Handbook

This topic examines South Australia’s history through the concept of ‘reworlding’ to place South Australia with regional, national, and global perspectives. It asks: is South Australia truly distinctive? And was South Australia the cradle of democratic and land reform in the nation, as many claim? We will consider South Australia from 1800, examining the Indigenous worlds of the southern regions, the oceanic worlds of the sealing and whaling industry that connected to South Australia to the Tasman, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and the British imperial world through which this region was colonised.

Using the approaches of regional, national, and transnational history the topic will evaluate the formation of South Australia as a colony, the idea of settlement based on Wakefield’s principles, and the violent frontier wars in South Australia between settlers and Indigenous peoples. The topic will assess South Australia within the Australian federation, addressing questions of democracy, race, gender, and rights; the vote and the women’s suffrage; the entwined forces of immigration and colonisation; South Australians at war and on the home front; nuclear testing during the Cold War; the sexual revolution and the Dunstan era of reform, and a number of landmark acts that put South Australia on the map, and South Australia in the historical and literary imagination.

Rich historical source materials will be used including archives, texts, artwork, and film. The topic introduces students to primary historical research, critical methodologies, and encourages them to follow their own interests in learning activities and assessment.