About

We are all working on various aspects of the ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellowship on Child Refugees and Australian Internationalism from 1920 to the present. The Project is led by Professor Joy Damousi, and we are based in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at The University of Melbourne.

Overall this project explores the changing nature of Australian internationalism during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through a study of a history of child refugees and campaigns undertaken on behalf of child refugees conducted by relief agencies and humanitarian organisations.

It examines the history of Australian immigration policy and the government bureaucracy that manages it, with specific reference to child refugees. This work will produce new insights into shifts in public policy over time and the factors that contribute to these shifts.

The project also address the social, cultural and economic contributions of child refugees to Australia in all aspects of business, culture and society through oral histories of child refugees. The factors that have enhanced or limited the success of child refugees of recent arrivals from the 1970s onwards will be explored through examining the experience of refugee children in four specific communities- the Vietnamese (1970s and 1980s); the Sudanese, Tamil and Bosnian communities (1990s and 2000s).

Finally, the project will explore shifting understanding of child refugees through the various visual imagery utilised over several decades such as photography, film, newsreel and television footage to convey particular meanings about child refugees and the influence of the visual medium in mobilising support or opposition to child refugees.