Author: Melanie Jane Clark
Clark, Melanie Jane, 2024 Too Aboriginal for the AIF? Aboriginal South Australian Volunteers and the First World War, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Terms of Use: This electronic version is (or will be) made publicly available by Flinders University in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. You may use this material for uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material and/or you believe that any material has been made available without permission of the copyright owner please contact copyright@flinders.edu.au with the details.
Anzac in popular Australian memory centres on the Anglo-Celtic, heteronormative, able-bodied male experience of the First World War, emphasising egalitarianism—a national story for all Australians to take pride in. As representative of the newly federated nation, which championed White Australia, it was expected that soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) would be characterised by the nation’s desired attributes, but this rendering undermines the diverse identities who also served. Excluded from the imagined nation, the Defence Act 1909 explicitly forbade the enlistment of any man who was not ‘substantially of European origin’, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander volunteers. Despite this, sovereign Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men across Australia volunteered for the AIF, including 66 Aboriginal South Australian men who embarked for overseas service and at least another 24 who were rejected or discharged.
Prioritising an Indigenist lens, this thesis explores the unique experience of Aboriginal South Australian volunteers to argue that their service cannot be uncritically included within the existing Anzac ‘legend’. Australian First World War histories and narratives have tended to focus on the eastern states with the natural counterpoint being Western Australia, meaning that South Australia is often overlooked. At the same time, South Australia is often positioned as an exception to Australian convict and invasion history, suggesting a colony that was more enlightened. The localised study and limited dataset consisting of 90 case studies, allows for deeper analyses of the lived experiences of Aboriginal South Australian volunteers while also positioning South Australia in the Australian First World War historiography. Unsettling celebratory renderings of Anzac, this thesis is interested in the ways in which an Aboriginal South Australian collective narrative challenges and complicates the ways that Anzac is received. Reviewing Anzac and South Australia from the bottom-up, means that broader conclusions can be made about South Australian points of difference and progressivism as well as the inclusion/exclusion of Aboriginal volunteers in the AIF.
As a study that is the first of its kind, this thesis draws upon previously unexamined and underutilised archival documents as well as military and newspaper archives, government legislation, Aboriginal testimony, genealogies, family anecdotes and correspondence from mission superintendents and the Chief Protector of Aborigines to inform a collective Aboriginal South Australian biography. Spanning a century, the chapters begin with a review of South Australian colonial history before shifting to analyses of enlistment data, recruitment proceedings, volunteer motivation, the warfront, and closes by considering veterans’ return home to South Australia. Racialisation and discrimination are evident throughout, as well as Aboriginal resistance and resilience, raising questions about the purported egalitarianism of the AIF and the problem of simply homogenising Aboriginal First World War narratives within existing Anzac mythology.
Keywords: Anzac, ANZAC, First World War, World War I, Aboriginal War Service, Indigenous War Service, Indigenous Australia, Aboriginal Australia, South Australia, Anzac myth,
Subject: History thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2024
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Peter Monteath