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Responding to “Forgotten Australians”: historians and the legacy of out-of-home “care”

2012; Routledge; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14443058.2011.646283

1835-6419

Shurlee Swain, Leonie Sheedy, Cate O’Neill,

Canadian Identity and History

Abstract Included in the recommendations of each of the three Australian inquiries into the legacy of out-of-home “care” has been a call for more history, but what would such a history involve? Commissioned histories rarely respond to the need of “care” leavers to have their lived experiences recognised and validated while broader histories of the child welfare sector struggle to move beyond an analysis of policy and practice. This article offers the perspectives of a “care” leaver and two historians on the issues involved in writing a history which is sensitive and responsive to its multiple audiences, and discusses Pathways, the Victorian online contextual archive designed to make history accessible and available to those whose past lives it records. Keywords: Forgotten Australianswelfare historycommissioned historyinstitutional abuseFind and Connect Service Notes 1. The three core Australian enquiries are: Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families (Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC], 1997); Lost Innocents: Righting the Record Report on Child Migration (Canberra: Australian Senate Community Affairs References Committee [SCARC], 2001); Forgotten Australians: A Report on Australians Who Experienced Institutional or Out-of-Home Care as Children (Canberra: Australian Senate Community Affairs References Committee [SCARC], 2004). 2. Details of these national history projects are provided at “Forgotten Australians: Our History,” Australian Government, accessed February 23, 2011, http://forgottenaustralianshistory.gov.au/index.html. 3. Forgotten Australians, paragraph 9.99, 282. 4. The submissions made to the two Senate inquiries are available online at “Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care: Submissions received by the Committee as at 17/3/05,” Commonwealth of Australia, accessed May 15, 2011, http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/submissions/sublist.htm, and “Inquiry into Child Migration: Submissions which may be accessed electronically,” accessed April 23, 2011, Commonwealth of Australia, http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/1999-02/child_migrat/submissions/sublist.htm. 5. See for example: Sunitha Raman and Catherine Forbes, It's Not Too Late to Care (Melbourne: Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, 2008); Philip Mendes, “Remembering the ‘Forgotten’ Australians,” Children Australia 30.1 (2005): 4–10; Richard Hil and Elizabeth Branigan ed., Surviving Care: Achieving Justice and Healing for the Forgotten Australians (Brisbane: Bond University Press, 2011). 6. See for example J. C. Butler, The First Hundred Years: Being a Brief History of the Melbourne Orphanage 1851–1951 (Melbourne: Melbourne Orphanage, 1951); Ethel Morris, A Century of Child Care: the Story of Ballarat Orphanage, 1865–1965 (Ballarat: Board of Management Ballarat Orphanage, c.1965). 7. Frank Golding, Official Committee Hansard, Senate, Community Affairs Reference Committee, Tuesday, November 11, 2003, Melbourne, pages CA37–8, accessed March 5, 2011, http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S7119.pdf. 8. See for example the introduction to Donella Jaggs, Asylum to Action: Family Action 1851–1991. A History of Services and Policy Development for Families in Time of Vulnerability (Melbourne: Family Action, 1991), v. 9. Jill Barnard and Karen Twigg, Holding onto Hope: A History of the Founding Agencies of MacKillop Family Services 1854–1997 (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2004), xi. 10. The quote comes from the Foreword to Renate Howe and Shurlee Swain, All God's Children: A Centenary History of the Methodist Homes for Children and the Orana Peace Memorial Homes (Canberra: Acorn Press, 1989), v. 11. Jaggs, Asylum to Action, xi. 12. Bronwyn Dalley, Family Matters: Child Welfare in Twentieth-Century New Zealand (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1998), 2; Dorothy Scott and Shurlee Swain, Confronting Cruelty: Historical Perspectives on Child Abuse (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002), xiv. 13. See for example Renate Howe and Shurlee Swain, The Challenge of the City: The Centenary History of Wesley Central Mission 1893–1993 (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1993), 63, 126–7; Howe and Swain, All God's Children, 95, 150. 14. Suellen Murray et al., After the Orphanage: Life Beyond the Children's Home (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009), 170. 15. Murray et al., After the Orphanage, 73–5. 16. Barnard and Twigg, Holding onto Hope, 191–209. 17. Barnard and Twigg, Holding onto Hope, xiii. 18. See for example the discussion of the reluctance of the Victorian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to investigate allegations of institutional abuse in Scott and Swain, Confronting Cruelty, 85–7. 19. Brian Dickey, No Charity There: A Short History of Social Welfare in Australia (Melbourne: Nelson, 1980), 18–19; John Ramsland, Children of the Backlanes: Destitute and Neglected Children in Colonial New South Wales (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1986), 184–5. 20. Kate Gaffney, “Hiding Behind the Past: Understanding Historical Abuse in Out-of-Home Care,” Children Australia 33.4 (2008): 39. 21. Margaret Barbalet, Far from a Low Gutter Girl: The Forgotten World of State Wards: South Australia 1887–1940 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1983). 22. Naomi Parry, “‘Such a Longing’: Black and White Children in Welfare in New South Wales and Tasmania, 1880–1940” (PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2007); Caroline Evans, “State Girls: Their Lives as Apprentices, 1896–1935,” Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Papers and Proceedings 41.2 (1994): 96–100; Nell Musgrove, “‘The Scars Remain’: Children, Their Families and Institutional ‘Care’ in Victoria 1864–1954” (PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2009). 23. Barbalet, Far from a Low Gutter Girl, vii. 24. Sara Ahmed and Jackie Stacey, “Testimonial Cultures: An Introduction,” Cultural Values 5.1 (2001): 1. 25. “Lin,” Submission 271, November 24, 2003, “Submissions received by the [Senate Community Affairs Reference] Committee,” accessed March 3, 2011. 26. Diana Georgeff, Delinquent Angel (Sydney: Random House, 2007), chapters 14–15. 27. Kate Shayler, The Long Way Home: The Story of a Homes Kid (Sydney: Random House, 2001). 28. Frederick A. Coppleman, Not of My Choice (West Tamar, Tasmania: F. A. Coppleman, 1994); Douglas Coverdale, “It All Turns Out for the Better”: One Man's Story of His Time in an Australian Boys’ Home, 1928–1935, and His Life Thereafter (Melbourne: Action Research Issues Association, 1995); Doug McNeil, Order of Things (Bentleigh: Doug McNeil, 1995); Paul Noble, Noble Spirit (Mount Gambier: Paul Noble, 2006). 29. David Hill, The Forgotten Children: Fairbridge Farm School and Its Betrayal of Australia's Child Emigrants (Sydney: Random House, 2007). 30. See Frank Golding, An Orphan's Escape: Memories of a Lost Childhood (Melbourne: Lothian, 2005). See also his “Telling Stories: Accessing Personal Records,” in Hil and Branigan, Surviving Care. 31. Joanna Penglase, Orphans of the Living: Growing up in “Care” in Twentieth-Century Australia (Fremantle: Curtin University Books, 2005). 32. Bain Attwood, “In the Age of Testimony: The Stolen Generations Narrative, ‘Distance’ and Public History,” Public Culture 20.1 (2008): 77–8. 33. Attwood, “In the Age of Testimony,” 80. 34. Coral Edwards and Peter Read, The Lost Children: Thirteen Australians Taken from Their Aboriginal Families Tell of the Struggle to Find Their Natural Parents (Sydney: Doubleday, 1989). 35. Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990). 36. See for example Doreen Mellor and Anna Haebich, ed. Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2002); Rene Powell and Bernadette Kennedy, Rene Baker File #28/E.D.P. (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2005). 37. Attwood, “In the Age of Testimony,” 93. 38. See for example: “Neglect and Abuse at the Hands of Society,” Press Release, Inquiry on Child Abuse and Neglect in Institutions and Foster Homes [Sweden], January 14, 2010, accessed February 12, 2011, http://www.sou.gov.se/vanvard/pressinfo/Pressmeddelande%20Vanv%C3%A5rd%20ENG.pdf The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [Ireland], accessed February 12, 2011, http://www.childabusecommission.ie/. 39. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, accessed June 1, 2011, http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3 40. Giselle M. Byrnes, “Jackals of the Crown? Historians and the Treaty Claims Process in New Zealand,” Public Historian 20.2 (1998): 15–16. For a general discussion of this issue see Bain Attwood, Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory (Auckland: Bridget Williams Books 2001); Bronwyn Dalley, “Finding the Common Ground: New Zealand's Public History,” in Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillips, Going Public: The Changing Face of New Zealand History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001). 41. Rachel Buchanan, “Decolonizing the Archives: the Work of New Zealand's Waitangi Tribunal,” Public History Review, 14 (2007), accessed April 30, 2011, http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/phrj/article/viewArticle/399. 42. Margaret Ann Turnbull, Official Committee Hansard, Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee, Melbourne, November 11, 2003, p. CA46, accessed March 4, 2011, http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S7119.pdf 43. LP0883232 Who Am I? The Archive as Central to Quality Practice for Current and Past Care Leavers (Forgotten Australians). The Pathways web resource has now been replaced by the Victorian page of the National Find and Connect Web Resource available at: http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/australia/ 44. See Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire, and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994). Dawson's idea of “composure” is further discussed in Murray et al., After the Orphanage. 45. “The needs of adult care leavers,” Care Leavers’ Association [UK], accessed February 5, 2011, http://www.careleavers.com/adult 46. Frank Golding, “Forgotten Australians pathways,” published in the Age newspaper, and reproduced on the CLAN website at http://www.clan.org.au/news_details.php?newsID=410 47. For a discussion of action research methodology see: Jean McNiff with Jack Whitehead, Action Research: Principles and Practice (London: Routledge, 2002). 48. On February 2, 2010, the Pathways website received this feedback by email: “why are there no pictures of Winlaton, baltara, allambie, turana … where are the names of staff members and supers? there are many pictures of orphanages, older homes but none of these … when is the victorian government going to stop hiding them? Yeh i am angry … all these places are hidden away like a dirty little secret and i am the dirty little illegitimate child of the victorian government! I have photo's of winlaton – but they are microfiche and don't print well but you cant find any … As a University you haven't done much – i have more information than you do – you obviously must be working with the Department of Stupidity (DHS) and the Vic Gov which has hidden everything due to the class action taken by Forgotten Australians … This website is bullshit! Shame on you all!” 49. Jay Winter has recently written about the issue of “essentialist silences” and the right to speak about the contested past. See his “Thinking about silence,” in Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century, ed. Efrat Ben-Ze'ev, Ruth Ginio and Jay Winter, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 6. 50. “Find and Connect Service,” Commonwealth of Australia, accessed May 15, 2011, http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/families/progserv/apology_forgotten_aus/Pages/find_and_connect_service.aspx 51. Penny Summerfield, “Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews,” Cultural and Social History 1.1 (2004): 92–3. 52. Other resources being developed or augmented in the wake of the apology include two national projects funded by the federal government. The National Library of Australia is currently undertaking a three-year project, the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants Oral History Project. The National Museum of Australia is developing an exhibition about the history of Forgotten Australians, to be called “Inside.” Details of these national history projects can be found at the website launched by the federal government in 2010, “Forgotten Australians: Our History,” accessed, http://www.forgottenaustralianshistory.gov.au/ 53. For a discussion of these issues in a Canadian context see Stephen High, “Sharing Authority: an Introduction,” Journal of Canadian Studies 43.1 (2009): 16–17.