Creating White Australia

(Paperback)

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The adoption of White Australia as government policy in 1901 demonstrates that whiteness was crucial to the ways in which the new nation of Australia was constituted. And yet, historians have largely overlooked whiteness in their studies of Australias racial past. Creating White Australia takes a fresh approach to the question of 'race in Australian history. It demonstrates that Australias racial foundations can only be understood by recognising whiteness too as 'race. Including contributions from some of the leading as well as emerging scholars in Australian history, it breaks new ground by arguing that 'whiteness was central to the racial ideologies which created the Australian nation. This book pursues the foundations of white Australia across diverse locales. It also situates the development of Australian whiteness within broader imperial and global influences. As the recent Apology to the Stolen Generations, the Northern Territory Intervention, and controversies over asylum seekers reveal, the legacies of these histories are still very much with us today.

Reviews

'Making White Australia provides a complex and thoughtful addition to the study of race and Australian history. The chapters invite readers to revisit and reimagine familiar histories through the lens of whiteness studies.'

Author Bio

Jane Carey is a lecturer in history at the University of Wollongong.

Claire McLisky is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen.