Anna Haebich Anna Haebich i(A114506 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Fever in the Archive Anna Haebich , single work criticism
— Appears in: Humanities Australia , no. 5 2014; (p. 23-35)

Anna Haebich investigates how the West Australian Department of Indigenous Affairs archives (1898-1972) have been utilised by Indigenous writers/researchers.

1 Exemption and Nyungar Letters in the West Australian Archives Anna Haebich , Darryl Kickett , Margaret Culbong , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Politics and History , March vol. 69 no. 1 2023; (p. 122-139)

'Rather than rewarding applicants seeking relief from the draconian 1905 Aborigines Act, Exemption Certificates in Western Australia became a bureaucratic weapon to enforce their rigid control through enforced prohibitions on alcohol for Nyungar people. Applications were routinely rejected, regardless of the applicant's way of life, which quickly deteriorated under the “care” of the Aborigines Department. At the same time, new laws further enforcing prohibitions through increased fines and imprisonment, meant few had any hope of release. This combination derailed the exemption process. The injustices were recently revealed by the Ancestors' Words: Nyungar Letter Writing in the Archives Project, which located activist application letters written by Ancestors of today's Nyungar families, letters which were held for many decades in archive files of the Aborigines Department. The files also contained devastating letters of rejection written by the Minister, his officers and local police. The Ancestors' letters of courage and their distressing rejections in reply are examined here in a powerful case study developed in conversations between two Nyungar Elders, the writer's granddaughter, and the project researcher. The study also reveals how the project's respectful return of letters to the Elders can restore these important stories from the past to the flow of living family memories, down the generations.' (Publication abstract)

1 [Review] Dancing in Shadows: Histories of Nyungar Performance Anna Haebich , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History Journal , April no. 45 2022;

— Review of Dancing in Shadows : Histories of Nyungar Performance Anna Haebich , 2018 multi chapter work criticism
1 The Forgotten German Botanist Who Took 200,000 Australian Plants to Europe Anna Haebich , 2020 single work biography
— Appears in: The Conversation , 24 July 2020;

'It is not widely known that many Australian colonial natural history collections are represented in German museums and herbaria, nor that there are initiatives to transform these artefacts of colonial heritage and science back into objects from living cultures with living custodians and their own stories to tell.' (Introduction)

1 Negotiating Botanical Collections : Dr Johann Preiss in Germany and Western Australia Anna Haebich , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 69 2020; (p. 121-128)
It is not widely known that many Australian colonial natural history collections arc represented in German museums and herbaria, nor that there are initiatives to transform these artefacts of colonial heritage and science back into objects from living cultures with living custodians and their own stories to tell.' (Introduction)
 
1 1 Ancestors' Words : The Power of Nyungar Letter Writing Darryl Kickett , Anna Haebich , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 60 2018; (p. 146-156) Inside Story , May 2018;

'No one was  surprised when, in 1977, the Western Australian Government put a blanket ban on its recently decommissioned Aboriginal archive and even threatened legal action against researchers. The archive was a ticking time bomb: the dutifully documented words in its files exposed for the first time the extent of despotic powers wielded by state governments over Aboriginal people during the twentieth century. Read in the present context they show how racism, denial of rights, segregation, incarceration and breaking up of families structured and institutionalised the Aboriginal problems of today. These words from the past speak directly to the Uluru Statement: they ‘tell plainly the structural nature of our problem…the torment of our powerlessness.' (Introduction)

1 2 y separately published work icon Dancing in Shadows : Histories of Nyungar Performance Anna Haebich , Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2018 12947541 2018 multi chapter work criticism

'Dancing in Shadows explores the power of Indigenous performance pitted against the forces of settler colonisation. Historian Anna Haebich documents how the Nyungar people of Western Australia strategically and courageously adapted their rich performance culture to survive the catastrophe that engulfed them, and generously share their culture, history, and language in theatre. 

'In public corroborees they performed their sovereignty to the colonists and in community-only gatherings they danced and sang to bring forth resilience and spiritual healing. Pushed away by the colonists and denied their culture and lands they continued to live and perform in the shadows over the years, in combinations of the old and the new, including indigenised settler songs and dances. Nyungar people survived, and they now number around 40,000 people and constitute the largest Aboriginal nation in the Australian settler state. The ancient family lineages live in city suburbs and country towns and they continue to perform to celebrate their ancestors and to strengthen community wellbeing by being together.

Dancing in Shadows sheds light on a little-known history of Nyungar performance.' (Publication summary)

1 Somewhere between Fiction and Non-fiction: New Approaches to Writing Crime Histories Anna Haebich , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , April no. 28 2015;
'This paper explores innovative ways of writing across the borders between fiction and non-fiction in crime histories and examines how crime sources can actively encourage writing that is imaginative, subjective and ambiguous. Drawing on recent historiographic critiques of the archive, the paper argues that the constructedness of archival crime sources and close responsive reading and interpretation of these sources can validate, even demand, of historians the use of nuanced fictive writing practices that eloquently express the complexity of the crimes, the killers, the victims, the societies that created them and the intricacies and truths of the sources that contained them. As well as iconic examples from the literature, the paper examines my own research and writing about two very different murder trials from Perth, Western Australia, one already published, the other a work in progress. The trials of Martha Rendell and Audrey Jacob bookend sixteen years of Perth history from 1909 to 1925 when expectations and representations of women’s gender roles in Perth changed dramatically, producing very different outcomes for the women. The archival sources for each case determine the contrastive structures and styles for developing the resulting works of scholarly crime prose fiction.' (Publication abstract)
1 1 y separately published work icon A Boy's Short Life : The True Story of Warren Braedon Steve Mickler , Anna Haebich , Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2013 6152322 2013 single work biography

'Warren Braedon, named by his adoptive parents Louis St John Johnson, was taken from his mother in Alice Springs at just three months old. Told he had been abandoned, Louis’s adoptive parents, Bill and Pauline Johnson raised him in a loving family in Perth. Despite a happy childhood, Louis was increasingly targeted by school bullies and police for his Aboriginality. As he grew older, his need to meet his natural family prompted visits to Alice Springs with his parents, but they were thwarted by bureaucracy. He was planning to return to Alice Springs when, walking home on his nineteenth birthday, Louis was brutally murdered by a group of white youths whose admitted motive was ‘because he was black’. Originally published in the multi-award-winning and seminal history of the Stolen Generations, Broken Circles by Anna Haebich, the story of Louis Johnson/Warren Braedon captures the dark heart of racism in modern Australia, through the tragic story of one boy and his short life.' (Publisher's blurb)

1 [Essay] : Bran Nue Dae Anna Haebich , 2013 single work essay
— Appears in: Reading Australia 2013-;

'The 2010 film adaptation of Bran Nue Dae was a risky venture for Rachel Perkins, despite her being a major Aboriginal filmmaker. She was tinkering with the much loved and awarded original stage musical by Broome musician Jimmy Chi, which revolutionised Australian theatre in the 1990s. It also marked a major creative shift from her previous dark and challenging works, One Night the Moon (2001) and First Australians (2008). As Perkins explained in an interview with Margaret Pomeranz, the film was to be enjoyed ‘for being light, for it being entertaining, for it being joyous and celebratory, and a little bit silly and mad . . . not to teach about Aboriginal history, or Indigenous politics or culture’.' (Introduction)

1 7 y separately published work icon Murdering Stepmothers : The Execution of Martha Rendell Anna Haebich , Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2010 Z1696240 2010 single work biography

'Sensational rumours of the murder of three small children by their stepmother ignite the passions of Perth citizens in 1909.

Shocked by horrific descriptions of how she poisoned the children, they demand her execution as one voice. But did she do it? Or was she a victim of the prejudices of her persecutors?

Anna Haebich brings to life the people of Perth and the entangled mesh of self-righteous bigotry, slander and unbridled revenge they invoke to propel the trial of Martha Rendell to its inevitable end.

We see the accused woman's downward spiral from her dreams of a new beginning with her lover to a life of domestic drudgery and deceits; then her final days on the edge of the abyss - becoming the last woman in the state to be hanged.

Based on a true story and meticulously researched, this compelling novel is driven by passion, imagination and an eerie conjuring up of the past.' (From the publisher's website.)

1 Teaching and Researching Peter Read , Anna Haebich , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Indigenous Biography and Autobiography 2008; (p. 3)
1 5 y separately published work icon Spinning the Dream : Assimilation in Australia 1950-1970 Anna Haebich , North Fremantle : Fremantle Press , 2008 Z1573773 2008 single work criticism (taught in 3 units)

'In Spinning the Dream, the author re-evaluates the experience of Assimilation in Australia, providing a meticulously researched and masterfully written assessment of its implications for Australia's Indigenous and ethnic minorities and for immigration and refugee policy'. (Source: Fremantle Press website)

1 1 y separately published work icon Indigenous Biography and Autobiography Peter Read (editor), Frances Peters-Little (editor), Anna Haebich (editor), Acton : ANU E Press , 2008 Z1548711 2008 anthology criticism 'In this absorbing collection of papers Aboriginal, Maori, Dalit and western scholars discuss and analyse the difficulties they have faced in writing Indigenous biographies and autobiographies. The issues range from balancing the demands of western and non-western scholarship, through writing about a family that refuses to acknowledge its identity, to considering a community demand not to write anything at all. The collection also presents some state-of-the-art issues in teaching Indigenous Studies based on auto/biography in Austria, Spain and Italy.' -- Publisher's blurb
1 Un-Settling White Australia : The Significance of Going Home Anna Haebich , 2008 single work essay
— Appears in: Landscapes of Exile: Once Perilous, Now Safe 2008; (p. 193-209)
1 y separately published work icon Landscapes of Exile: Once Perilous, Now Safe Anna Haebich (editor), Baden Offord (editor), Berne : Peter Lang , 2008 Z1486522 2008 anthology criticism essay 'Inspired by the international conference 'Landscapes of Exile: Once Perilous, Now Safe' held in Australia in 2006, this book examines the experience and nature of exile - one of the most powerful and recurrent themes of the human condition. In response to the central question posed of how the experience of exile has impacted on society and culture, this book offers a rich collection of essays. Through a kaleidoscope of views on the metaphorical, spatial, imaginative, reflective and experiential nature of exile, it investigates a diverse range of landscapes of belonging and exclusion - social, cultural, legal, poetic, literary, indigenous, political - that confront humanity. At the very heart of landscapes of exile is the irony of history, and therefore of identity and home. Who is now safe and who is not? What was perilous? Who now is in peril? What does it mean to belong? This book provides key examinations of these questions.' (Publisher's blurb)
1 A Long Way Back - Reflections of a Genealogical Tourist Anna Haebich , 2004-2005 single work essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , Summer no. 6 2004-2005; (p. 183-193)
1 Assimilating Nature: The Bunya Disaspora Anna Haebich , 2003 single work essay
— Appears in: Queensland Review , November vol. 10 no. 2 2003; (p. 47-57)
'The bunya pine has a special meaning for Queenslanders, being endemic to the Bunya Mountains and Blackall Ranges in the South-East corner of the state, with a small stand in North Queensland. The bunya holds particular significance for local Indigenous peoples. They are bound to the tree through custodial rights and obligations and systems of traditional environmental knowledge that incorporate ‘classification …empirical observations of the local environment… [and] self-management that governs resource use’, built up through generations of interaction with the bunya forests. Indigenous groups celebrated their spiritual links to the bunya pine in large seasonal gatherings where they feasted on its edible nuts and performed ceremonies, adjudicated disputes and traded goods. The bunya's majestic height, striking unique silhouette, dark green foliage, unique botanical features and Indigenous associations held a fascination for colonial artists, natural scientists, entrepreneurs and gardeners. Over the years they assumed custodianship of the bunya pine, assimilating it into Western scientific, economic, legal, horticultural, environmental and symbolic systems, which replaced Indigenous custodial rights, obligations and knowledge. The spectacular bunya gatherings were mythologised in colonial writings as mystical, primeval ceremonies and barbaric rituals. Despite ‘fierce and actively hostile tribal resistance’ to colonisation of their lands, Indigenous groups were progressively driven out of the bunya forests. Empty landscapes left by the retreating forests – victims of timber felling and land clearing – came to symbolise the vanishing ceremonies and dwindling Aboriginal populations of South-East Queensland. While surviving Indigenous groups were swept into centralised reserves and settlements from the late nineteenth century, so too the bunya trees were cordoned off in 1908, for their own protection, in Queensland's second national park at the Bunya Mountains, where they stood ‘like the spirits of the departed original Queenslanders, mourning over the days which are forever gone’.' (Extract)
1 2 y separately published work icon Many Voices : Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation Anna Haebich (editor), Doreen Mellor (editor), Canberra : 2002 Z1492142 2002 anthology oral history poetry lyric/song This anthology is the culmination of four years of archiving diverse stories about the removal of Indigenous children from their families. The project was known as the 'Bringing Them Home Oral History Project' conducted by National Library of Australia and included a collection of 340 interviews. The stories and poetry included in this anthology are the voices of personal experiences and memories of a diverse group of people from every State and Territory including cottage parents, police officers, mothers and/or relinquished babies. Subjects covered include government policy, missions and childhood trauma. Source: http://www.nla.gov.au/ (Sighted: 27/07/09).
1 Murdering Stepmothers Anna Haebich , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Story / Telling 2001;
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