Author: Madeleine Regan
Regan, Madeleine, 2021 ‘I buy this piece of ground here’: Establishing family market gardens and transplanting Veneto identity in Adelaide’s western suburbs 1920s – 1970s, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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This thesis examines the formation of a community of peasant farmers who migrated from the Veneto region of Italy and established market gardens in Adelaide during the interwar years, a period under-researched in Australian migration history. Drawing on sixty oral history interviews, archival materials from Australia and Italy and published records, the thesis builds a microhistory and analyses change, continuity and ongoing transnational connections through three generations from the 1920s to the present. The study examines a migrant community that faced the Depression, Fascism, the Second World War and the racialised White Australia environment. The Veneto migrants drew on their attachment to land as an economic and emotional anchor to survive, flourish and belong, and created a community characterised by initiative, solidarity and resilience. The thesis analyses the role of a dedicated website in creating a relational village, a virtual community of descendants of the market gardeners.
Keywords: Italian migrants, market gardeners, 1.5 generation migrants, second generation migrants, Veneto migration, migration and settlement, second world war, Adelaide, South Australia
Subject: History thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2021
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: A/Prof Christine Winter