Tag: DECRA

My time as a DECRA research fellow, 2016–2019

In January 2016 I took up an appointment as ARC DECRA Research Fellow in History in the School of Humanities & Social Inquiry, Faculty of Law, Humanities & the Arts at the University of Wollongong. DECRAs are a three-year fellowship, but being part-time (0.8 FTE), my fellowship stretched to 3.5 years.

My DECRA project is/was a transnational, comparative study titled ‘Chinese seeking citizenship in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, 1860 to 1920’. It’s an exploration of the history of Chinese naturalisation in the British settler colonies, which intertwines biographies and case studies with analysis of naturalisation law and policy. In essence I have been thinking about how, why and in what circumstances Chinese migrants became British subjects in New South Wales, New Zealand and British Columbia, and what it meant for them. I’ve presented on my DECRA research at various conferences and will be working on completing my databases and publishing in the future.

Being a DECRA fellow has also given me the opportunity to continue my earlier work on Chinese Australian women and families, and to embark upon the exciting adventure of running the Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour. Sophie Couchman and I have run the tour on three occasions, with about about fifty guests in total, each time collaborating with Selia Tan Jinhua from Wuyi University.

Now my DECRA has finished, I will continue on at UOW as an Honorary Fellow. I’m very lucky to have had the chance to work with such a fabulous cohort of historian colleagues at UOW – most particularly, Julia Martínez, without whom I would never have imagined that a DECRA could be within my reach.

Listed below is an assortment of things I’ve done during my fellowship and some photos that show the glamorous side of life as a jet-setting transnational historian.

With Selia Tan and Sophie Couchman, Cangdong, Kaiping, China, March 2019

Peer-reviewed publications

2019 Tim Sherratt and Kate Bagnall, ‘The people inside’, in Kevin Kee and Timothy Compeau (eds), Seeing the Past with Computers: Experiments with Augmented Reality and Computer Vision for History, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, DOI: 10.3998/mpub.9964786.

2018 ‘Potter v. Minahan: Chinese Australians, the law and belonging in White Australia’, History Australia, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 458–474, DOI: 10.1080/14490854.2018.1485503.

2018 ‘Writing home from China: Charles Allen’s transnational childhood’, in Paul Longley Arthur (ed.), Migrant Lives: Australian Culture, Society and Identity, Anthem Press, London.

2017 ‘“To his home at Jembaicumbene”: Women’s cross-cultural encounters on a colonial goldfield’, in Jacqueline Leckie, Angela McCarthy and Angela Wanhalla (eds), Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters in Asia and the Pacific, Routledge, Abingdon & New York.

In Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, July 2016

Peer-reviewed publications (in progress)

Forthcoming 2019

‘Chinese women in colonial New South Wales: From absence to presence’, Global History Review 全求史評論, vol. 16 (in Chinese).

Sophie Couchman and Kate Bagnall, ‘Memory and meaning in the search for Chinese Australian families’, in Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton (eds), Remembering Migration: Oral Histories and Heritage in Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Special issue in memory of Barry McGowan, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol. 8.

Under review

Kate Bagnall and  Julia Martínez (eds), Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility Between China and Australia, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

Kate Bagnall and Julia Martínez, ‘Chinese Australian women, migration and mobility’, in Kate Bagnall and Julia Martínez (eds), Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility Between China and Australia, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

‘Example or exception? Ham Hop and the Poon Gooey case’, in Kate Bagnall and Julia Martínez (eds), Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility Between China and Australia, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

Kate Bagnall and Tim Sherratt, ‘Missing links: Data stories from the archive of British settler colonial citizenship’, Journal of World History (submitted to special issue by invitation from Antoinette Burton)

‘Chinese women in colonial New South Wales: From absence to presence’, Journal of Biography and History

In preparation

Kate Bagnall and Peter Prince (eds), Subjects and Aliens: Histories of Nationality in Australia and New Zealand before 1948 (edited collection)

‘Chinese naturalisation in colonial New Zealand and Australia’ (book chapter)

‘Paragraph (m): Chinese wives, migration law and White Australia’ (journal article)

‘Women and the Chinese family in colonial Australia and New Zealand’ (journal article)

In Beitai, Zhongshan, China, March 2019

Tiger’s Mouth blog posts

Outside the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, July 2017

Other publications

2019 ‘Cantonese connections: The origins of Australia’s early Chinese migrants’, Traces, issue 6, pp. 43–45.

2018 ‘Chinese Australians in print’, Unbound: The National Library of Australia Magazine, September 2018.

2018 ‘The murderer and the missionary: Gazettes and newspapers in Trove uncover Chinese-Australian history’, Trove blog, 18 January.

2017 ‘A new perspective on Australia and China’ (review of Australians in Shanghai by Sophie Loy-Wilson), History Australia, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 666–67.

2017 Chinese Australians and the Immigration Restriction Act in New South Wales: A Guide to Finding Records, self-published.

2017 ‘Early Chinese newspapers: Trove presents a new perspective on Australian history’, Asian Library Resources of Australia (ALRA) Newsletter, no. 70, July.

2016 ‘Women, history and the shifting patterns of Chinese Australian life’, in John Young, Modernity’s End: Half the Sky, exhibition catalogue, Willoughby City Council, March, pp. 14–19.

Subjects and Aliens Symposium, University of Wollongong, 28 November 2017 (L–R: Emma Bellino, Kate Bagnall, Sophie Couchman, Jane Carey, Kim Rubenstein, Julia Martínez, Angela Wanhalla)

Databases

Three research databases are still in preparation:

  • Naturalized Chinese in British Columbia to 1914 (data extracted from BC Archives records; with data entry by Karen Schamberger, Sophie Couchman and Tracy Olverson)
  • Naturalized Chinese in New Zealand to 1908 (data extracted from Archives NZ records)
  • Naturalized Chinese in colonial New South Wales (data extracted from State Archives NSW records; with research and data entry by Naomi Parry)
With Sophie Couchman in Taicheng, Taishan, China, March 2019

DH projects

2017 Real Face of White Australia transcription project and website (with Tim Sherratt), <https://transcribe.realfaceofwhiteaustralia.net>.

2016 The Chinese in New South Wales: A History in Pictures to 1940, <http://baibi.github.io/chinese-in-nsw-in-pictures/>.

(in preparation) James Minahan’s Homecoming LODBook project (with Tim Sherratt) – a new form of digital publication combining historical narrative and structured data.

With Selia Tan by the Fraser River, British Columbia, July 2016

Keynotes and invited lectures

2019 ‘The Real Face of White Australia: Seeing the People Inside’, Digital Histories Research Seminar, Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology Sydney, 9 May.

2019 ‘Writing women into Chinese Australian history’, Department of History / Gender Studies Programme, University of Hong Kong, 21 March.

2018 ‘Gold Mountain guests: Cantonese settlers across the southern colonies’, public lecture, Global Dunedin Lecture Series, Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, 10 June.

2018 ‘“All the rights and capacities”? Chinese naturalisation and colonial mobility’, keynote lecture, Amidst Empires: Colonialism, China and the Chinese, 1839–1997, Flinders University, Adelaide, 29–30 January.

2017 ‘Australia and China: Before and below the nation’, keynote and public lecture, Looking Back, Moving Forward: Symposium on the Future of Australia-China Relations, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, 24 October.

2016 ‘Communities in the Qing era: The Chinese in Australia’, public lecture, National Library of Australia, 24 January.

In Cangdong, Kaiping, China, December 2018

Conference papers

( * invited)

2019 ‘From Hong Kong to Sydney: The voyage of the Glamis Castle, 1881’, ‘All Roads Lead to Hong Kong’: Hong Kong History Project Conference, University of Hong Kong, 5–7 June.

*2018 ‘White women and the transnational Chinese family in colonial New South Wales’, 2018 International Symposium on Transnational Migration and Qiaoxiang Studies: International Migration Research from a Gendered Vantage Point, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, China, 8–9 December.

2018 ‘White women, Chinese men: Interracial intimacies in colonial New South Wales’, 2018 International Federation for Research on Women’s History Conference, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, 9–11 August.

2018 ‘Chinese Australian families and the legacies of colonial naturalisation’, Australian Historical Association Conference, Australian National University, 2–6 July.

*2017 ‘Communication and collaboration in the digital age’, Related Histories: Studying the Family, National Library of Australia, 29 November.

2017 ‘Chinese restriction, naturalisation and mobility in colonial and post-Federation Australia’, Subjects and Aliens: Histories of Nationality in Australia and New Zealand, University of Wollongong, 28 November.

2017 ‘Chinese women in colonial New South Wales: A case study approach’, International Conference on Chinese Women in World History, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 11–14 July.

2017 ‘Naturalisation and Chinese restriction in colonial Australasia’, Entangled Histories: Australian Historical Association Conference, University of Newcastle, 3–7 July.

*2017 ‘Naturalised Chinese in colonial Australia’, Beyond the New Gold Mountain: Chinese Community Council of Australia (Victoria) 2017 Conference, RMIT, Melbourne, 24 June.

2016 ‘Naturalised Chinese in British settler societies of the Pacific Rim, 1860 to 1920’, Colonial Formations: Connections and Collisions, University of Wollongong, 23–25 November.

2016 ‘Potter v. Minahan 1908: a legal challenge to White Australia’, 9th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO), Richmond BC, Canada, 6–8 July.

*2016 ‘A culture of suspicion: Chinese at the border of White Australia’, The Commonwealth Department of Immigration—Then and Now, La Trobe University, 19 February.

In Taipei, Taiwan, with Mei-fen Kuo, Julia Martínez and Sophie Loy-Wilson, July 2017

Community talks and outreach

2019 ‘Tracing the origins of Chinese Australian ancestors’, webinar, Society for Australian Genealogists, 15 April.

2018 ‘Researching Chinese Australian families’, Sailing into History: NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies Annual Conference, Bateman’s Bay, 15–16 September.

2017 ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families’, U3A Wollongong, 23 October.

2017 ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families – 8 sources to know’, Deniliquin Family History Expo, Deniliquin Genealogy Society, Deniliquin, 14 October.

2017 ‘Women and the records of White Australia’, Real Face of White Australia Transcribe-a-Thon, Museum of Australian Democracy, 9 September.

2017 ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families’, Family History Month workshop, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 August.

2016 ‘From Canton to the colonies: Chinese women in nineteenth-century New South Wales’, History Week talk sponsored by Wollongong City Libraries, Corrimal District Library, 7 September.

2016 ‘Researching Chinese Australian family history’, 2-hour seminar, Society of Australian Genealogists, Sydney, 30 April.

2016 ‘Women, history and the shifting patterns of Chinese Australian life’, opening of John Young Zerunge’s Modernity’s End: Half the Sky exhibition, Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby City Council, Willoughby, 2 March.

At the top of Mingshilou, Zili, Kaiping, China, January 2018

Study tour

2017–2019 ‘Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour’

I organised and hosted, with Sophie Couchman, an annual history and heritage study tour to Hong Kong and Guangdong for 15–20 guests; participants included Chinese Australian family historians, writers, heritage practitioners and postgraduate students

Our first tour was held from 22 to 31 March 2017:

Our second tour was held from 14 to 24 January 2018:

Our third tour was held from 6 to 17 March 2019: 2019 brochure (pdf, 1.7mb)

With Guo Feixiang in Yuanxia, Baiyun, Guangzhou, China, June 2019

Teaching and supervision

Higher Degree Research supervision

Emma Bellino, PhD, School of Humanities & Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong – ‘Marriage, women’s nationality, and Australia’s Asian communities in the early twentieth century’ (commenced 2017; UOW PhD scholarship tied to my DECRA fellowship)

Undergraduate lectures

2019 ‘Theory & skills – Working with digital archives: The Chinese in Australia’, History Honours HIST470, University of Wollongong, 12 April

2019 ‘The Chinese diaspora in Australia’, CCGL9056 How We Move: Migration, Border Crossing, and Identity, University of Hong Kong, 20 March

2018 ‘Developing a research project: Charlie Allen’s transnational childhood’, Hands On History HIST281, University of Wollongong, 17 September

2018 ‘Theory & skills – Working with digital archives: The Chinese in Australia’, History Honours HIST470, University of Wollongong, 4 May

2017 ‘The archives of White Australia’, Exploring Digital Heritage 10154.1, University of Canberra, 15 August

2017 ‘Doing history in the digital age’, Making History HIST355, University of Wollongong, 29 August

2017 ‘Developing a research project: Charlie Allen’s transnational childhood’, Hands On History HIST281, University of Wollongong, 22 August

2017 ‘Doing history in the digital age’, UOW Discovery Days, University of Wollongong, 10 February

2016 ‘Historical research in the digital age’, Making History HIST355, University of Wollongong, 6 October

2016 ‘Using sources: The curious case of Ernest Sung Yee’, Hands On History HIST281, University of Wollongong, 7 September

With Tim Sherratt at the Deniliquin Family History Expo, October 2017

Grant and publication review

Peer review

University of Sydney Press; Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History; Australian Historical Studies; Journal of Australian Studies; History Australia; New Zealand Journal of History; Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand; Australasian Journal of Irish Studies; Limina

Grant assessment

ARC Discovery Project, 2018; Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund Standard Grant, 2018

Being interviewed by Siobhan Heanue, ABC TV, Museum of Australian Democracy, September 2017

Other professional and outreach activities

Conference and event organisation

2017 Convenor, Subjects and Aliens Symposium, University of Wollongong, 28 November.

2017 Co-organiser with Tim Sherratt, Real Face of White Australia Transcribe-a-Thon, Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra, 9–10 September.

Professional presentations and activities

2019 Presented on ‘Collaboration and communication: Engaging with public audiences’, Early Career Convivium, School of Humanities, University of Hong Kong, 20 March

2017 Co-organised (with Claire Lowrie) and presented at the ‘Invited Workshop on Digital Humanities and ARC Linkage Projects’, University of Wollongong

2017 Participated in the invitation-only ‘Under the Southern Cross’ Chinese Australian history book project workshop, University of Technology Sydney

2017 Social media and blog manager for the UOW Colonial and Settler Studies Network

2016 Presented on my DECRA project at the UOW Research Week ‘History Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers’ event, University of Wollongong

2016 Participated in an invitation-only workshop on the ‘Cantonese Pacific in the Making of the Modern World’, University of British Columbia

2016 Participated in the invitation-only ‘Whisper Workshop 2016’ (linking university researchers with creative and cultural industries), Australian National University

2016 Spoke about my career path from PhD to DECRA at the ACHRC Humanities in the Regions symposium ‘Humanities in the Regions: Building Capacity Through Connectivity and Knowledge’, University of Wollongong

2016 Spoke on my DECRA project at the UOW LHA Early Career Research Presentations with the Vice Chancellor, University of Wollongong

Exhibitions

2017 Co-ordinator and contributor to ‘Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility Between Australia and China’, a historical photographic exhibition on display at the Feminist Research Network Symposium, University of Wollongong,
September

2017 Contributor to ‘Chinese Fortunes’, on display at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka (January to July 2017); Immigration Museum Melbourne (August 2017 to March 2018)

Training

  • Fundamentals of Higher Degree Research Supervision, University of Wollongong, October 2018
  • Project Management – Introduction, University of Wollongong, May 2016
With actor John Jarratt on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, May 2017

Media

Television

2018 Historical advisor assisting John Jarratt, Who Do You Think You Are?, Series 9, Episode 4, broadcast on SBS TV, 8 May.

2017 Interview with Siobhan Heanue, ABC News Canberra, broadcast on ABC TV evening news and ABC News 24 late news, 3 September.

Radio

2019 Podcast interview with Valerie Khoo, New Stories, Bold Legends: Stories from Sydney Lunar Festival, February.

2018 Interview with Keri Philips, ‘Chinese immigration to Australia’, Rear Vision, ABC Radio National, 2 September.

2018 Historical advisor to Jane Lee, ‘William Ah Ket: the first Chinese-Australian barrister’, The History Listen, ABC Radio National, 28 August.

2017 Broadcast of ‘Australia and China: Before and below the nation’, recorded at the University of Sydney, 24 October 2017, Radio National Big Ideas, 11 December.

Print and online

2018 Quoted in Jason Fang, ‘200 years of Chinese-Australians: First settler’s descendants reconnect with their roots’, ABC News online, 10 June.

2018 Quoted in Isabella Kwai, ‘200 years on, Chinese-Australians are still proving they belong’, New York Times, 7 May; also published as Isabella Kwai, ‘Years on, Chinese Australians are still proving they belong’, Straits Times, 8 May.

2017 Featured in 45 Years, 45 Stories: Celebrating 45 Years of Australia–China Diplomatic Relations, Australian Government.

2017 Quoted in Siobhan Heanue, ‘White Australia Policy: Documents reveal personal stories of life under Immigration Restriction Act’, ABC News online, 4 September.

2016 Katherine Crane, ‘Q & A with Kate Bagnall: Authors at the National Library’, National Library of Australia blog, 15 January.

2018 International Symposium on Transnational Migration and Qiaoxiang Studies: International Migration Research from a Gendered Vantage Point, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, China, 8–9 December 2018

Travel

I drove up and down the highway between Canberra and Wollongong and Sydney a lot, but here’s a list of the more distant places I travelled to:

  • July 2016: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – workshop, conference and archival research
  • March 2017: Hong Kong and Guangdong, China – 2017 Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour, fieldwork and archival research
  • June 2017: Adelaide and Melbourne – archival research and conference
  • July 2017: Newcastle – conference
  • July 2017: Taipei, Taiwan – conference
  • August 2017: Byron Bay – meeting
  • October 2017: Deniliquin – family history conference
  • January 2018: Hong Kong and Guangdong, China – 2018 Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour and fieldwork
  • January 2018: Adelaide – conference
  • June 2018: Wellington and Dunedin, New Zealand – archival research and public lecture
  • August 2018: Vancouver, Ottawa, and Victoria BC, Canada – conference and archival research
  • December 2018: Jiangmen, China – conference and fieldwork
  • March 2019: Hong Kong and Guangdong, China – 2019 Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour and presentations at the University of Hong Kong
  • May 2019: Wellington, New Zealand – archival research and meetings
  • June 2019: Hong Kong, Guangdong (Zhuhai and Guangzhou), Macau – conference and fieldwork
With Sophie Couchman in Zhaoyangli, Kaiping, China, March 2017 (photo: Jonathan O’Donnell)

Thanks

Finally, some thanks.

To my research assistants: Karen Schamberger, Naomi Parry, Sophie Couchman and Tracy Olverson.

To my co-authors and collaborators: Sophie Couchman, Julia Martínez and Tim Sherratt.

To the staff at: the National Library of Australia and Trove, National Archives of Australia, State Archives NSW, State Library NSW, Archives NZ, Hocken Library, National Library of New Zealand, Digital NZ, NZ Presbyterian Archives, HK Public Record Office, Wuyi Qiaoxiang Culture Research Centre, British Columbia Archives, Vancouver City Archives, City of Victoria Archives, Library Archives Canada, UBC Library, China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, University of Wollongong Library.

To those who have offered me opportunities, shown me kindness, and helped, encouraged and supported me along the way over the past four years, especially when I’ve been far from home:

Tony Ballantyne, James Beattie, Emma Bellino, Dorry Chen Meixian, Chen Ruihuai, Georgine Clarsen, Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shawn Graham, Guo Feixiang, Min Guo, Ben He Zhibin, Carrie Huang Qiaoyi, Di Kelly, Nicki Kemp, Alastair Kerr and Lynn Smith, Tseen Khoo, Vivian Kong, Mei-fen Kuo, Elizabeth LaCouture, Catherine Ladds, Amy Li Dongmei, Sophie Liang Lu, Claire Lowrie, Sophie Loy-Wilson, Jane McCabe, Vera Mackie, Laura Madokoro, Megan Neilson, Amy Nichol, Jonathan O’Donnell, Lachy Paterson, Jayne Persian, Jason Petrulis, David Pomfret, Peter Prince, Kim Rubenstein, Frances Steel, Selia Tan Jinhua, Angela Wanhalla, Howard Wilson, Dawn Wong, Tori Wright, Simon Ville, Henry Yu, Angel Zhao Ruizhu.

2018 in review

This has been the final full year of my DECRA fellowship, and I’ve been focusing on completing some writing projects and getting my international research finished.

Consequently I’ve spent a lot of time away from home this year, with two long international research trips to New Zealand and Canada, as well as trips to China in January for the second Hometown Heritage Tour and in December for a conference at Wuyi University. I’ve also been to Adelaide and Sydney, and up and down the highway between Canberra and Wollongong.

I’m particularly happy that my essays on Charlie Allen’s letters and the Potter v. Minahan High Court case have finally made it to print, and that our co-edited volume on Chinese Australian women’s history is well on it’s way too. I am a slow scholar – in the past because I’ve had to fit my research around other paid work and family responsibilities, but I realise that even now I need time to read and sit with my sources, to write and rewrite and craft my words. I’m very glad to have had the pleasure of co-writing work this year with Tim Sherratt, Sophie Couchman and Julia Martínez, all of which I hope will be out next year.

I have a further six months of my DECRA in 2019 before I move into a different role at the University of Wollongong from July 2019. It’s already looking like a busy time: a third Hometown Heritage Tour and a lecture at Hong Kong University in March; another research trip to Wellington, New Zealand, and a webinar for the Society of Australian Genealogists in April; a Digital Humanities Research Seminar at UTS in May; (hopefully) a conference in Hong Kong in June; and various writing projects to complete along the way.

But before all that, a good long holiday.

Publications

Articles and book chapters
Other writing
The Tiger’s Mouth blog

Publications in progress

Manuscripts submitted
  • Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility Between China and Australia (co-edited with Julia Martínez), Hong Kong University Press (reviewers reports received November 2018; forthcoming 2019)
  • ‘The people inside’ (co-written with Tim Sherratt) for Kevin Kee and Timothy Compeau (eds), Seeing the Past with Computers: Experiments with Augmented Reality and Computer Vision for History, University of Michigan Press (forthcoming 2019)
  • ‘Memory and meaning in the search for Chinese Australian families’ (co-written with Sophie Couchman) for Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton (eds), Remembering Migration: Oral Histories and Heritage in Australia, Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming 2019)
  • ‘Chinese women in colonial New South Wales: From absence to presence’ for a special issue of Global History Review 全求史評論 on ‘Women and Gender from a Global Perspective’ edited by Qin Fang
Manuscripts in progress
  • Writing: Article on ‘uncovering the history of naturalisation using digital methods’ (co-written with Tim Sherratt) for a special issue of the Journal of World History on ‘Digital Methods/Empire Histories’ edited by Antoinette Burton (to be submitted in February 2019)
  • Writing: Article on ‘the transnational Chinese family in the Tasman colonies (NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand’
  • Writing: James Minahan’s Homecoming LODBook digital humanities project (with Tim Sherratt)
  • Editing: Special issue of Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies in memory of Dr Barry McGowan (forthcoming September 2019)
  • Editing: ‘Subjects and Aliens’ edited volume based on my 2017 symposium at UOW (to be submitted to ANU Press in 2019)

Conferences and public lectures

  • Presented the keynote at ‘Amidst Empires: Colonialism, China and the Chinese, 1839-1997’, Flinders University, Adelaide, 29–30 January 2017: ‘“All the rights and capacities”? Chinese naturalisation and colonial mobility’
  • Presented a public lecture as part of the Global Dunedin Series, Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, 10 June 2018: ‘Gold Mountain guests: Cantonese settlers across the southern colonies’
  • Presented at the Australian Historical Association 2018 at the ANU, Canberra, 2–6 July 2018: ‘Chinese Australian families and the legacies of colonial naturalisation’ (as part of a panel with Emma Bellino and Sophie Couchman)
  • Presented at the International Federation for Research in Women’s History, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, 9–12 August 2018: ‘White women, Chinese men: Interracial intimacies in colonial New South Wales’
  • Presented at the 2018 International Symposium on Transnational Migration and Qiaoxiang Studies: International Migration Research from a Gendered Vantage Point, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, China, 8–9 December 2018: ‘White women and the transnational Chinese family in colonial New South Wales’
Presenting at the 2018 International Symposium on Transnational Migration and Qiaoxiang Studies, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, China, 8 December 2018

Research

  • January: Village fieldwork in Xiangzhou (Zhuhai) and Cuiheng (Zhongshan), Guangdong, China (3 days)
  • May: Archival research on NZ Chinese naturalisation in Archives New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand (2 weeks)
  • June: Archival research on NZ Chinese naturalisation in Archives New Zealand, Presbyterian Archives, Hocken Library, Toitū, Dunedin, New Zealand (2 weeks)
  • August: Archival research on BC Chinese naturalisation in Libraries and Archives Canada, Ottawa (2 weeks) and British Columbia Archives, Victoria (2 days)
  • December: Fieldwork in Kaiping and Jiangmen, Guangdong, China (3 days)
  • Managed two research assistants undertaking research for my DECRA project (Dr Naomi Parry and Dr Sophie Couchman)

Outreach

With Selia Tan and the 2018 Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour group in one of the restored houses in Cangdong village, Tangkou, Kaiping, January 2018 (photo credit: Sophie Couchman)

Peer review

  • Australian Historical Studies
  • Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
  • History Australia
  • University of Sydney Press
  • ARC 2018 Discovery Project review
  • Royal Society of NZ 2018 Marsden Fund review
  • Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand

Supervision and teaching

  • HDR supervision of Emma Bellino, PhD candidate, UOW
  • Delivered a guest lecture on ‘Theory & skills – Working with digital archives: The Chinese in Australia’, History Honours HIST470, University of Wollongong, 4 May 2018
  • Delivered a guest lecture on ‘Developing a research project: Charlie Allen’s transnational childhood’, Hands On History HIST281, University of Wollongong, 17 September 2018

Professional activities and networking

  • Met with Lin Zhihui, PhD candidate, Department of History, Baptist University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 14 January 2018
  • Met with Dr Selia Tan, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, 17–19 January 2018, and 10–11 December 2018
  • Met with Dr Elizabeth La Couture, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 24 January 2018
  • Attended ANU School of History seminar by Shauna Bostock-Smith, ‘From Colonisation to My Generation: The History of an Aboriginal Family Group over Several Generations’, 28 February 2018
  • Attended UOW Feminist Research Network seminar by Associate Professor Jane Haggis, ‘Indian Women Touring Europe in the 1930s’, and launch of Dr Sharon Crozier-De Rosa’s book, Shame and the Anti-Feminist Backlash, 19 March 2018
  • Met with Professor Sydney Shep, Professor Duncan Campbell and Ya-Wen Ho, Chinese Type Project, Victoria University of Wellington, 25 May 2018
  • Met with Richard Foy, Chief Archivist, Archives New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, 28 May 2018
  • Met with Dr Jane McCabe, Dr Lachy Paterson and Associate Professor Angela Wanhalla (Otago University), Associate Professor James Beattie (Victoria University of Wellington), James and Eva Ng (community historians), Dunedin, New Zealand, June 2018
  • Attended Dr Tim Sherratt’s Digital History Drop-In held in conjunction with the Australian Historical Association Conference at the ANU, Canberra, 2 July 2018
  • Met with writer Dr Mirandi Riwoe, Canberra, 24 July 2018
  • Met with Dr Laura Madokoro, McGill University, Ottawa, 15 and 20 August 2018
  • Met with Associate Professor Shawn Graham, Carleton University, Ottawa, 16 August 2018
  • Attended funeral of Dr Barry McGowan, historian of Chinese in rural NSW/Victoria and Chinese mining in Australia, 7 September 2018
  • Attended ‘Fundamentals of Higher Degree Research Supervision’ training by Hugh Kearns, 10 October 2018
  • Attended a UOW Centre for Colonial and Settler Studies guest lecture by Professor Alison Bashford, ‘World History and the Tasman Sea’, University of Wollongong, 24 October 2018
  • Met with Associate Professor Henry Yu, University of British Columbia, Jiangmen, China, 10–11 December 2018

Media

With John Jarratt at the National Library of Australia in Who Do You Think You Are? Series 9

Citations

Citations to my work are included in the 2018 publications listed below.

  • Ruth Balint & Zora Simic, ‘Histories of migrants and refugees in Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 378–409, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2018.1479438
  • Ashley Barnwell and Joseph Cummins, Reckoning with the Past: Family Historiographies in Postcolonial Australian Literature, Routledge, 2018
  • Rebecca Cairns, ‘The Representation of Asia in Victorian Senior Secondary History Curriculum’, PhD thesis, School of Education, Deakin University, 2018
  • Ellen Broad, Made by Humans: The AI Condition, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018
  • Natalie Fong, ‘The significance of the Northern Territory in the formulation of “White Australia” policies, 1880–1901′, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 527–45, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2018.1515963
  • Rohan Howitt, ‘The Japanese Antarctic Expedition and the idea of White Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 510–26, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2018.1509881
  • Erin Ihde, ‘A Chinese-hating American in colonial Australia?: Misconstruing “Monitor Hall”, Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 20, July 2018, pp. 123–38
  • Nicholas Jose, ‘Gifts from China: The big story of Sino–Australian relations‘, Griffith Review 61: Who We Are, July 2018, https://griffithreview.com/articles/gifts-from-china-australia-relations/
  • Alanna Kamp, ‘Chinese Australian women’s “homemaking” and contributions to the family economy in White Australia’, Australian Geographer, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 149–65, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/00049182.2017.1327783
  • Tiger Zhifu Li, ‘Dancing with the Dragon: Australia’s Diplomatic Relations with China (1901–1941)’,  M.A. (Res.) thesis, University of Sydney, 2018
  • Elizabeth Malcolm and Dianne Hall, A New History of the Irish in Australia, New South, Sydney, 2018
  • Trevor Owens, The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2018
  • Nadia Rhook, ‘Affective counter networks: Healing, trade, and Indian strategies of in/dependence in early “White Melbourne”‘, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, vol. 19, no. 2, 2018
  • Rachel Stevens & Seamus O’Hanlon, ‘Intimate oral histories: Intercultural romantic relationships in postwar Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 359–77, DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2018.1486444
  • WANG Min 王敏, ‘The lack and reconstruction of female history in Chinese Australian studies in the 19th century‘ 19世纪澳洲华人研究中女性史的缺失与重构, Journal of Overseas Chinese History Studies 华侨华人历史研究, no. 3, September 2018, pp. 22–29
  • Mitchell Whitelaw, ‘Mashups and matters of concern: Generative approaches to digital collections’,  Open Library of Humanities, vol. 4, no. 1, 2018, DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.291
  • Michael Williams, Returning Home with Glory: Chinese Villagers around the Pacific, 1849 to 1949, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 2018
  • Michael Woods, ‘Rural cosmopolitanism at the frontier? Chinese farmers and community relations in northern Queensland, c.1890–1920′, Australian Geographer, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 107–131, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/00049182.2017.1327785

2017 in review

Here are some of my 2017 highlights, and a monthly rundown of the many and varied things that occupied my time this year!

Archive research visits

  • HK PRO, March 2017
  • NAA Adelaide, June 2017
  • State Records NSW, December 2017
  • NAA Sydney, December 2017
  • NAA Canberra, December 2017

Publications

  • published ‘ “To his home at Jembaicumbene”: Women’s cross-cultural encounters on a colonial goldfield’, in Jacqueline Leckie, Angela McCarthy and Angela Wanhalla (eds), Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters in Asia and the Pacific, Routledge, Abingdon & New York, 2017
  • published ‘A new perspective on Australia and China’ (review of Australians in Shanghai by Sophie Loy-Wilson), History Australia, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 666–67, https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2017.1384344
  • published Chinese Australians and the Immigration Restriction Act in New South Wales: A guide to finding records, August 2017
  • submitted manuscript of Locating Chinese Women, edited collection with Julia Martínez, to HKU Press (editor has requested an extended introduction for international readership)
  • submitted ‘Potter v. Minahan: Chinese Australians and the intimacies of belonging in White Australia’ to History Australia (referees have requested major revisions)
  • checked final proofs of ‘Writing home from China: Charles Allen’s transnational childhood’, forthcoming (2017) in Paul Arthur (ed.), Migrant Lives: Australian Culture, Society and Identity, Anthem Press
  • checked copyedits of ‘The people inside’, forthcoming (2018) in Kevin Kee (ed.), Seeing the Past: Augmented Reality and Computer Vision in History, University of Michigan Press
  • accepted an invitation to contribute a chapter on ‘Searching for Chinese Australian homelands’ to Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton (eds), Remembering Migration: Oral Histories and Heritage, Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming 2019)
With Selia Tan in the Chinese Camp at Sovereign Hill, June 2017 (it was really cold!)

Conferences presentations

  • ‘Naturalised Chinese in Colonial Australia’, Beyond the New Gold Mountain: CCAV 2017 Conference, RMIT, Melbourne, 24 June 2017
  • ‘Naturalisation and Chinese Restriction in Colonial Australasia’, Australian Historical Association Conference, University of Newcastle, 4–7 July 2017
  • ‘Chinese women in colonial New South Wales: A case study approach’, International Conference on Chinese Women in World History, Institute for Modern History at Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11–14 July 2017
  • photographic exhibition on Chinese Australian women’s history, Feminist Research Network symposium, UOW, 25 September 2017
  • ‘Australia and China: Before and Below the Nation’, keynote address, ‘Looking Back, Moving Forward: Symposium on the Future of Australia–China Relations’, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, 24 October 2017
  • ‘Chinese restriction, naturalisation and mobility in colonial and post-Federation Australia’, Subjects and Aliens symposium, UOW, 28 November 2017
  • ‘Communication and collaboration in the digital age’, Related Histories: Studying the Family, National Library of Australia, 29 November 2017

Conference organisation

Talks and workshops

  • ‘Under the Southern Cross’ book project workshop, UTS, 18 February 2017
  • ‘Invited Workshop on Digital Humanities and ARC Linkage Projects’, UOW, 20 April 2017
  • ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families‘ for Family History Month at the State Library of New South Wales, 30 August 2017
  • ‘Women and the records of White Australia’ in the House of Representatives chamber, Old Parliament House, as part of the ‘Real Face of White Australia’ transcribe-a-thon, 9 September 2017
  • ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families’ at the Deniliquin Family History Expo, 13–14 October 2017
  • ‘Early Chinese families in New South Wales’, Wollongong U3A, 23 October 2017

Public outreach

With Mei-fen Kuo, Julia Martínez and Sophie Loy-Wilson at the top of Taipei 101, July 2017 (it was really hot!)

Month by month

January

  • copyediting and compiling the manuscript of Locating Chinese Women (R)
  • admin tasks relating to the admission of my new UOW PhD student, Emma Bellino (R)
  • peer review of an article for LIMINA: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies (an online open access journal run by a postgraduate collective) (R)
  • feedback on a chapter of Meg Foster’s PhD thesis (about Chinese bushranger Sam Poo) (R)
  • admin tasks for the Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • two weeks’ holiday!

February

  • ongoing copyediting and compiling the manuscript of Locating Chinese Women (R)
  • HSI School meeting on 7 February 2017 (G&S)
  • CDI meeting on 7 February 2017, and worked on my ‘Performance Enhancement & Career Development Record’ for 2017 (G&S)
  • prepared and presented 45-minute lecture on ‘Doing History in the Digital Age’ to 95 high-school students for UOW Discovery Days on 10 February 2017 (G&S)
  • History discipline meeting on 10 February 2017 (G&S)
  • HDR supervision admin and meetings (R)
  • feedback on an ARC Discovery project application for UOW History colleagues (R)
  • attended ‘Under the Southern Cross’ book project workshop at UTS on 18 February 2017 (G&S)
  • attended welcome lunch for new HDR students at UOW on 22 February 2017 (G&S)
  • feedback on one article at the CASS WIP reading group on 23 February 2017 (R)
  • LHA Faculty Forum on 23 February 2017 (G&S)
  • admin tasks for the Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • admin tasks (Twitter and website) as Social Media Officer for UOW Colonial & Settler Studies (CASS) Network (G&S)

March

  • CASS 2017 planning meeting on 3 March 2017 (G&S)
  • attended CASS HDR welcome event on 3 March 2017 (G&S)
  • HDR supervision admin, meeting and correspondence (R)
  • completed my ‘Performance Enhancement & Career Development Record’ for 2017 (G&S)
  • ongoing copyediting and compiling the manuscript of Locating Chinese Women (R)
  • met with Claire Lowrie (UOW), Kerry Ross (UOW) and Tim Sherratt (University of Canberra) to organise the ARC Linkage Invited Workshop on Linkage Grants and Digital Humanities, 15 and 16 March 2017 (G&S)
  • admin tasks for the Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • fieldwork visits to Zhuhai Museum, Hong Kong-Macao Transient Fishermen Culture Exhibition Hall (Xiangzhou, Zhuhai), Yang Great Ancestral Hall (Beishan, Zhuhai), St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery and Hong Kong Cemetery (Happy Valley, HK), Dr Sun Yat-Sen Museum (Central, HK), Hong Kong Museum of History, 19–22 March 2017 (R)
  • archival research in Hong Kong Public Records Office relating to the 1881 journey of the Glamis Castle, 23 March 2017 (R)
  • hosted Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour to Hong Kong and Guangdong, 22–31 March 2017 (G&S)

April

  • post-tour admin and correspondence for the Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • provided advice and met with Who Do You Think You Are? researchers and producers about Hamilton/Ah Yott family of Jembaicumbene (G&S)
  • attended Tim Sherratt’s Digital Humanities Lecture and reception (co-organised by LHA and UOW Library) on 19 April 2017 (G&S)
  • co-organised, facilitated and spoke at the Invited Workshop on Digital Humanities and ARC Linkage Projects (sponsored by the UOW Centre for Critical Human Rights Research), UOW, 20 April 2017 (R)
  • ongoing copyediting and compiling the manuscript of Locating Chinese Women (R)
  • drafting of Introduction to Locating Chinese Women (R)
  • met twice with Alopi Latekefu and Harold Weldon (Australia–China Council) about commemoration of Australia-China Council 40th anniversary
  • HDR supervision meeting and correspondence (R)

May

  • ongoing copyediting and compilation of the manuscript of Locating Chinese Women, including image requests and author revisions (R)
  • drafting of Introduction to Locating Chinese Women (R)
  • HDR supervision admin, meeting and correspondence (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • travel approvals and bookings for research/conference travel in June (Adelaide & Melbourne), July (Newcastle; Taiwan) and August (Byron Bay) (R)
  • filming for Who Do You Think You Are? episode at National Library of Australia, 21 May 2017 (G&S)
  • initial organisation for nationality & citizenship research symposium (G&S)
  • drafting conference paper for Chinese Women in World History conference in July (R)

June

  • CASS Work-in-Progress Reading Group, who reviewed my paper for Chinese Women in World History conference (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • finalised manuscript of Locating Chinese Women book and sent to publisher (R)
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • ongoing organisation for nationality & citizenship research symposium (G&S)
  • submitted written conference paper for Chinese Women in World History conference in July 2017 (R)
  • attended talk on ‘The UNESCO World Heritage diaolou towers of southern China and their Australian links’ by Dr Selia Tan from Wuyi University at State Library of New South Wales, 16 June 2017 (R)
  • research visit to National Archives of Australia in Adelaide, 20 June 2017 (R)
  • presented a paper, ‘Naturalised Chinese in Colonial Australia’, at the Beyond the New Gold Mountain: CCAV 2017 Conference, RMIT, Melbourne, 24 June 2017 (R)
  • reviewed an article for the New Zealand Journal of History (R)

July

  • attended and presented a paper at the Australian Historical Association Conference, University of Newcastle, 4–7 July 2017 – my paper, ‘Naturalisation and Chinese Restriction in Colonial Australasia’, was in a panel on ‘Reluctant entanglement: Resistance to migrations’ with Jayne Persian (USQ) and Melanie Burkett (Macquarie University) (R)
  • attended and presented a paper at the International Conference on Chinese Women in World History, Institute for Modern History at Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11–14 July 2017 – my paper was titled ‘Chinese women in colonial New South Wales: A case study approach’
  • wrote and submitted my ‘Potter v. Minahan: Chinese Australians and the intimacies of belonging in White Australia’ article for a forthcoming Colonial Formations special issue of History Australia (R)
  • met with visiting University of Bristol PhD student, Vivian Kong, who is working with the Hong Kong History Project (R)
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)

August

  • reviewed the final copyedited version of my ‘Writing home from China’ chapter about Charles Allen (R)
  • had handover meeting with my research assistant Dr Karen Schamberger following the end of her contract (R)
  • met with Elaine van Kempen, literary executor for Eric Rolls, regarding his books on Chinese Australian history, Sojourners and Citizens (R)
  • presented a talk on using primary sources to HIST281 Hands-on History students at the University of Wollongong on 22 August 2017 (G&S)
  • delivered a one-hour lecture on ‘Doing history in the digital age’ for HIST355 Making History at the University of Wollongong on 29 August 2017 (G&S)
  • presented a talk on ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families‘ to about 25 people at the State Library of New South Wales on 30 August 2017 as part of Family History Month (G&S)
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • prepared a strategy document for the UOW Colonial and Settler Studies Network website, blog and Twitter account; refreshed the CASS website design and content; met with the CASS RA to handover website and blog management (G&S)
  • organisation for the ‘Real Face of White Australia’ transcribe-a-thon to be held at the Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra, in September (G&S)
  • organisation for mini-exhibition on Chinese Australian women to be held during the Feminist Research Network symposium at UOW in September 2017 (R)
  • planning and organisation for second Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour, to be held in January 2018 (G&S)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • sick for a week

September

  • media interview with Siobhan Heanue from ABC News Canberra, broadcast on ABC TV evening news and ABC News 24 late news on 3 September 2017 (G&S)
  • quoted in ‘White Australia Policy: Documents reveal personal stories of life under Immigration Restriction Act‘, ABC Online, 4 September 2017 (G&S)
  • with Associate Professor Tim Sherratt from the University of Canberra and his students, ran the ‘Real Face of White Australia’ transcribe-a-thon weekend at the Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra, 9–10 September 2017 (G&S)
  • presented a talk on ‘Women and the records of White Australia’ in the House of Representatives chamber, Old Parliament House, as part of the ‘Real Face of White Australia’ transcribe-a-thon, 9 September 2017 (R)
  • held a Chinese Australian family history drop-in session with Dr Sophie Couchman at the Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra, 10 September 2017 (G&S)
  • photographic exhibition and presentation on Chinese Australian women – Feminist Research Network symposium, 25 September 2017 at UOW (R)
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • CASS blog admin, including publishing a blog post by Virginia Marshall (G&S)
  • planning and organisation for the 2018 Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • planning and organisation for the Subjects and Aliens symposium (R)

October

  • on leave for a week for school holidays
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • attended the Deniliquin Family History Expo and presented a talk on ‘Researching early Chinese Australian families’, 13–14 October 2017
  • presented a lecture to the Wollongong U3A on ‘Early Chinese families in New South Wales’, 23 October 2017 (G&S)
  • wrote and presented the keynote address at the Sydney University China Studies Centre symposium, ‘Looking Back, Moving Forward: Symposium on the Future of Australia–China Relations’, 24 October 2017 – my keynote was titled ‘Australia and China: Before and Below the Nation’ and was publicised as part of the Sydney Ideas lecture series (R)
  • organisation and admin tasks for the 2018 Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • planning and organisation for the Subjects and Aliens symposium (R)

November

  • correspondence about image copyright for my ‘Writing home from China’ book chapter (R)
  • CASS blog admin, including publishing a blog post by Adam Barker (G&S)
  • convened Subjects and Aliens, the CASS 2017 symposium, on 28 November 2017 (R)
  • presented a paper, ‘Chinese restriction, naturalisation and mobility in colonial and post-Federation Australia’, at the Subjects and Aliens symposium, 28 November 2017 (R)
  • presented a paper at Related Histories: Studying the Family, held at the National Library of Australia, 29 November 2017 – my paper was titled ‘Communication and collaboration in the digital age’ (R)
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • admin tasks and correspondence for the 2018 Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • prepared my contribution to the Australian Government’s 45 Years, 45 Stories website, to celebrate 45 years of Australia–PRC relations, published 24 November 2017 (G&S)
  • drafted a blog post for Trove highlighting the use of historical newspapers and the NSW Government Gazette (G&S)

December

  • admin following the Subjects and Aliens symposium (R)
  • CASS blog admin, including publishing an event review by Emma Bellino (G&S)
  • HDR supervision meetings and correspondence (R)
  • DECRA budget and finance administration (R)
  • oragnisation and correspondence for the 2018 Hometown Heritage Tour (G&S)
  • research on Chinese naturalisation (Colonial Secretary’s correspondence) at State Records NSW, 5–7 December 2017 (R)
  • met with my research assistant Dr Naomi Parry, 5 December 2017 (R)
  • met with Penny Stannard from State Records NSW about Chinese Australian family research, 5 December 2017 (G&S)
  • met with University of Queensland PhD candidate Natalie Fong to discuss her research on Chinese women in the NT, 14 December 2017 (G&S)
  • research at NAA Canberra, 14 December 2017 (R)
  • research at NAA Sydney, 20 December 2017 (R)
  • two weeks’ holiday before and after Christmas!

As a Level B Research Fellow at the University of Wollongong, I am required to meet ‘Level 2’ for Research and ‘Level 1’ for Governance & Service according to the UOW Academic Performance Framework. I am 0.8FTE, working 28 hours per week (80% Research, 20% Governance & Service).

(R) = Research
(G&S) = Governance & Service

2016 in review

In January 2016 I took up a 0.8 FTE appointment as ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Humanities & Social Inquiry in the Faculty of Law, Humanities & the Arts at the University of Wollongong. Here’s a look at some of what I’ve been doing this year.

January

  • DIY Trove list exhibition – I developed a small and experimental online exhibition about the Chinese community in New South Wales before 1940, using a new platform developed by Tim Sherratt.
  • Public talk at the National Library of Australia – On 24 January I delivered a public lecture to around 80 people at the National Library on Australia’s Chinese communities in the Qing era, and did a Q&A for the library’s blog.

February

  • Symposium on the Commonwealth Department of Immigration: Then and Now – By invitation I presented a paper, titled ‘A culture of suspicion: Chinese at the border of White Australia’, at this one-day symposium, convened by Gwenda Tavan, at La Trobe University on 19 February. The keynote speaker was Robert Manne, and other participants included Kim Rubenstein, James Jupp, Tim Sherratt and Mary Tomsic.
  • Travel planning – I spent quite a lot of time this month in planning and organising travel, both for my research trip to Canada in July and August 2016, and for the Hometown Heritage Tour, which is planned for March 2017.

March

  • Opening of ‘Modernity’s End: Half the Sky’– I was the guest speaker at the opening of this exhibition by accomplished Chinese Australian artist John Young Zerunge, held at the Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby, on 2 March 2016. I also prepared an essay, ‘Women, history and the shifting patterns of Chinese Australian life’, for the exhibition catalogue.
  • Induction – I attended a one-day academic induction session run by the Professional and Organisational Development Services at University of Wollongong on 1 March 2017.
  • Writing – I wrote and submitted a draft of my chapter ‘ “To his home at Jembaicumbene”: Women’s cross-cultural encounters on a colonial goldfield’ for a collection titled Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Jacqueline Leckie, Angela McCarthy and Angela Wanhalla (Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming 2017).
  • Advice to Australian Dictionary of Biography – Through Carolyn Rasmussen (University of Melbourne & member of the National Editorial Board of the ADB), I provided suggestions of Chinese Australians who might be included in future volumes of the ABD.

April

  • Writing – I revised and resubmitted my chapter for the Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters book following comments from the book editors, ordered images from the State Library of NSW and chased up pesky copyright permissions.
  • Chinese Anzacs consultancy – I undertook a small consultancy with the Chinese Museum in Melbourne to identify any as-yet-unknown Chinese Anzacs from New South Wales. I found four more men to all to their list.
  • Early Career Research Presentations with the Vice Chancellor – On 18 April I spoke at the UoW Faculty of Law, Humanities & the Arts ‘Early Career Research Presentations with the Vice Chancellor’, outlining my career path to date, my research interests and my new DECRA project. My talk was titled: ‘History, archives and Chinese Australian lives’.
  • School of Humanities & Social Inquiry Research Week presentation – On 20 April I spoke at the UoW School of Humanities & Social Inquiry ‘History Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Presentation’ on ‘The naturalisation of Chinese migrants to Australia, Canada and New Zealand from the 1860s to 1920’.
  • Early Chinese Australian newspapers – A post I wrote for the Trove blog in 2015 was republished in Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol. 7, 2014–2015.
  • Seminar at Society of Australian Genealogists – I gave a 2-hour research seminar at the Society of Australian Genealogists in Sydney on 30 April 2016. The presentation, titled ‘Researching Chinese Australian family history’, covered: the history of Chinese Australian families, Chinese Australian names and hometowns, and sources to use in researching Chinese Australian family history. The seminar was attended by about 40 people, some who had travelled from as far as Port Macquarie and the Hunter Valley to attend.

May

  • PhD scholarship – I prepared and advertised for a PhD in Overseas Chinese History attached to my DECRA, and responded to inquiries from potential applicants. The funding for the 3.5-year scholarship is provided by the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts at UOW.
  • Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour – Together with Active Travel (Canberra), I finalised the tour itinerary, prepared the advertising brochure and released the tour for bookings. It was booked out within 24 hours, with further names on a waiting list.
  • Writing – I spent a lot of May working on my chapter on Ham Hop and the ‘Poon Gooey case’, which is my contribution to the book on Chinese Australian women that Julia Martinez and I are co-editing.
  • Training and seminars – I attended a number of courses and seminars this month: UOW Induction (UOW); Introduction to Project Management (UOW); launch and discussion of Ann McGrath’s Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and Australia (ANU); Biography Workshop: Paul Pickering on ‘Understanding prosopography’ (ANU).
  • Networking – At the invitation of Li Tana (ANU) I met with two Chinese historians, FEI Sheng and YUAN Ding from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, who were on a research visit to Australia looking for sources on early Chinese migrants to Australia.

June

  • Colonial and Settler Studies Network activities – I attended a public lecture by Professor Ann Curthoys titled ‘Looking for gender? Writing Aboriginal-settler relations into Australian political history’ on 16 June, which resonated with me as a feminist historian now working on a project that is essentially about men. The lecture was followed by the launch of Claire Lowrie’s new book, Masters and Servants, Cultures of Empire in the Tropics (Manchester University Press, 2016).
  • Work-in-progress reading group – The chapter I am writing on Ham Hop was workshopped by our UOW History work-in-progress reading group, with lots of helpful comments on how to strengthen the argument and refine the focus of the chapter.
  • Writing – I prepared my talk and slides for the ISSCO 2016 conference.

July

I spent July in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where I:

  • participated in an invitation-only workshop on the ‘Cantonese Pacific in the Making of the Modern World’ at the University of British Columbia
  • gave a paper at the ISSCO 2016 conference in Richmond
  • researched at the BC Archives and City of Victoria Archives in Victoria, and at the UBC Library (Chung Collection) and City of Vancouver Archives in Vancouver.

For more detail see the blog post I wrote about my Canada research trip, July 2016.

Other activities included:

  • Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour – I met with Dr Selia Tan to discuss plans for the Jiangmen, Kaiping and Taishan components of the Hometown Heritage Tour.
  • Who Do You Think You Are? – I provided information about Chinese on the Australian goldfields (in particular on Chinese and the law) to Rosalind Hill, a researcher with Wall to Wall who are producing the next UK series of Who Do You Think You Are?
  • Talk cited and blog posts republished – The Parramatta Heritage Centre published a blog post and a guide to Researching Chinese family history in Australia which incorporated material I presented at the Society of Australian Genealogists earlier in the year; Jan O’Connell republished (with permission) my blog post on Chinese Christmas boxes on her Australian food history blog; my Trove blog post on early Chinese Australian newspapers was republished (with permission) in the 2014–15 issue of Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies.

August

  • UOW Research Online – I uploaded digital copies of my publications to UOW’s Research Online.
  • ABC International interview – On 11 August I did an interview with ABC International journalist Jason Fang about Charles Lee, Australia’s first Chinese Australian diplomat, to coincide with the opening of the Chungking Legation exhibition on at the Chinese Museum.
  • Seminar on content-based image retrieval – On 19 August I attended a seminar by Associate Professor Lei Wang from UOW on ‘Content-based image retrieval’, discussing a prototype archival photograph retrieval system he has developed using digitised photographs in the National Archives of Australia collection.
  • Whisper Workshop 2016 – On 29 August I participated in the Whisper Workshop 2016, organised by Jonathan O’Donnell (@researchwhisperer) and Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer), and held at the ANU. This invitation-only workshop brought together 25 key people interested in linking universities and creative and cultural industries.
  • Writing – I reviewed page proofs and answered indexing queries for my book chapter ‘To his home at Jembaicumbene’ for the Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters book.
  • Naturalisation database – I started the process to employ Dr Karen Schamberger as my research assistant to help with data entry for my naturalisation database and other research tasks.

September

  • Teaching – I gave a talk about an interesting historical source to Jane Carey’s HIST274 Hands On History class on 7 September. I also did supervision with my MPhil student.
  • History Week talk – On 7 September I gave a public talk at Corrimal Library as part of NSW History Week. The talk, titled ‘From Canton to the colonies: Chinese women in 19th century New South Wales’, was attended by about 65 people and very well received with a great Q&A session and discussion afterwards.
  • Research – I visited the National Archives in Canberra and started photographing all the certificates in NAA: A806 (‘cancelled’ NSW certificates of naturalisation).
  • ACHRC Humanities in the Regions – By invitation I spoke at the Australian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC) ‘Humanities in the Regions: Building Capacity Through Connectivity and Knowledge’, held at UOW on 28–29 September. I spoke about my career path from PhD to DECRA and about writing the ROPE (Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence) section of my DECRA application.
  • Chinese women book proposal – Julia Martinez and I prepared and sent off a proposal for Hong Kong University Press for our co-edited book on Chinese women, which is now tentatively titled Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility Between Australia and China. The proposal was well received and we are working to submit the manuscript by Christmas.
  • Networking – On 21 September I met with Kim Rubenstein (Professor of Law at ANU) and her recently graduated PhD student Peter Prince to discuss our common interest in the history of Australian citizenship law and Chinese migration.
  • Seminar – On 21 September I attended the Herbert and Valmae Freilich Foundation’s Annual Lecture in Bigotry and Tolerance 2016 at the ANU. The topic was ‘How do we define racism in modern Australia?’ and speakers included Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane and academics from the ANU.

October

  • Teaching – On 6 October I gave a lecture to Claire Lowrie’s HIST355 Making History class on ‘historical research in the digital age’. I did supervision with my MPhil student and completed his annual progress review (APR). I met with a potential MPhil student to discuss the possibility of her studying with us at UOW from 2017.
  • Research – I visited the National Archives in Canberra and finished photographing all the certificates in NAA: A806 (‘cancelled’ NSW certificates of naturalisation).
  • Naturalisation database – I have set up a naturalisation database in Airtable, and in October my RA, Dr Karen Schamberger, began work on data entry from the records I copied in the BC Archives in July. Initially she is checking the data I have entered, attaching digital copies of documents to the entries, and noting any Chinese names she comes across.
  • My blog – I worked with a New England local historian, Gill Oxley, to prepare a guest blog post on Emma Tear Tack and her husband Rev. Joseph Tear Tack.
  • Chinese women book – I did further admin work to progress the manuscript, emailing authors with further comments and information re preparation of their chapters.
  • ANU Biography Workshop talk – On 27 October I attended a talk by Dr Su Tiping of Xi’an University, who has been a fellow at the National Centre for Biography at the ANU in 2016. Dr Su’s talk was about Chinese Australians in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. I am following up with Professor Melanie Nolan about further suggestions for Chinese Australians, particularly women, who could be nominated for inclusion in the ADB.
  • Probation review – I completed the paperwork for my Fixed-Term Academic Probation, a requirement of my appointment at UOW, which included compiling information about the work I had done this year towards Research (Level 2) and Governance & Service (Level 1).
  • Image permissions for Charlie Allen chapter – I organised image permissions for photographs that will accomany my forthcoming (2017) chapter on the life of Charlie Allen, microhistory and Chinese Australian biography.

November

  • Chinese Fortunes exhibition – I provided historical advice and wrote exhibition text on Chinese Australian families for the Chinese Fortunes exhibition being prepared by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka. The bilingual exhibition will be on display at MADE from February to June 2017, and later in the year at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne.
  • Chinese Australian women in the ABD – At the invitation of the head of the National Centre for Biography (ANU), Professor Melanie Nolan, I compiled a list of Chinese Australian women who could be included in future volumes of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. At present, the ADB has entries on only 30 Australians with Chinese heritage, and none of these are women.
  • Colonial Formations conference – I attended and presented at the Colonial Formations conference at UOW from 23–25 November. My paper discussed my research into Chinese naturalisation and was in a sesssion I organised on ‘coloured’ British subjects in Australia and the empire. My fellow presenters were Professor Margaret Allen (Adelaide University) and Associate Professor Julia Martinez (UOW). I scheduled live tweets of my paper, which I compiled into a blog post.
  • Chinese women book – I completed a final draft of my chapter on Ham Hop and the Poon Gooey case, and gave Julia Martinez feedback on her chapter.
  • Probation review – I fullfilled the requirements of my Fixed-Term Academic Probation, meaning that UOW will employ me for the remainder of my contract!

December

  • Writing – I’ve been working on an article about the entry of Chinese wives in early 20th-century Australia, provisionally titled: ‘Paragraph (m): Chinese wives, immigration law and White Australia’. I’m planning to submit it to the Open Libraries of the Humanities journal.
  • Research – I spent a day at the National Archives of Australia in Chester Hill, Sydney, to follow up on research for my Chinese wives article.
  • Publication – Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Jacqueline Leckie, Angela McCarthy, Angela Wanhalla, was published by Routledge. It includes my chapter: ‘”To his home at Jembaicumbene”: Women’s Cross-Cultural Encounters on a Colonial Goldfield’.
  • PhD scholarship – I recruited a great student to take up the UOW-funded PhD scholarship attached to my DECRA. She will commence in Autumn 2017, researching ‘marriage, women’s nationality and Australia’s Asian communities in the early 20th century’.

Research Week 2016

I will be presenting not once, but twice, during the School of Humanities & Social Inquiry’s Research Week 2016 at the University of Wollongong.

On Monday, 18 April 2016 I am speaking at the Faculty of Law, Humanities & the Arts ‘Early Career Research Presentations with the Vice Chancellor’, 12.30pm to 2.30pm in the University of Wollongong Research Hub, Building 19.2072B. It will be a short presentation outlining my career path to date, my research interests and my new DECRA project. My talk is titled: ‘History, archives and Chinese Australian lives’.

On Wednesday, 20 April 2016 I am speaking at the ‘History Postgraduate and Early Career Researchs Presentation’, 2.30pm to 4.00pm in Building 24.G02. I’ll be talking about my new DECRA project in a presentation titled: ‘The naturalisation of Chinese migrants to Australia, Canada and New Zealand from the 1860s to 1920’. Also speaking will be four History postgrads.

a2822155h_SLNSW
The store of On Hing, a naturalised British subject, Gulgong, early 1870s (State Library of NSW a2822155)