Secret Life of Memorials: Through the Memory Lens of the Australian South Sea Islanders

The Australian SouthSea Islander (ASSI) minority community has a contested indentured labourbackground and involvement in the Australian sugar cane industry which has resultedin a consequent paucity of material culture and other records. This paucity, ina sense, forms a substantive part of The Secret Life of Memorials: Throughthe Memory Lens of the Australian South Sea Islanders as it is argued thatmemory places, rather than static artefactual stand-ins for the past, aredynamic material culture which have agency and relevance in the present,participating in the on-going post-colonial process. Although a materialculture study focused on the materialised expression of memory, this researchallows discussion beyond typologies, styles and categories to consider therelational meaning and distributed agency of these objects within the complexnetwork of public memory. In addition to considerations of their symbolic, mnemonicor representational reflections of the past, contemporary memorials arediscussed as extensions of the original ASSI event to which they refer, a partof a continuous process that is helping to shape current communities. Thisencompassing approach, from historical experience to present day memoryenactment strategies, employs a variety of theoretical arguments, contributinga new method for comprehending and including the many interleaving aspects ofmemory spaces, of interest to heritage professionals, local councils andgoverning bodies, and members of the general public.