Spinning the Dream: Assimilation in Australia 1950-1970In the 1950s and 1960s, Australians were challenged by new visions of their nation. Assimilation was heralded as the mechanism to sweep away divisions and exclusions of the past and absorb Aboriginal and new Australians into a common shared way of life. The rhetoric and reality of assimilation was to have a profound and lasting effect on several generations of Australians before it was abandoned in the 70s for multiculturalism. With Spinning the Dream, multi-award-winning historian Anna Haebich re-evaluates the experience of assimilation in Australia, providing a meticulously researched and masterfully written assessment of its implications for Australia's Indigenous and ethnic minorities, and for immigration and refugee policy. |
Contents
Introduction | 7 |
White Nation | 21 |
Selling Assimilation | 117 |
Assimilation in Nyungar Country | 213 |
Cracks in the Mirror | 301 |
Endnotes | 396 |
Bibliography | 426 |
Acknowledgements | 444 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal culture achieve adopted Affairs artists assimilation assistance Australian become British campaign Cited citizens citizenship claimed colonial continued conventional Council created criticism dances Dean Department early economic equal European experience expressed families federal forced forms government's groups housing human ibid identity images imagined immigration included Indigenous institutions interest issues land laws League living major meeting migrant Minister move narrative nation Native Native Welfare Nyungar observed officers organisations performance Perth political popular population position practices present promises promote race racial reflected remained removal Report represented responsibility schools settlements settler showed social society South stories suburban Sydney Territory tion town traditional United University vision Welfare Western White Australia women workers