Unfree Labour and Australia’s Obscured Pacific Histories
Towards a New Genealogy of Modern Slavery
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12647744 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stead (0000-0002-0014-3189, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, corresponding author), Lucy Davies (0000-0001-6148-668X, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 400-416 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Australian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1444-3058 • E-ISSN: 1835-6419 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14443058.2021.1956571 |
| OpenAlex | W3190719235 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 2 |
The passage of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 received bipartisan support and was heralded within both Houses of Parliament as a significant step towards addressing Australia’s complicity in modern slavery. Political discourse surrounding the legislation, however, exhibits a profound and disconcerting dehistoricisation, emphasising particularities of global supply chains and contemporary transnational capitalism. Australia’s own histories of slavery, slavery-like conditions and unfree labour are overwhelmingly absent from these narratives, which are framed instead by occasional references to the transatlantic slave trade. Attending particularly to histories of coerced Pacific labour within Australia, we analyse these absences as reflective of deeply rooted fissures of memory and power within Australia’s national imaginaries, and of the exercise of colonial power both within the settler state and in its entanglements with the region. Through reference to two threads of Pacific labour history in Australia—the struggle for recognition of the 19th-century Pacific labour trade, and the labour patterns of 20th-century Papuan and New Guinean domestic workers—we argue for an alternate genealogy of modern slavery, one that re-centres attention to race and coloniality, and attends more fully to the presence of the past in the exploitations of the present
Art · Capitalism · Colonialism · Complicity · Genealogy · Narrative · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · Australian History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy
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Making place in a place that doesn't recognise you
Sir, Ma’am, do you have an ID?’
Conceptualising domestic servitude as a violation of the human right to housing and reframing Australian policy responses
Challenging colonial logics of habit in Australiaʼs economic statecraft with Pacific Islands
The enclosure and exclusion of Australia's 'Pacific family
Deportation as a neo-colonial act
The bordering and rebordering of climate mobilities
Colonial landscapes and violent silences
Beyond the 'Triple Win
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3.25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |