Alexandra Ludewig

Ann Curthoys

Shino Konishi

This book is a biographical history of Rottnest Island, a small carceral island offshore from Western Australia. Rottnest is also known as Wadjemup, or ‘the place across the water where the spirits are’, by Noongar, the Indigenous people of south-western Australia. Through a series of biographical case studies of the diverse individuals connected to the island, the book argues that their particular histories lend Rottnest Island a unique heritage, in which ​Indigenous, maritime, imperial, colonial, penal, and military histories intersect with histories of leisure and recreation. Tracing the way in which Wadjemup/Rottnest Island has been continually re-imagined and re-purposed throughout its history, the text explores the island’s carceral history, which has left behind it a painful community memory. Today it is best known as a beach holiday destination, a reputation bolstered by the ‘Quokka selfie’ trend, the online posting of photographs taken with the island’s cute native marsupial. This book will appeal to academic readers with an interest in Australian history, Aboriginal history, and the history of the British Empire, especially those interested in the burgeoning scholarship on the concept of ‘carceral archipelagos’ and island prisons.

A Biographical History of Wadjemup/Rottnest Island

The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island

This is the first historical study of indigenous Australian masculinity. Using the reactions of eighteenth-century western explorers to Aboriginal men, Konishi argues that these encounters were not as negative as has been thought.

The Aboriginal Male in the Enlightenment World

Tiffany Shellam

Maria Nugent

This edited collection understands exploration as a collective effort and experience involving a variety of people in diverse kinds of relationships. It engages with the recent resurgence of interest in the history of exploration by focusing on the various indigenous intermediaries – Jacky Jacky, Bungaree, Moowattin, Tupaia, Mai, Cheealthluc and lesser-known individuals – who were the guides, translators, and hosts that assisted and facilitated European travellers in exploring different parts of the world. These intermediaries are rarely the authors of exploration narratives, or the main focus within exploration archives. Nonetheless the archives of exploration contain imprints of their presence, experience and contributions. The chapters present a range of ways of reading archives to bring them to the fore. The contributors ask new questions of existing materials, suggest new interpretive approaches, and present innovative ways to enhance sources so as to generate new stories.

Shino Konishi

Books

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