Decolonising Labour Markets: The Australian South Sea Island Diaspora and the Role of Cultural Expression in Connecting Communities

Dick, Thomas

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09390-1_5

Decolonising Labour Markets: The Australian South Sea Island Diaspora and the Role of Cultural Expression in Connecting Communities

Thomas Dick⁴

Chapter
First Online: 01 January 2014

1882 Accesses

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Transitional Justice ((SSTJ,volume 4))

Abstract

Known in Vanuatu as blackbirding, the process of recruiting, negotiating with, bribing, and sometimes kidnapping men and women from (predominantly) Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, to come and work on cane fields and cotton plantations was only discontinued in the early twentieth century. Many of the labourers settled in Australia, intermarried with local European settlers and indigenous Australians. Today, their descendants are referred to as Australian South Sea Islanders (ASSI). Over the last century, ASSI people have experienced great hardship and discrimination as the Government and unions continued to restrict access to work and social services. By framing the interactions between ASSI and Vanuatu as a conscious attempt to redress the legacy of blackbirding, this study takes a novel approach to the informal and community-led instruments of transitional justice. This chapter argues that people come to terms with their past in ways that are rooted in their own local histories and experiences. Transitional justice is informed by history-telling and the creation of collective memories through cultural expression. The research concludes that transitional justice processes can assist the ASSI diaspora to advocate for the Australian Government to participate more meaningfully in this process.

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Notes

1.
William T. Wawn, The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade: A Record of Voyages and Experiences in the Western Pacific, from 1875 to 1891 (S. Sonnenschein & Co., 1893) and (Waskam) Emelda Davis (pers comms in email correspondence, 2014).
2.
Patricia Mary Mercer, White Australia Defied: Pacific Islander Settlement in North Queensland (Department of History and Politics, James Cook University, 1995).
3.
“A History of South Sea Islanders in Australia”, https://www.humanrights.gov.au/erace-archives-history-south-sea-islanders-australia.
4.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, “The Call for Recognition: A Report on the Situation of Australian South Sea Islanders”, (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992).
5.
“Queensland Government Recognition Statement Australian South Sea Islander Community”, http://www.datsima.qld.gov.au/culturaldiversity/community/australian-south-sea-islanders/australian-south-sea-islander-recognition.
6.
See www.assi150.com.au for a partial list. Many of these events have been the location of the interviews for this research project.
7.
See: Olivera Simić and Kathleen Daly, “‘One Pair of Shoes, One Life’: Steps Towards Accountability for Genocide in Srebrenica”, International Journal of Transitional Justice 5, no. 3 (2011): 485. Also, Fayen d’Evie, “Dispersed Truths and Displaced Memories: Extraterritorial Witnessing and Memorializing by Diaspora through Public Art”, in The Arts of Transitional Justice (Springer, 2014).
8.
“Dispersed Truths and Displaced Memories: Extraterritorial Witnessing and Memorializing by Diaspora through Public Art”.
9.
Chrisje Brants, Antoine Hol, and Dina Siegel, Transitional Justice: Images and Memories (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013), 2.
10.
Simić and Daly, “‘One Pair of Shoes, One Life’: Steps Towards Accountability for Genocide in Srebrenica”.
11.
“Queensland Government Recognition Statement Australian South Sea Islander Community”.
12.
See, for example: Clive Moore, Kanakas, Kidnapping and Slavery: Myths from the Nineteenth Century Labour Trade and Their Relevance to Australian Melanesians (1981); William T. Wawn, The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade: A Record of Voyages and Experiences in the Western Pacific, from 1875 to 1891 (S. Sonnenschein & Co., 1893); Max Quanchi, “Australia’s South Sea Islanders: A Call for Recognition”, Journal of The Pacific Society 21, no. 3 (1998); Edward Wybergh Docker, The Blackbirders: The Recruiting of South Seas Labour for Queensland, 1863–1907 (Angus and Robertson, 1970); Doug Munro, “Revisionism and Its Enemies: Debating the Queensland Labour Trade”, Journal of Pacific History 30, no. 2 (1995); Mercer, White Australia Defied: Pacific Islander Settlement in North Queensland.
13.
“Queensland Government Recognition Statement Australian South Sea Islander Community”.
14.
Clive Moore, Kanaka: A History of Melanesian Mackay (Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies and University of Papua New Guinea Press, 1985).
15.
Gemma Tamock, Soraya Hosni and Thomas Dick, “South Sea Slavery: Voices from the Dark”, in Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference (Seattle 2012).
16.
“Queensland Government Recognition Statement Australian South Sea Islander Community”.
17.
See footnote 4.
18.
Raymond Evans et al., 1901—Our Future’s Past: Documenting Australia’s Federation (Pan Macmillan Australia, 1997). This date was later extended to 1908.
19.
Clive Moore, “The Pacific Islanders’ Fund and the Misappropriation of the Wages of Deceased Pacific Islanders by the Queensland Government”, (2013).
20.
Two sections of the Australian Constitution are particularly relevant. Section 51 (xxvi) stated that Parliament shall have the power to make laws with respect to, “… the people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.” The people for whom it was “deemed necessary to make special laws” were the Pacific Islander people. The Constitution then went on to give the Commonwealth further power, referring to “the relations of the Commonwealth with the islands of the Pacific”.
21.
Mercer, White Australia Defied: Pacific Islander Settlement in North Queensland.
22.
Faith Bandler, Wacvie (Adelaide: Rigby, 1977).
23.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (London: Zed Books, 1999).
24.
Clive Moore, “Revising the Revisionists: The Historiography of Immigrant Melanesians in Australia”, Pacific Studies 15, no. 2 (1992): 62.
25.
Peter Rush and Olivera Simic, The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory after Atrocity (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), http://QUT.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1466515.
26.
Rochelle Ball, Laura Beacroft, and Jade Lindley, “Australia’s Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme: Managing Vulnerabilities to Exploitation”, in Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice, ed. Adam Tomison (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2011).
27.
For more information see http://www.assi150.com.au/ and http://www.assipj.com.au/
28.
For more information see http://www.assi150.com.au/ and http://www.assipj.com.au/
29.
The author is involved as a volunteer and board member of many of these organisations.
30.
“Bowen Final Report: Australia Council Community Partnerships and QMF 2010”, ed. Queensland Music Festival (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 2010).
31.
Sean Mee and Nigel Lavender, “Large-Scale Community Projects in Regional Queensland: Unlocking Creative Potential and Community Identity”, in Artspoken Queensland Regional Arts and Culture Conference (Bundaberg2011).
32.
Due to the complexity of this study, and the macro level analysis, I have excluded any specific focus on gender. Instead I have consciously attempted to balance the data by ensuring equal numbers of men and women were interviewed. Originally, I had intended to “privilege” the view of women by deliberately including quotations from female researchers and ASSI community members. However, this privileging was not necessary as ASSI women are in many of the principal positions of leadership within their communities.
33.
Anne Pattel-Gray, The Great White Flood: Racism in Australia; Critically Appraised from an Aboriginal Historico-Theological Viewpoint (Scholars Press, 1998).
34.
The term “tall ships” refers to the vessels in the First Fleet—the first arrival of British colonisers. They are a symbol of invasion for Indigenous Australians.
35.
“The Call for Recognition of the Australian South Sea Islander Peoples: A Human Rights Issue for a ‘Forgotten People’”, ed. Macleay Museum, Australian South Sea Islanders Port Jackson, and Australian Association for Pacific Studies (AAPS) (2013).
36.
David Mellor, “Contemporary Racism in Australia: The Experiences of Aborigines”, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, no. 4 (2003).
37.
Anna Naupa, “Anna Naupa on Vanuatan Heritage: History—White Australia Policy”, (National Film and Sound Archives, 2005).
38.
Jemima Garrett, “Vanuatu P.M. Calls on Australia to Apologise for Blackbirding”, (Radio Australia, 2013).
39.
Ibid.
40.
(Waskam) Emelda Davis, “A New Page in the History of Slavery in Australia”, Vanuatu Daily Post, 24 October 2011.
41.
Joel Bonnemaison, “Social and Cultural Aspects of Land Tenure”, in Land Tenure in Vanuatu, ed. Hannington Alatoa and Peter Larmour (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific and University of the South Pacific Extension Centre, 1984).
42.
R. A. S Forster, “Vanuatu: The End of an Episode of Schizophrenic Colonialism”, Round Table 280(1980).
43.
Bedford, Richard D., and Ralph Shlomowitz. “The Internal Labour Trade in New Hebrides and Solomon Islands, C1900–1941”. Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes 86 (1988): 61–85.
44.
Subsequently the VHCC was renamed the Vanuatu Indigenous Descendants Association.
45.
Davis, “A New Page in the History of Slavery in Australia”.
46.
Duane Vickery, Thomas Dick, and Ralph Regenvanu, “National Assi Representative Body Statement”, (Bundaberg: ASSI.PJ, 2012).
47.
Ibid.
48.
“Wantok National Body Election”, http://www.assipj.com.au/wantok-national-body-election/.
49.
Cited in Davis, “A New Page in the History of Slavery in Australia”.
50.
Rush and Simic, The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory after Atrocity. vii.
51.
(Waskam) Emelda Davis, 2014. (pers. comm. April 24, Sydney).
52.
Moore, “Revising the Revisionists: The Historiography of Immigrant Melanesians in Australia”, 76.
53.
(Waskam) Emelda Davis, 2014.
54.
For some examples of this see: www.furtherarts.org
55.
Bandler, Wacvie.
56.
Tamock, Hosni and Dick, “South Sea Slavery: Voices from the Dark”.
57.
Ibid.
58.
Ibid.
59.
Bandler, Wacvie.
60.
This event was titled “Wantok 2012: Australian South Sea Islanders National Conference (6–9 April, Bundaberg)”. This event was an attempt to bring together the entire community of ASSI people for the purpose of establishing a representative “National Body”.
61.
This story is the subject of a documentary film currently in production. For more information see http://docweek.org.au/trailer_parks/RXFVGWNG24PJK
62.
Traditional ceremonies, kastom (customs), and lore for the indigenous people of Australia and Melanesia involve an exchange of items of value.
63.
Nick Stanley, “Being Ourselves for You: The Global Display of Cultures”, (1998).
64.
Ibid.
65.
Docker, The Blackbirders: The Recruiting of South Seas Labour for Queensland, 1863–1907. “Kanaka” is a pejorative team previously used to refer to Pacific Island labourers. More recently it is being reclaimed by the ASSI community and the independence movement in New Caledonia.
66.
Lyndon Megarrity, ““White Queensland”: The Queensland Government’s Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901”, Australian Journal of Politics & History 52, no. 1 (2006).
67.
Ibid.
68.
Cited in Tamock, Hosni and Dick, “South Sea Slavery: Voices from the Dark”.
69.
Cited in ibid. The Bulletin is a magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 to 2008. Stephen Thomson writes, “during The Bulletin’s heyday from 1880 to 1918 it dictated the debate in Australian culture and politics. It ran extremely racist cartoons attacking Asians, in particular Chinese and Japanese, along with Indians, Pacific Islanders and Jews. It was offensively mocking of aboriginal people. The Bulletin’s banner, ‘Australia for the White Man’ became a national political slogan”. Stephen Thompson, “1910 the Bulletin Magazine”, Migration Heritage Centre NSW, http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/1910-the-bulletin-magazine/
70.
Rush and Simic, The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory after Atrocity. vi.
71.
Davis, “A New Page in the History of Slavery in Australia”.
72.
Megarrity, ““White Queensland”: The Queensland Government’s Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901”.
73.
Bandler, Wacvie, 135.
74.
Cited in Tamock, Hosni and Dick, “South Sea Slavery: Voices from the Dark”.
75.
Paul Kelly, 100 Years: The Australian Story (Allen and Unwin, 2001).
76.
Kevin M Dunn, “Racism in Australia: Findings of a Survey on Racist Attitudes and Experiences of Racism”, in The Challenges of Immigration and Integration in the European Union and Australia (University of Sydney 2004).
77.
“Seasonal Worker Program”, Australian Government http://employment.gov.au/seasonal-worker-program
78.
Ibid.
79.
David 2010: xi, cited in Ball, Beacroft, and Lindley, “Australia’s Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme: Managing Vulnerabilities to Exploitation”.
80.
Moore, “The Pacific Islanders’ Fund and the Misappropriation of the Wages of Deceased Pacific Islanders by the Queensland Government”.
81.
Ibid.
82.
Ralph Regenvanu and Nic Maclellan, “Blackbirding, South Sea Islanders and Seasonal Workers: Historical Memory and Contemporary Justice across the Pacific”, in Perspectives: Asia Seminar (Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane: Griffith Asia Institute, 2013).
83.
Ibid.
84.
Alumita L Durutalo, “Pacific Islands Diaspora Groups and Foreign Policy”, Public Participation in Foreign Policy (2012).
85.
Ibid.
86.
Megarrity, ““White Queensland”: The Queensland Government’s Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901”.
87.
d’Evie, “Dispersed Truths and Displaced Memories: Extraterritorial Witnessing and Memorializing by Diaspora through Public Art”.
88.
Ibid.
89.
Joseph Cheer and Keir Reeves, “Roots Tourism: Blackbirding and the South Sea Islander Diaspora”, Tourism Analysis 18, no. 3 (2013).
90.
Ibid.
91.
Cited in ibid.
92.
Durutalo, “Pacific Islands Diaspora Groups and Foreign Policy”.
93.
Cheer and Reeves, “Roots Tourism: Blackbirding and the South Sea Islander Diaspora”.
94.
Cheer and Reeves, “Roots Tourism: Blackbirding and the South Sea Islander Diaspora”.
95.
Martin Mulligan and Pia Smith, “Stepping out of the Shadows of Neglect: Towards an Understanding of Socially Applied Community Art in Australia”, The International Journal of the Arts in Society 1(2007).
96.
d’Evie, “Dispersed Truths and Displaced Memories: Extraterritorial Witnessing and Memorializing by Diaspora through Public Art”, 69.
97.
Durutalo, “Pacific Islands Diaspora Groups and Foreign Policy”.
98.
Moore, “The Pacific Islanders’ Fund and the Misappropriation of the Wages of Deceased Pacific Islanders by the Queensland Government”.
99.
Ibid.
100.
“Vanuatu PM Calls on Australia to Apologise for Blackbirding”, Australia Network News, 1/8/2013 2013.
101.
“He would preach to them from the pulpit, always warning them of the ever-present danger of being exploited by white men, reminding them of their days in slavery and urging them to protect and preserve their independence.” Bandler, Wacvie, 143.

Acknowledgement

I owe a debt of gratitude to the many Australian South Sea Islanders and ni-Vanuatu who generously agreed to share their experience as a part of this research project. I also wish to acknowledge the input of (Waskam) Emelda Davis, President of the Australian South Sea Islanders Port Jackson—a woman who is at the forefront of the movement for greater recognition for her people. Also thanks to Gemma Tamock and Ralph Regenvanu for their ongoing contributions and to Clive Moore for feedback.

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Southern Cross University, 11 White St, Kelvin Grove, QLD, 4059, Australia
Thomas Dick

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Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Natalia Szablewska
University of Lincoln Law School, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Sascha-Dominik Bachmann

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Dick, T. (2015). Decolonising Labour Markets: The Australian South Sea Island Diaspora and the Role of Cultural Expression in Connecting Communities. In: Szablewska, N., Bachmann, SD. (eds) Current Issues in Transitional Justice. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09390-1_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09390-1_5
Published: 23 September 2014
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-09389-5
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