'We put the final touches on issue 14.3 in the wake of the Newcastle Australian Historical Association (AHA) conference, happily exhausted by a programme jam-packed with stimulating papers, book launches and the other gatherings described in Lynette Russell’s President’s Report. An exciting aspect of this year’s AHA was the vibrant presence of so many postgraduate and early career researchers, whose contributions enriched a great number of panels. Beyond presenting their scholarship, these well-organised researchers displayed plenty of initiative, seeking opportunities for publication, and stimulating discussion of their careers and the profession more broadly. Several examples of their involvement are worth highlighting here, including the work of the Early Career Research Network, which hosted a number of events on publishing and grant writing, displaying the strategic thinking, generosity and sense of community that is emerging among this newest generation of historians. From our perspective as editors of History Australia, we were particularly pleased to take part in a roundtable session for postgraduates on getting their work published, chaired by Alana Piper and organised by Daniel May. Alongside this, the postgraduate CAL Bursary recipients, currently working with their AHA-appointed mentors to turn their conference papers into journal submissions, presented extremely promising research on gender, colonialism, migration and other forms of mobility. Congratulations to AHA ECR representatives Margaret Hutchison and Carolyn Holbrook who recently won a grant from the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund to launch a similar mentoring scheme for ECRs. We look forward in future years to CAL Bursary postgraduates being joined by those taking advantage of this new scheme.' (Editorial introduction)
Contents indexed selectively.
'This article opens a biographical window onto Australian colonial history and, in particular, the coming together of the British and Chinese Empires in colonial Victoria. It takes as its focus the personal history of Fook Shing, a prominent Chinese leader and ‘headman’ at Bendigo during the 1850s, who went on to become colonial Victoria’s longest serving Chinese detective.' (Publication abstract)
'C.E.W. (Charles) Bean embarked from Melbourne in 1914, accompanying the first convoy of Australian troops to Egypt. He witnessed the Australian Imperial Force landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, and was the only war correspondent to remain at Gallipoli for the duration of the campaign. In 1916, he followed the troops to France, where he remained until the war concluded in 1918. Throughout the war, and upon his return to Australia, Bean dedicated himself to ensuring that the memory of the deeds undertaken by the Australian soldiers of the First World War would not be forgotten.' (Introduction)
'Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning interest in compiling material that looks back at early settler-colonial interactions with Indigenous peoples. There has also been an increased interest in historically examining the protest movements that defined Indigenous politics from the 1960s onwards. In visual and performing arts, in novels and poems, in documentary and feature films and in public and academic history, investigations have focused, with more critical lenses, on the localised specificities and cultural legacies of Indigenous experiences. In Living with Locals: Early Europeans’ Experience of Indigenous Life by John Maynard and Victoria Haskins, and A Handful of Sand: The Gurindji Struggle, After the Walk-Off by Charlie Ward, two very different explorations of Indigenous history are presented. One centres on localised examples of early European settlers who lived with Indigenous peoples. The other focuses on the cultural legacy left behind by the Gurindji people’s struggle for economic, political and cultural self-determination. Each, in its own distinct way, is a welcome and refreshing addition to Indigenous historical inquiry. They are both balanced, intriguing and sophisticated, and there is little doubt that they are important contributions to a historical field that is comfortably expanding.' (Introduction)
