Beyond Sites of Memory

Images of sport have been frequently used to represent Australia to the world as well as itself. Yet unlike other representations of Australia, the history of visual depictions of Australian sport has not been studied in any detail. We want to begin the process of exploring what is at stake in the history of Australian sporting iconography, along with the way that this iconography has been contested and might be further disrupted. We examine how public historians might explore and analyze the histories, impacts, and legacy of this iconography. We provide an overview of the way the broad iconography of Australian sport has been shaped by the processes of colonization and the ideologies of white supremacy before turning to the way creating counter-images of sport has also been a site of key resistance. We conclude by outlining how public historians might use the iconography of Australian sport as an education tool that facilitates truth telling around the legacies of Australian sport. An underlying question here is about how public historians might approach communal memory-making that remains tied to living, dynamic, powerful, popular cultures

Historiography · Iconography · Ideology · Key (lock · White (mutation · Australian History and Society · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Sports, Gender, and Society