More than Just a Roof over Their Heads Migrant Accommodation Centres and the Assimilation of “New Australians” 1947-1960

period of migration has distorted the understanding of what and how assimilation programs operated and the importance that was attached to not only educating migrants in the model Australian way of life, but also convincing old Australians of the benefits of the mass migration scheme. Through extensive archival research, this work identifies the key role that migrant accommodation centres played in the assimilation of new arrivals. The thesis moves beyond previous considerations of these centres as substandard temporary housing to argue that they were more than roofs over the heads of migrants; rather they provided an important liminal space for early assimilation activity to occur. Through a variety of examples (such as the content of language lessons, the work of voluntary organisations, the introduction of kindergartens, participation in sport, the showing of films, and the celebration of commemorative events) this thesis shows that the process of assimilating new arrivals within migrant accommodation centres was in fact all-encompassing and moved far beyond the previously assumed importance of the Good Neighbour Movement as the primary agent of assimilation. Finally, the thesis considers some of the negative consequences of this all-encompassing approach with particular reference to an often neglected cohort of migrants, women and children.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 201

Formally calling the CoPs for staff working with first year students

Drawing on both Community of Practice (CoP) and First Year in Higher Education (FYHE) literature this nuts and bolts session will explore whether the FYHE community may be identified as a CoP. This discussion will be used as a springboard to a presentation on the development of CoPs that support the FYHE teaching community in other Australian universities and the establishment of the CoP for staff who work with first year students at Flinders University. The presentation will outline why a CoP was established to support first year teaching and how the initiative is progressing. Participants will be provided with time to either consider the CoPs at their own institutions or to consider whether investing in one is an appropriate strategy to support staff who work with first year students

Migrants’ Belongings: preliminary considerations of Greek and Italian migrants’ travel trunks in the post-Second World War period of settlement to South Australia

The Migrants’ Belongings project, while considering both the scholarly work of the past and more contemporary trends, aims to take migration studies one step further by investigating the significance of belongings brought in the travel trunks of Greek and Italian migrants when they settled in Australia after the Second World War. The project seeks to understand, in the context of displacement, movement and loss, what objects were of particular relevance in reshaping the lives and the identities of these migrants, with particular reference to those objects carried by trunk, rather than by suitcase. This article, the first in a series relating to the Migrants’ Belongings project, aims to situate the project within the wider literature of post-Second World War Italian and Greek migration to Australia. It will consider the use and representation of migrants’ belongings, drawing on methodologies and findings from museology, material culture and identity studies. The project will reflect on the reasons why the “objects of migration”, and more specifically the contents of “migrant trunks”, have so far been largely neglected by scholars of history and migration studies. Finally, this article will highlight the project’s proposed methodology

Italians Abroad: Critical Factors in the Development of Italian National Identity

Unley, South Australi

National Identity Explored: Emigrant Italians in Australia and British Canada in WWI

On 22nd May 1918, twenty armed military and South Australian state police converged on the small Australian town of Broken Hill and arrested in excess of forty Italian men of military age living and working in the mining town. These men were escorted to Adelaide for processing and deportation to Italy to serve with the Italian Army. As Mr. Finlayson, the Federal Member for Brisbane who witnessed the armed escort, later reported to the Australian Federal Parliament, this was “a sight that might be expected in Prussia”.But this was not Prussia; it was Australia, and these Italians, though allies in the war against Germany had proven reluctant to answer their country’s ‘call to arms’. The ensuing forced repatriation by the Australian Government of over five hundred Italian men in the last months of the War was a significant event for a country that had eschewed the conscription of its own citizens. By contrast, in Canada, from the time of Italy’s declaration of war, Italians volunteered in their hundreds to either return to Italy or to fight in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces (CEF). As early as August 1915, over five hundred had come forward in Ontario alone and they would continue to do so at the rate of thirty to thirty five a day.This paper analyses why Italian immigrants, living either in Australia or British speaking Canada during World War One, responded so differently to their country’s calls to arms, and why the respective governments treated their allies in such a contrasting manner

European Post-War Migrants and Indigenous Australians: A History in Fragments

This article will outline a series of historical fragments which represent encounters between the early post World War Two European migrants and indigenous peoples. While both displaced persons and Indigenous peoples have been studied by historians as the objects of assimilationist policy, any relationship between these two groups has been largely ignored. This article will thus explore the connection between these disparate groups, in the context of White Australia, assimilation and mid-century settler colonialism

Forgotten Women: Remembering"“Unsupported" Migrant Mothers in Post-World War II Australia

Oral history is a crucial tool for social historians; however, its application may be limited for discovering those who have lived with multiple and intersecting disadvantages. This chapter examines the methods used to explore the migration experiences of female displaced persons to Australia (1947–1953) with a particular focus on unmarried and widowed mothers. We argue that while Sophia Turkiewicz’s auto/biographical film Once My Mother brings the memories of the migration experiences of these so-called unsupported mothers to a wider public audience, it also suggests a larger, neglected story and raises questions for scholars of migration which can only be pursued through the use of multiple and varied sources in order to piece together a fuller, more intersectional, history and collective remembering.Karen Agutter and Catherine Kevi