'This subject will not go away': Memorialising frontier conflict in South Australia

The history and memory of colonial violence is, in the words of one resident of Elliston in South Australia, a ‘subject [that] will not go away’ until it is addressed. Memories of frontier conflict have long been present in local communities and have only become more visible and more contentious as non-Indigenous Australians have increasingly come to re-evaluate the country’s colonial history. Attempts to acknowledge histories of frontier conflict in recent years have seen memorials emerge at the local level, often only after significant debate and collaboration between Aboriginal groups, community organisations, and local councils. This thesis explores recent efforts to memorialise and commemorate colonial histories of frontier conflict between European settlers and Aboriginal peoples in South Australia. Using a case study approach, the thesis considers various way frontier violence has been memorialised around the state. Its case studies address: commemorations of contact between settlers and Aboriginal women on Kangaroo Island prior to formal colonisation in 1836; the erection of a memorial to the Waterloo Bay massacre in Elliston; the Kaurna Naming Project initiated by the Adelaide City Council; and the state Labor government’s commitment to erect statues and monuments honouring Aboriginal leaders. The thesis’s final chapter compares these local and state-level engagements with how the history of frontier violence has been and is being represented in key national institutions of memory, namely heritage lists managed by the Commonwealth government, the National Museum of Australia, and the Australian War Memorial. The thesis argues that memorialisation in South Australia is an evolving social process which may contribute to broader processes of reconciliation in Australia by facilitating a wider recognition of past injustices.

Author dc:creator

• Milazzo, David Charles

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Nettelbeck, Amanda
• Krichauff, Skye

• frontier conflict; colonial violence; South Australia; colonialism; memorialisation; collective memory

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2440/144051

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.library.adelaide.edu.au:2440/144051