Miller, Imelda, Youse, Zia, Bickey, Tomasina, Haddow, Eve, Mate, Geraldine, Zubrzycka, Adele, Prangnell, Jonathan, Fairbairn, Andrew, Robinson, Helena, Baumgartl, Thomas, and Flexner, James (2024) Developing a holistic and collaborative approach for the archaeology of Australian South Sea Islanders in Queensland. Archaeology in Oceania, 59 (3). pp. 435-449.

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Abstract

Australian South Sea Islanders are a distinctive cultural group comprising descendants of over 60000 labourers who came to Australia from Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and elsewhere in the Western Pacific between 1863 and 1904. “Blackbirded” labourers were commonly referred to as victims of a slave trade, though many also came voluntarily to work in the sugar plantations of northern New South Wales and Queensland. The advent of racist exclusionary immigration policies introduced from 1901 further forced South Sea Islanders to the margins of colonial society. Yet many Australian South Sea Islanders would argue their untold history speaks to resilience and overcoming adversity. Australian South Sea Islanders have a distinctive cultural heritage, including material culture, oral traditions embedded in the landscape and connections to places – from sugar mills to domestic sites – revealed archaeologically. This heritage must be approached sensitively given its association with sometimes difficult histories but is crucial to understanding the contributions of Australian South Sea Islanders to Australian society, contemporary communities and identities, and historical and social significance across multiple scales. Collaborative research with Australian South Sea Islanders pushes the boundaries of “community archaeology” by taking a slow approach to research, reframing ethnographic objects and cultural landscapes, and producing an archaeology that can include many voices.

Item ID:	83327
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1834-4453
Keywords:	Australian South Sea Islanders; historical archaeology; community archaeology; museums; cultural landscapes
Copyright Information:	© 2024 The Author(s). Archaeology in Oceania published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of University of Sydney. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC Linkage Grant (LP170100048)
Date Deposited:	05 Aug 2024 00:31
FoR Codes:	45 INDIGENOUS STUDIES > 4513 Pacific Peoples culture, language and history > 451301 Archaeology of New Guinea and Pacific Islands (excl. New Zealand) @ 70% 43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4301 Archaeology > 430103 Archaeology of Australia (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) @ 30%
SEO Codes:	21 INDIGENOUS > 2112 Pacific Peoples heritage and culture > 211201 Conserving Pacific Peoples heritage and culture @ 50% 13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1307 Understanding past societies > 130703 Understanding Australia’s past @ 50%
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