposium
National Trust (Victoria) Intangible Heritage Symposium, 1-2 July 2008
Thang Long-Hanoi Citadel - World Heritage Submission
New role for 2004 Masters of Cultural Heritage Scholarship Recipient
Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded for South Pacific Nation Building study
Margherita Benomi, Master of Cultural Heritage student has been accepted to do an internship with UNESCO Bangkok. After completing her under graduation in Arts Management from IULM University of Milan, Italy she felt she wanted to know more about world heritage, because the idea of being all part of the same “big family” where heritage is shared and protected fascinated her. The reason she came to study in Australia was in order to go outside of Europe to learn more about cultural diversity. Margherita love the idea of travelling as a mean to get to know other cultures and to spread tolerance and respect.
Scrolling through UNESCO world heritage web site Margherita found details about Master of Cultural Heritage offered at Deakin University. This is what she says, “Immediately I checked out the subjects and I was hooked.” She found this masters degree really helpful for her career and very well connected with other international and Australian cultural organizations. Margherita participated in many of the field trip organised as part of the degree, Thai –Burma Railway program, Thailand November 2007, and Sharing our heritage master class, Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia July 2007. Margherita extends her thanks to a workshop organised by Deakin University through which she was able to meet a person working in the UNESCO Office in Bangkok, through them she was able to gain her entry into UNESCO Bangkok as an intern.
Margherita has previously worked with Tourism Authorities of Thailand and Deakin University as a consultant where her key role involved analysis and interpretation of the cultural site of the Thai-Burma railway and preparation of a proposal for the management plan and the tourism policy. Prior to that she worked as a consultant for Melbourne Water, her typical duties consist of preparing a management plan for a cultural site and to help in the development of heritage policy.
Gary Toone, a recent Master of Cultural Heritage graduate has been appointed a Collections Manager (Australian Archaeology and Ethnography) at the South Australian Museum. Gary’s roles involve the collection, preparation, identification, incorporation, loan, scientific study and interpretation of items in the South Australian Museum’s Humanities Collections, and for facilitating public and research access to the collections. Gary is also responsible for monitoring and maintaining the collections, providing assistance and supervision to visiting researchers and students in accessing the collections, and assisting other collections areas.
Gary is just in the throws of finishing an inventory of the Human Biology
collection at the museum. This has been a critical project as Gary is providing consultation and assistance with the repatriation of skeletal material (and objects) as required under the RICP (Repatriation of Indigenous Cultural Property) program.
Gary has also begun a comprehensive inventory of the Australian (Aboriginal) Secret and Sacred stores. Many objects in this category are still an integral part of Aboriginal communities, with Aboriginal Elders coming to the museum to visit them. The museum also has a policy of repatriating objects from this collection if possible.
Shortly Gary will be coordinating the relocation and documentation of the Australian Archaeology Collection to new stores.
Gary completed a Bachelor of Arts (Aboriginal and Intercultural Studies) from Edith Cowan University. He joined Deakin in 2006 to undergo Master of Cultural Heritage and completed in 2008. Gary also participated in our Thai-Burma Railway Field School conducted during October 2007. Gary, a mid level Mandarin speaker, has great interest in other cultures, particularly indigenous cultures, and besides having undertaken university studies in that area, he has sought opportunities to travel, work, and live overseas to broaden his experiences.
Prof Bill Logan has been appointed to the Heritage Council of Victoria, the statutory authority for Victoria's non-Indigenous cultural heritage.
Other new members appointed to the Council in early July were:
Daryl Jackson (Chair).
Shelley Penn (Deputy Chair)
Helen Lardner (Member)
Robert Sands (Alternate Member)
Jim Norris (Alternate Member)
Helen Martin (Alternate Member).
Planning Minister Justin Madden announced: "the new members were selected from a rich field of candidates, and I know they will make a fantastic contribution to the protection and care of Victoria's cultural heritage."
The Heritage Council's functions, as set out in the Heritage Act 1995, include determining which places and objects are included on the Victorian Heritage Register, advising the Planning Minister on heritage issues and promoting public understanding of Victoria's cultural heritage.
CHCAP Centre Director Professor Bill Logan has been invited to the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore to make a key note address at the Heritage in Asia Converging Forces and Conflicting Values conference to be held on 8-10 January 2009. The conference examines the "interdisciplinary platform necessary for making sense of the broader contexts and forces surrounding heritage in Asia today and, offers an innovative look at the rapid and complex socio-cultural changes now occurring across the region".
Look for more inormation in the conference flyer(pdf 464 KB) .
Former Museums Studies student Cherie McKeich has been published in the prestigious refereed journal Recollections. The article examines Museum Victoria's collection of economic botany products collected by TN Mukharji in the late 1880s.
Cherie McKeich is presenting a seminar in the Museum Victoria 2008 Seminar Series on History & Material Culture: History and the Meaning of Things on Wednesday 6 August 1.00 pm, Infozone, Melbourne Museum.
Title: Botanical Fortunes: TN Mukharji, international exhibitions, and trade between India and Australia,
Free entry, Bookings essential
For RSVP and information contact:
Dr Charlotte Smith
Senior Curator
History & Technology Department
Phone 8341 7384
CHCAP member Jonathan Sweet attended a face-to-face meeting of the national committee of Blue Shield Australia at the National Archives Office in Melbounre. Jonathan is the official representative of ICOM Australia.
The committee of Blue Shield Australia held its first ‘face-to-face’ meeting in Melbourne on Tuesday 1 July 2008.
The first seven meetings of the committee were convened by teleconference. The eighth meeting gave members the opportunity to put faces to names, and to develop a forward plan. The meeting was kindly hosted by the National Archives of Australia at the Victorian Archives Centre.
The meeting thanked the committee’s inaugural Chair, Ms Robyn Riddett, for her work since 2005. The meeting agreed that the Chair would be held by each of the Pillar representatives in succession, for a one-year term. The Chair for 2008-2009 will be confirmed later in July.
From left: Mr Detlev Lueth (ICA), Ms Robyn Riddett (ICOMOS), Ms Sue Hutley (IFLA) and Mr Jonathan Sweet (ICOM). These people represent the pillar bodies that comprise all National Committees of the Blue Shield.
For further information about the activities of Blue Shield Australia go to:
Collections Council of Australia website
Giovanni Boccardi (World Heritage Centre) and Bill Logan (Deakin CHCAP)
undertook a joint UNESCO/ICOMOS reactive monitoring mission to the Luang
Prabang World Heritage site from 22 to 27 November 2007. The mission, conducted
at the request of the World Heritage Committee at its 31st Session in Christchurch,
New Zealand, July 2007, considered three main issues:
1) The appropriateness of the mandate of the Heritage House, currently the
agency responsible for the management of the World Heritage site, and the
need for strengthening local capacities and involvement;
2) The pressures from development around the listed property and orientations
for the recommended establishment of a buffer zone (currently missing); and
(3) The impacts of illegal building activities within the inscribed site,
notably the demolition and reconstruction of listed properties, over-densification
of the urban fabric and use of inappropriate typologies/materials/decorations
for new buildings.
City of Buddhist wats
World heritage listing is based on the fusion of Lao and French cultural traditions
View more images from the Monitoring Mission to Luang Prabang
Prof Bill Logan attended the 2008 meeting of the Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages International Advisory Board at the University of Ulster on 29-30 November 2007. The board is chaired by Professor Keith Robbins, formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Lampeter. Prof Logan has been a member of the advisory board since the Academy's establishment in December 2000.
Directed by Professor Mairead nic Craith, the Academy is one of five research institutes based in the University of Ulster's Faculty of Arts and is located on the Magee Campus in the city of Derry. It aims to be an internationally recognised centre of excellence for interdisciplinary research on cultural heritages, both material and non-material, in an international context but with a particular emphasis on the cultural heritages connected with the island of Ireland, including those of the Irish diaspora. The Academy's main research themes are currently Oral and written heritages; Cultural encounters; and Environmental heritages.
CHCAP and the Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages, University of Ulster, jointly conducted a two-day research workshop on 'Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights' at the Magee Campus, Derry, and will incorporate several of the papers in a book of the same name to be co-edited by Prof Mairead nic Craith, A/Prof Michele Langfield and Prof Bill Logan.
Michele presented a paper entitled '"Indigenous peoples are not multicultural minorities": John Howard, cultural diversity and Indigenous human rights in Australia', while Bill's paper was entitled "Protecting the Tay Nguyen gongs: conflicting human rights claims in Vietnam's central plateau'. Mairead spoke on 'Linguistic heritage in Europe: significance and context'.
Other papers were by Dr Jeremie Gilbert, Transitional Justice Institute, U. Ulster, Belfast; Prof Fiona Maclean, Caledonian U, Glasgow; Dr Shalini Panjabi, India, and Dr Tim Winter, U. Sydney; Dr Fiona Magowan, Queens U, Belfast; Dr Ana Vrdoljak, European U Institute; Helen Lewis, INCORE, U. Ulster; Paul Mullan, Heritage Lottery Fund, N. Ireland; Prof H Elkadi, U. Ulster, Belfast.
The three-year Sharing Our Heritages program funded by the EU and Australian Government came to an end with the final set of master classes in December 2007. The program involved a semester's exchange of Masters level heritage students between four European and four Australian universities as well as taking masterclasses at each of Kakadu and Paris.
The four European universities were the Brandenburg Tech Uat Cottbus, Germany; Catholic Uof Leuven (Raymond Lemaire Centre), Belgium; University College Dublin, Ireland; and the Valencia Polytechnic U, Spain. The Australian universities were the UWestern Sydney, Curtin Uin Perth, Charles Darwin Uin Darwin, and Deakin U.
Details of the program can be seen at www.uws.edu.au/heritage.
In previous years the Paris master classes were held at UNESCO Fontenoy. This year, the first five days of the master classes were conducted at the Ecole de Chaillot, Cite de l'architecture et du patrimoine in the Trocadero building by Prof Bill Logan, and A/Prof Michele Langfield, Deakin U, and Prof Robyn Bushell and Dr Russell Staiff, U Western Sydney, with a special guest appearance by Giovanni Boccardi from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
The program included several site visits to the Banks of the Seine and Versailles World Heritage sites, the ICOMOS headquarters and the Musee Branly. An extended site visit was held over the weekend when the students and staff travelled to the Catholic U of Leuven where Prof Koen van Balen had arranged inspections of three of the 13 serial site Flemish Beguinages World Heritage inscription. Leading researcher and author on the architectural history of the Beguinages, Suzanne Van Aerschot, generously led the site visits to Lier, Hoogstraat and Leuven.
The final day was held at UNESCO's Fontenoy campus, organised by Marielle Richon and with contributions by WH Centre specialists Christian Manhart, Art Pedersen, Yvette Kaboza, Céline Fuchs and Yi Kyung-Hoon. Head of the WH Centre's Africa Unit, Elizabeth Wangan, represented the Director, Federico Bandarin in the closing ceremony. Prof Maire-Theres Albert, BTU, and Prof Robyn BUshell, UWS, spoke on behalf of the European and Australian consortium partners respectively, particularly in thanking Marielle Richon for her strong support for the Sharing Our Heritage program across its four years of planning and implementation.
Further collaboration between the universities beyond the funding period is planned, with the first event being a research symposium at the Valencia Polytechnic U in February 2008.
Sharing Our Heritages Master Class outside the Trocadero Building, Paris
Sharing Our Heritages Photo Gallery
Jonathan Sweet coordinated the New Museums Across Cultures sessions at the 32nd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA), University of Melbourne, 13th – 18th January 2008.
The issues raised by cross cultural heritage practice have been a feature of CHCAP projects for many years. These have involved research, consultancies and training that have benefited many museum and heritage practitioners. In recognition of CHCAP’s expertise in this field, in 2006 Jonathan Sweet was appointed to the Academic Advisory Committee of CIHA Melbourne 2008. Following this, in partnership with Prof. Gan Zhang, Tsinghua University, Beijing, a museology stream of the conference was developed to focus on the changing roles of art museums.
The New Museums Across Cultures sessions bought together academics and museum professionals from many different countries. Zhang gave an absorbing and informative introduction to the art museum movement in China. Other papers included case studies of particular issues relevant to art museum practice in Eastern Europe and North America. Over-all, the presenters thoroughly engaged the audience and the discussion was lively.
Here are some responses:
‘I have found the new museums session extremely captivating. I think
that most of the papers show that there is a pressing need to question the
Western national model of art museums, as well as conventional visiting modes.’ Cristina
Albu, Romania/USA.
‘I found the New Museums session very informative in terms of issues involving different cultural contexts and realities. Having always dealt with historical interpretations, the papers were all very exciting to me as they dealt with problems of here and now as things constantly change.’ Chiaki Ajioka, Japan /Australia.
The papers presented in the New Museums Across Cultures sessions will be included in the official conference proceedings. These will be published on the first anniversary of CIHA Melbourne in 2009.
‘I think that the CIHA congress in Melbourne was one
of the best in my professional career’ Milan Kreuzzieger, The Czech Republic.
From left to right: Jonathan Sweet, Deakin University, Melbourne, Gan Zhang,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, and, Milan Kreuzzieger, Czech Academy of Science,
Prague. (Photo
courtesy Chiaki Ajioka)
Cultural Heritage Centre Research Assistant Fiona Erskine has taken up a Research
Assistant position with heritage consultancy firm Lovell Chen. Fiona worked
for three years as RA to Prof Logan assisting on a range of projects including
editing of chapters in the forthcoming Places of Pain and Shame publication
and research for the 2007 publication Vientiane: Transformation of a Lao Landscape
and a recent history of Vietnam being authored by Prof Logan and Colin Long
.
Congratulations to Fiona and we wish her well in her new role.
Deakin cultural heritage student and Melbourne Water employee Paul Balassone was recently the co-recipient of a Planning Institute Award in the heritage category for the Yan Yean Conservation Management Plan.
Melbourne Water worked in partnership with Context Pty Ltd to draft the Yan
Yean conservation management plan, in recognition of the historical significance
of Yan Yean in the development of Melbourne and the pressing need to integrate
heritage management with asset management, particularly for Melbourne Water
which has a rich and diverse heritage inherited from its predecessor in the
Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works.
Paul has been an enthusiastic contributor to projects within the Cultural Heritage Centre, most recently coordinating a collaboration between Deakin and Melbourne Water to enable students of cultural heritage to draft interpretation plans for the former Melbourne Water company town at Cocoroc Township, Werribee.
As a management tool, the Conservation Management Plan sets out plain English policies and guidelines to assist Melbourne Water with conserving and maintaining the significant heritage values of the Yan Yean system. It serves as a valuable planning tool for project managers, identifying potential problems or risks upfront.
The Yan Yean water supply system, constructed in stages between 1853 and 1890,
was Melbourne’s first engineered water supply system and one of the first
in
Australia. Remarkably, much of the historically significant infrastructure
is still in use today for its original purpose of supplying drinking water
to Melbourne, and hence the importance of the CMP as an “insurance” policy.
The CMP sets out to achieve integration of heritage management into business planning and asset management for Melbourne Water.
The CMP is believed to be the first in Victoria that has been prepared for a large scale infrastructure system that is still in operation. As such, the PIA Award is recognition that the CMP serves as a model not only for other water supply systems managed by Melbourne Water and other water authorities, but also for other large scale public infrastructure.
The Yan Yean water supply system will be added to Heritage Victoria’s state register.
Worker constructing the Yan Yean water supply system
Cathryn Barr is a field archaeologist and Heritage Team Leader based in Napier,
New Zealand. Cathryn enroled to study Deakin’s Master of Cultural Heritage
in 2007, and currently completes all units on a part-time basis via the off-campus,
on-line delivered mode of learning.
With twenty years’ experience in field archaeology and archaeological site management, Cathryn decided to enrol in the Masters of Cultural Heritage to update her knowledge and expand her understanding of heritage management. Cathryn has worked for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, The NZ Historic Places Trust and as a private consultant.
Currently Cathryn works for Opus Consultants, an international engineering and planning company which, like many large-scale infrastructure providers, has incorporated a team of heritage staff “to provide technical input into projects “. The company has also developed a business providing services that include impact assessments for projects on heritage assets, and conservation management plans for heritages sites, including built heritage, archaeological sites and cemeteries etc.
Cathryn’s latest project involves developing a conservation management
plan for a pā site (a fortified Māori village from the pre-European
era).
Associate Professor Andrea Witcomb, Senior Lecturer Pam Maclean, Associate Professor Michele Langfield and Dr Linda Young have brokered an agreement with the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Elsternwick, to write a history of the Centre. The study will address the museum's history in the context of Holocaust memorialisation. Assoc Prof Witcomb and Ms Maclean will travel to Kracow, Berlin, Jerusalem and Vienna to undertake a comparative study on representation of the Holocaust.
Details of the project are as follows:
Investigators: Pam Mclean, Andrea Witcomb, Michele Langfield and Linda Young.
Summary:
This project will produce a history of Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Museum
and Research Centre. The JHMRC incorporates a museum, video testimony collection,
archive, library, education program and support network for survivors and their
descendants. Drawing on various methodologies and theoretical perspectives
taken from history and museology, the project will analyse the balance between
survivor communities needed to validate their experience with the desire to
educate others about the importance of preventing genocide. Understanding the
practices of memorialisation will be central to our project.
For further information on this project please contact Pam Maclean.
 Mr Jonathan Sweet, A/Prof. Andrea Witcomb and Mr Habib Ben Younes, Directeur de recherches, Directeur de la Division Museographique, L’Institut National du Patrimoine |
In 2007 CHCAP was approached by the Council for Australia-Arab Relations (CAAR), a committee of the Commonwealth Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to undertake a scoping mission to North Africa.
CAAR had identified a strategy for building cultural relationships with the Arab nations of North Africa through, in the first place, liaising with the museum and heritage profession in Tunisia. It was proposed that a visit by CHCAP museologists would be Stage 1 in the development of an ongoing cultural relationship, and that Deakin University may also have a pivotal role in facilitation of future projects, which might utilize other Australian museum and heritage professionals and organizations.
 Inside the Bardo Museum, Tunis |
During their visit a series of meetings were held and a number of museums and heritage sites were visited including the Carthage Museum, National Heritage Institute and the Dar Ben Abdallah museum in the Medina of Tunis.
The primary outcome of this mission is a CHCAP report to CAAR that identified issues based upon the discussions in Tunis that can be addressed through the development of a suite of projects. These projects are prioritised according to short, mid and long term possibilities. The rationale underpinning the recommendations includes the National Heritage Institute desire to develop a long term collaboration of mutual benefits, building on a set of initial exchanges. Although the report is currently in a draft form, it offers some exciting possibilities for cultural heritage research, teaching and consultancy.
Associate Professor Andrea Witcomb attended the final event for the Sharing our Heritages Program which was a symposium in Valencia in February. Academic staff from Deakin University, the University of Cottbus, the Catholic University in Van Leuwen and the Politechnical University of Valencia were represented as well as a number of Latin American and Spanish professionals working on World Heritage sites. There were over 80 students from the program in the audience. The program revolved around the pressures for world heritage sites from tourism. A/Prof. Witcomb gave a presentation entitled “Tensions between local and world heritage significance: The case of Fremantle Prison”. An important outcome from Deakin’s representation at this event is that Andrea Witcomb will be one of the editors of the resulting publication which will be published by UNESCO.
The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) presents in association with Deakin University's Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific and Australia ICOMOS
What is intangible heritage? It is a relatively new concept in heritage circles and has all sorts of implications. It involves people and traditions: knowledge, skills, creativity, products, resources, spaces.
What is the appropriate relationship of intangible heritage to other elements of conventional heritage such as tangible objects, monuments and ites? What role do traditional rituals, art forms, and crafts play in the life of individuals and contemporary communities?
Intangible heritage has recently assumed considerable internaitonal prominence following UNESCO's 2003 ICH Convention, reinforced by the 2005 Convention on Cultural Expressions. All national governments have ben invited to contribute to the discussion and the development of a conservation system that will parallel in many ways the system already existing for heritage places under the 1972 World Heritage Convention. The Victorian National Trust is considering if and how it should move into the intangible heritage field.
Speakers include Prof William S. Logan (Ethical Dilemmas), Richard Engelhardt (UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific), Prof Kate Darian-Smith (Children's Folklore), Prof Rob Pascoe (Sport), Dr Heather Builth (Australian indigenous heritage), Pam Maclean (Jewish heritage), Herman Kiriama (African heritage), and James Charlwood (Lost Craftsmanship Skills). The MC is Dr Barry Jones AO.
The symposium will be held at St Peter's Hall, Gisborne St, East Melbourne.
We are confident that this initiative will promote wider debate on the issues and implications of formally recognising intangible heritage.
On 3 July 2008 we have scheduled tours of various parts of historic Melbourne.
The Intangible Heritage Symposium is followed by the annual conference 'History in Practice', of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) at Deakin University, Geelong on 3-6 July 2008.
For further information contact Dr Celestina Sagazio, Senior Historian, National Trust (03) 9656 9824; celestina.sagazio@nattrust.com.au.
View
Symposium Program (pdf 175 KB)
Prof Bill Logan and Dr Colin Long have been engaged by UNESCO to assist the Hanoi People's Committee to prepare a World Heritage submission for the Thang Long-Hanoi citadel. The work is being done in three stages across 2007-8 and the submission will be sent by the Vietnamese Government to UNESCO in January 2009 with the hope of having the site inscribed in time for the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Thang Long as the capital of the independent Vietnamese state. The site has in fact been a power base for several centuries longer than that, going back to the period in which the Red River area of northern Vietnam was controlled by the Chinese. The site is remarkable for the continuity of this role, which is demonstrated in the rich collection of archaeological vestiges and artefacts, historic buildings and the intangible heritage of literature and other cultural expressions.
Stairs leading down to the bunker under Building D67, the North Vietnamese Army General Headquarters.
The bunker was used during the Vietnam War for meetings of the Politburo of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the general political department of the Vietnam People's Army, as well as for the office of General Vo Nguyen Giap, Minister of Defence and Vietnam's most famous modern military figure.
Former Deakin Masters of Cultural Heritage Scholarship recipient Hoping Au was recently employed as a Heritage Officer with the Heritage Town of Vincent in Western Australia. Congratulations to Hoping!
A Deakin research team to be lead by Professor David Lowe, Dr Christopher Waters, Dr Helen Gardner, and Professor William Logan has been successful in an application for funding of an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellow to support research being carried out under the theme History, heritage and memory in the nation building of South Pacific states.
The project outline is as follows:
"This project is both a historical analysis of the interaction between Australia
and the Pacific islands nations, and an investigation of the role of Pacific
histories in the public consciousness of contemporary Pacific citizens. Thus
the project is a scholarly investigation of the history of state and nation
building in Pacific Island nations and Australia’s role in the process
through the period of decolonisation, as well as the application and development
of a sense of national identity in Pacific Island states, through the encouragement
of a national memory.
This project is an exploration of the role of Pacific pasts in the public consciousness
of contemporary Pacific citizens including the history of the establishment of
these states and Australia’s role in the region in the age of decolonisation.
The many tangible and intangible dimensions to nation and state building demand
an understanding of the history of state constitutions, state institutions, the
economy, law and order, good governance, and civil society. This project is directed
towards the development of a sense of national identity through the encouragement
of a national memory.
The project will have three main dimensions: first, the history of decolonisation in the Pacific from 1962-1982 from the perspectives of Australia and the island nations. Second, the role of heritage, archival holdings and history curricula in developing the national memory of Pacific island citizens. Third, a survey of national identity of students attending the various campuses of the University of the South Pacific. An understanding of these issues will make a significant contribution to contemporary debates both in Australia and in the island nations on the best approaches to resolving the problems of the ‘failing states’ of Melanesia. "
The study will be conducted in collaboration with staff of the University of the South Pacific, the National Archivist of Fiji and AusAid.
