School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry Faculty of Humanities Connecting the Dots: Case Studies into the ‘Invisible Presence’ of Aboriginal People Living in Victoria Jessi Coyle This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University January 2019 To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgement is made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Signed: Date: 15 January 2019 ABSTRACT Aboriginal Victorians have been rendered as an ‘invisible presence’ by the various discourses of race and culture that emerged in 19th-century forms of colonialism, which remain influential today. This thesis demonstrates how (white) belonging is constructed within national narratives by drawing on case study analyses of contemporary Victoria’s central and western goldfields districts, and of Aboriginal Victorian participation in Australian (Rules) Football. Semi-structured interviews were conducted across two case studies, with 28 Aboriginal participants and four non- Aboriginal participants. Interviews were analysed using a grounded theory framework, which prioritises culturally respectful and transparent research by positioning the research around participant testimony rather than the 19th-century colonial research conventions that are still influential and popular today. Working within critical theory, this thesis draws on race and settler colonialism to position the invisible presence of Aboriginal people within the ‘(white) settler colonial psyche’. A central feature of the (white) settler colonial psyche is the maintenance of settler sovereignty, as imagined through (white) belonging. Previous research has focused on areas of Australia that have a higher population of Aboriginal people who exist in a ‘visible’ and ‘authentic’ space. The focus is shifted in this thesis to the intersection between Victorian Aboriginal communities and contemporary processes of colonisation. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ....................................................................................................... i List of figures ............................................................................................. iv Abbreviations .............................................................................................. v Key Terms .................................................................................................. vi Acknowledgements .................................................................................... x Preface ......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................... 8 Australian Identity ...................................................................................................... 8 Why Victoria? ............................................................................................................. 12 Contribution to the field ............................................................................................ 14 Theoretical framework ............................................................................................... 15 Thesis outline ............................................................................................................. 18 Aims ............................................................................................................................. 19 Plan .............................................................................................................................. 19 Chapter 2: Theoretical Literature Review ........................................................ 21 Race ............................................................................................................................ 24 Whiteness .................................................................................................................. 35 Settler colonialism ..................................................................................................... 39 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 50 Chapter 3: Methodological Literature Review ................................................ 52 Constructing the Other: Contemporary Research Practices in Australia ............. 52 Methodology .............................................................................................................. 64 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 74 Chapter 4: Introducing the settler colonial psyche: white belonging in Australia ........................................................................................................... 76 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 76 The settler colonial psyche ....................................................................................... 77 Introducing white belonging and narratives of nationhood ................................. 84 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 98 Chapter 5: The Goldfields: A case study into the invisible presence of Aboriginal people in the central and western goldfields district of Victoria ......................................................................................................................... 102 Introduction: Frank of Ballarat ............................................................................... 102 The gold rush and Australian national identity ..................................................... 105 ii Belonging through collective memory .................................................................... 131 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 154 Chapter 6: The football fields: A case study into the invisible presence of Aboriginal Victorian Australian (Rules) Football players ............................. 157 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 157 Chapter plan .............................................................................................................. 161 Part 1: Background ................................................................................................... 162 Part 2: Issues faced by Aboriginal people living in Victoria .................................. 176 Part 3: On the playing field: Issues faced by Aboriginal football players in Victoria within football ............................................................................................ 182 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 226 Chapter 7: Conclusion and Discussion .......................................................... 228 Reflection ................................................................................................................. 234 APPENDICES ................................................................................................... 276 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Basic outline map of Australia with capital cities, see appendix 1 for copyright permission (page vii). Figure 2: AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia, David R Horton (creator), © Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, and Auslig/Sinclair, Knight, Merz, 1996, see appendix 2 for copyright permission (page viii). Figure 3: VACL Aboriginal language map of Victoria, Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, © 2016, see appendix 3 for copyright permission (page vix). Figure 4: The Process of Grounded Theory, Michael Jones & Alony, Irit (printed in Jones & Aloni, 2014, p.115), see appendix 6 for copyright permission (page 72). Figure 5: Contemporary map of the central and western goldfields district, see appendix 1 for copyright permission (page 102). Figure 6: Wathaurong territory map, Ian Clark, (printed in I. Clark, 1995, p. 170), see appendix 7 for copyright permission (page 122). Figure 7: Eugene von Guerard’s Aborigines met on the road to the diggings (1854), Geelong Gallery, see appendix 8 for copyright permission (page 150). Figure 8: John Glover’s Natives at a corrobory, under the wild woods of the Country (c.1835) (Glover, 1835), © State Library of New South Wales, see appendix 10 for copyright permission (page 151). Figure 9: Contemporary map of the State of Victoria, see appendix 1 for copyright permission (page 157). Figure 10: Map of Aboriginal Missions and Reserves in Victoria by Kara Rasmanis (printed in Lydon & Burns, 2010), see appendix 11 for copyright permission (page 175). Figures 1, 5 and 9 have been created drawing on the University of Melbourne’s basic outline maps (© University of Melbourne 2001) and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning MapShareVic service (© The State of Victoria), see appendix 1 for copyright information (page 376). iv ABBREVIATIONS ABS – Australian Bureau of Statistics AFL – Australian Football League AHRC – Australian Human Rights Commission ANA – Australian Natives Association ATSI – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander