Domestic Subversions: Maternalism and Cross-Cultural Histories

Researcher: Dr Victoria Haskins

Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2006-2009) - $100 000

This project is a historical analysis of the female cross-cultural experience in Australia, from 1788 to the end of World War II, as represented in the predominant arena for relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women, domestic service. Focusing specifically on white women as ‘employers’, to consider the beliefs, behaviour and attitudes that surround their position as mistresses, the project extends a concept of maternalism that arose out of two distinct fields (historiography of the feminist movement, and the sociology of domestic service) to draw these fields together and produce a new understanding of the connections between the private relationships between Aboriginal and white women, and the rise of a white feminist Aboriginal agenda. This project is concerned particularly with the subversive effects and impact of cross-cultural domestic service, funded with ARC Discovery Grant application for $100,000 over three years 2006-2008.

Publcations include six refereed journal articles, a book chapter, a newspaper feature article, a major encyclopedia entry, and a speacial double issue of a leading international feminist studies journal. RHD student Shannon was supervised under this project, with a thesis entitled: ‘Pioneer Women and Social Memory: Shifting Energies, Changing Tensions,' awarded 2009. 

Outputs

Haskins, V. and Shannon Schedlich-Day (forthcoming 2010) ‘“My mate Ellen”: cross-cultural friendship between women in a “pioneer memoir”’, The La Trobe Journal (special issue ‘Indigenous Victoria’)

Haskins, V (forthcoming 2009) ‘Her Old Ayah: The Transcolonial Significance of the Indian Domestic Worker, India and Australia’, in Hans Hagerdal (ed), Responding to the West: Essays on Colonial Dominance and Asian Agency, 18th to 20th Centuries, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

Haskins, V (2009) ‘A significant step’, Feature article, weekend supplement The Herald (Newcastle), 14/2/09: 9

Haskins, V (2009) ‘From the Centre to the City: Modernity, mobility and mixed-descent Aboriginal domestic workers from Central Australia’, Women’s History Review, vol.18, no.1 (February 2009): 155-175

Haskins, V (2008) ‘“Give to us the People we would Love to be amongst us’: The Aboriginal Campaign against Caroline Bulmer’s eviction from Lake Tyers Aboriginal Station, 1913-14’, Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office, Victoria, no.7, (September 2008). Available here

Haskins, V (2008) ‘Memsahib and Missus: transcolonial constructions of the white mistress in India and Australia’, Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 39–40 (Part 1) (2007–08): 221–235

Haskins, V (2007) ‘Stolen Generations’ International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd edition. Editor in Chief: William A. Darity. Macmillan Reference USA/Thomson Gale, Michigan (8 vols)

Haskins, V. & Margaret Jacobs (2007) Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. Domestic Frontiers: The Home and Colonization (special double issue 28:1-2), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2007.

Haskins, V. (2007) ‘Domestic Service and Frontier Feminism: the call for a Woman Visitor to ‘Half-Caste’ girls and women in domestic service, Adelaide, 1925-1928’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies Domestic Frontiers: The Home and Colonization (special double issue 28:1-2)  124-164

Haskins, V. & Jacobs, M. (2007) ‘Introduction’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. Domestic Frontiers: The Home and Colonization (special double issue 28:1-2) ix-xvi

Haskins, V. (2006) ‘Beyond Complicity: questions and issues for white women in Aboriginal history’, Australian Humanities Review Australian Humanities Review, 39, July 2006. Available here