Abstract
The role of age is underexplored in literature on both migration oral history and Australian post-war migration history. This chapter provides an in-depth reading of one life story interview from the Australian Generations Oral History Project to demonstrate the value of considering age when interpreting memories of migration. This chapter argues that while age is not the sole determining factor of migration experience, it can be a useful lens of analysis, particularly when adopted alongside other regularly employed categories of analysis in migration history.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993); Chapter 7 “Eight Ages of Man” 247–274; George E. Vaillant, Adaptation to Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977); Martin A. Conway, “The Inventory of Experience: Memory and Identity”, in Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychology Perspectives, ed. by James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paez, and Bernard Rimé (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), 21–45.
- 2.
For literature on how historians of childhood and youth have used age in analysis of life story interviews see Mary Jo Maynes, “Age as a Category of Historical Analysis: History, Agency, and Narratives of Childhood,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 118–23; and Selina Todd and Hilary Young, “Baby-Boomers to ‘Beanstalkers’: Making the Modern Teenager in Post-War Britain,” Cultural and Social History 9, no. 3 (2012): 453–54. Contributions by historians of old age are also relevant: see Charlotte Greenhalgh, Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018).
- 3.
Valerie Raleigh Yow, Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2nd edition (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2005), 238.
- 4.
Paul Thompson with Joanna Bornat, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 4th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 180. Katy Gardner’s work is one exception: see Katy Gardner, Age, Narrative and Migration: The Life Course and Life Histories of Bengali Elders in London (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2002).
- 5.
A. James Hammerton and Alistair Thomson, Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2005), 261.
- 6.
Joy Damousi, Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia’s Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015), 174.
- 7.
See Jessica Stroja, “Settlement of Refugee Women and Children Following the Second World War: Challenges to the Family,” The History of the Family 22, no. 4 (2017): 510–30; Niro Kandasamy, “Unravelling Memories of Family Separation Among Sri Lankan Tamils Resettled in Australia, 1983–2000,” Immigrants & Minorities 36, no. 2 (2018): 143–60; Sarah Green, “‘All Those Stories, All Those Stories’: How Do Bosnian Former Child Refugees Maintain Connections to Bosnia and Community Groups in Australia?,” Immigrants & Minorities 36, no. 2 (2018): 161–77.
- 8.
Donat Santowiak interviewed by Alistair Thomson, 19–20 June 2014, Moe, Victoria, Australian Generations Oral History Project, National Library of Australia, TRC 6300/292. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from this interview.
- 9.
Rob White and Johanna Wyn, Youth and Society: Exploring the Social Dynamics of Youth Experience (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2004), 186.
- 10.
For a discussion on this topic, see Rob White and Johanna Wyn, Rethinking Youth (London: Sage Publications, 1997); Chapter 1, “The Concept of Youth,” 8–25.
- 11.
Michelle Arrow, Friday on Our Minds: Popular Culture in Australia since 1945 (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009); Chapter 3, “The Rise of Youth Cultures,” 44–73.
- 12.
Conway, “The Inventory of Experience,” 32–35.
- 13.
L. Paszkowski, “Characteristics of Polish Immigrants,” in James Jupp ed., The Australian People: An Encyclopaedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 623.
- 14.
Sev Ozdowski and Jan Lencznarowicz, “Post-War Polish Refugees,” in The Australian People, 624.
- 15.
Jerry Zubrzycki, Settlers of the Latrobe Valley: A Sociological Study of Immigrants in the Brown Coal Industry in Australia (Canberra: Australian National University, 1964), 12–13.
- 16.
Maynes, “Age as a Category of Historical Analysis,” 116.
- 17.
See Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame, “The Life History Approach to the Study of Internal Migration,” Oral History 7, no. 1 (1979): 26–32; and Mary Chamberlain, “Gender and the Narratives of Migration,” History Workshop Journal 43 (1997): 87–108.
- 18.
Graeme Davison with Sheryl Yelland, Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2004); Chapter 3, “Sex, Power and Speed,” 48–73.
- 19.
Kate Douglas, Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010), 60.
- 20.
For composure theory, see Penny Summerfield, “Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews,” Cultural and Social History 1, no. 1 (2004): 65–93; and Alistair Thomson, “Anzac Memories Revisited: Trauma, Memory and Oral History,” Oral History Review 42, no. 1 (2015): 22–23.
- 21.
I wish to thank Alistair Thomson, Kate Murphy and the editors of this collection for their helpful comments on drafts of this chapter. Thanks also to Donat Santowiak for so generously sharing his experience with the Australian Generations Oral History Project. My research has been supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
Bibliography
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Chamberlain, Mary. “Gender and the Narratives of Migration.” History Workshop Journal 43 (1997): 87–108.
Conway, Martin A. “The Inventory of Experience: Memory and Identity.” In Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychology Perspectives, edited by James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paez and Bernard Rimé, 21–45. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
Damousi, Joy. Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia’s Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Davison, Graeme with Sheryl Yelland. Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2004.
Douglas, Kate. Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010.
Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society (1964). New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Gardner, Katy. Age, Narrative and Migration: The Life Course and Life Histories of Bengali Elders in London. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2002.
Green, Sarah. “‘All Those Stories, All Those Stories’: How Do Bosnian Former Child Refugees Maintain Connections to Bosnia and Community Groups in Australia?” Immigrants & Minorities 36, no. 2 (2018): 161–77.
Greenhalgh, Charlotte. Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018.
Hammerton, A. James, and Alistair Thomson. Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2005.
Kandasamy, Niro. “Unravelling Memories of Family Separation Among Sri Lankan Tamils Resettled in Australia, 1983–2000.” Immigrants & Minorities 36, no. 2 (2018): 143–60.
Maynes, Mary Jo. “Age as a Category of Historical Analysis: History, Agency, and Narratives of Childhood.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1, no. 1 (2008): 114–24.
Ozdowski, Sev, and Jan Lencznarowicz. “Post-War Polish Refugees”. In The Australian People: An Encyclopaedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, 2nd edition, edited by James Jupp, 623–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Paszkowski, L. “Characteristics of Polish Immigrants”. In The Australian People: An Encyclopaedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, 2nd edition, edited by James Jupp, 623. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Santowiak, Donat. Interviewed by Alistair Thomson, 19–20 June 2014, Moe, Victoria. Australian Generations Oral History Project. National Library of Australia, TRC 6300/292.
Stroja, Jessica. “Settlement of Refugee Women and Children Following the Second World War: Challenges to the Family.” The History of the Family 22, no. 4 (2017): 510–30.
Summerfield, Penny. “Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews.” Cultural and Social History 1, no. 1 (2004): 65–93.
Todd, Selina, and Hilary Young. “Baby-Boomers to ‘Beanstalkers’: Making the Modern Teenager in Post-War Britain.” Cultural and Social History 9, no. 3 (2012): 451–67.
Thompson, Paul with Joanna Bornat. The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 4th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Thomson, Alistair. “Anzac Memories Revisited: Trauma, Memory and Oral History.” Oral History Review 42, no. 1 (2015): 1–29.
Vaillant, George E. Adaptation to Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977.
White, Rob, and Johanna Wyn. Rethinking Youth. London: Sage Publications, 1997.
White, Rob, and Johanna Wyn. Youth and Society: Exploring the Social Dynamics of Youth Experience. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Yow, Valerie Raleigh. Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2nd edition. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2005.
Zubrzycki, Jerry. Settlers of the Latrobe Valley: A Sociological Study of Immigrants in the Brown Coal Industry in Australia. Canberra: Australian National University, 1964.
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Puri, A. (2019). “To Be Who I Was, Really, Was To Be Different”: Memories of Youth Migration to Post-War Australia. In: Darian-Smith, K., Hamilton, P. (eds) Remembering Migration. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17751-5_5
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