2020

It was an emotional day for Dr Ray Kelly when the NSW government introduced the nation's first laws to recognise and revive Indigenous languages.

Speaking at the Birckbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Purai Co-Director Professor John Maynard said that the connection that Indigenous Australian activists had with Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) smashes the entrenched belief of an inward, insular and nationalistic political movement.

Without the generosity of Australian Indigenous people, the chances of an early European surviving a shipwreck or a penal escape were slim in the nineteenth century.

Professor John Maynard didn’t even think about going to university until he was 40 years old and, twelve books later, he’s a professor.

In 1927, one of main founders of the Aboriginal Progressive Society, Fred Maynard, delivered a defiant and powerful message to the NSW government and the then Aboriginies Protection/Welfare Board.

From 1883 until 1969, the lives and affairs of Aboriginal people in NSW were governed and controlled by the Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board, yet there is no definitive history of the Board and its activities in NSW.

Purai Global Indigenous History Centre in association with the University of Newcastle Politics Discipline hosted a seminar with Professor Rajeshwari Deshpande based on her case study of domestic workers in two Indian states.

A public talk for the ReOccupying the Political workshop was hosted by Purai Indigenous Global History Centre.

Over the last two months, Directors and Internal and External Affiliates of the Purai Indigenous Global History Centre have been working hard, in different ways to open educational pathways designed to unlock the keys of oppression.

Professor Victoria Haskin’s Future Fellowship has bought together history, anthropology, gender studies, geography, fine art and law scholars from around the world to share insights about the connections between domestic service and colonisation.