The Forgotten Migrants: A Cultural History of Postwar British Migrants Who Returned 'Home' from Australia
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Grant Holder:
Dr Alistair Thomson
Migration histories often neglect return migration. More than a million Britons migrated to Australia in the peak years of migration between 1945 and 1971, the majority using the assisted passage migration scheme. A significant proportion returned to Britain. This research involves the collection and analysis of written and oral life stories by these return migrants. It will complement current La Trobe University (Melbourne) research involving the life stories of postwar British migrants still resident in Australia. The research will enrich our understanding of the postwar movements of people between Britain and Australia, of the experiences of British migrants in Australia, and of the motivations, processes and meanings of return migration. The research will also develop more general theoretical understandings of the ways in which migrants deal with disjuncture and displacement and construct life stories which make sense of the turbulent interconnections between memory and identity, and between migration, place and nationality.
| Project start date: 2000-01 | Project end date: 2008-05 |
Subject domains:
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| Coding and standardisation | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Collating | Data analysis |
| Content analysis | Data analysis |
| Text encoding - descriptive | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Searching and querying | Data analysis |
| Manual input and transcription | Data capture |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data, Text
Software tools used:
Microsoft Word, NUD*IST
Source material used:
DERIVED FROM INTERVIEW CASSETTE TAPES ARCHIVED IN THE MASS-OBSERVATION ARCHIVE, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX LIBRARY - AND BASED UPON A MORE SUBSTANTIAL COLLECTION OF NON-DIGITAL MIGRANT LIFE WRITINGS, INCLUDING WRITINGS BY THOSE WHO WERE INTERVIEWED - NOTE THAT CONSENT FORMS ARE HELD AT M-OA.
Digital resource created:
The digital resource comprises:
1. Transcripts of 30 interviews conducted with men and women who emigrated to Australia under the assisted passage scheme between 1947 and 1973;
2. Summaries of these interviews
3. a NUD*IST database in which these 30 interviews are coded according to the primary themes of interpretation as used in the creator's jointly authored book 'Ten Pound Poms' – Australia’s Invisible Migrants: a Life History of British Postwar Emigration to Australia (co-author with Jim Hammerton), Manchester University Press, 2005.
Data Formats created:
Microsoft Word Document (DOC), NUD*IST database
Publications:
Thomson, Alistair and Jim Hammerton. 'Ten Pound Poms' – Australia’s Invisible Migrants: a Life History of British Postwar Emigration to Australia, Manchester University Press, 2005, 388pp.
Thomson, Alistair. Historical advisor and narrator, BBC Radio 4 The Archive Hour, ‘Ten Pound Poms’, 8.12.2001.
Thomson, Alistair. '"My wayward heart": homesickness, longing and the return of British post-war immigrants from Australia', in Marjory Harper (ed), Emigrant Homecomings: the return movement of emigramts, 1600-2000, Manchester University Press, 2005, pp 105-130.
Thomson, Alistair. '”The Empire was a bar of soap”: Life stories and race identity among British emigrants travelling to Australia, 1945-1971', in Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White (eds), Cultural History in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, 2003, pp 201-213.
Thomson, Alistair. 'Recording British migration: meaning and identity in the Good family audio letters from Australia, 1963-65', in W. Prest and G. Tulloch (eds), Scatterlings of Empire, Journal Of Australian Studies / University of Queensland Press, 2001.
Thomson, Alistair. 'I live on my memories: British return migrants and the possession of the past', Oral History 31, 2, 2003, pp 55-65.
Thomson, Alistair. "Voices we never hear: the unsettling histories of postwar 'ten pound Poms who returned to Britain", Voices of a 20th Century Nation: Oral History Association of Australia Journal 24, 2002, pp 52-59.
Thomson, Alistair. "Landscapes of memory: the migrations of Elizabeth Jolley", Meanjin (Australia), 61, 3, 2002, pp 81-97.
Thomson, Alistair. "The past in the present and the present of the past: comparative reflections on memories and letters as sources for migration history", Proceedings of the the XIIIth International Oral History Conference, Rome, June 2004.
Thomson, Alistair. "I live on my memories": migrant life stories and the possession of the past, in Philippe Denis and James Worthington (eds), The Power of Memory: Memory, Healing and Development, Proceedings of the XIIth International Oral History Conference, South Africa, Volume 2, 2002, pp 1033-1047.
Thomson, Alistair. 'Experience never ends: migrant memories, unsettled identities and historical change', in Crossroads of History: Experience, Memory, Orality, Proceedings of the XIth International Oral History Conference, Istanbul, June 2000, pp 1081-1087.
Thomson, Alistair. Historical advisor and narrator, BBC Radio 4 The Archive Hour, ‘Ten Pound Poms’, 8.12.2001.
Thomson, Alistair. '"My wayward heart": homesickness, longing and the return of British post-war immigrants from Australia', in Marjory Harper (ed), Emigrant Homecomings: the return movement of emigramts, 1600-2000, Manchester University Press, 2005, pp 105-130.
Thomson, Alistair. '”The Empire was a bar of soap”: Life stories and race identity among British emigrants travelling to Australia, 1945-1971', in Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White (eds), Cultural History in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, 2003, pp 201-213.
Thomson, Alistair. 'Recording British migration: meaning and identity in the Good family audio letters from Australia, 1963-65', in W. Prest and G. Tulloch (eds), Scatterlings of Empire, Journal Of Australian Studies / University of Queensland Press, 2001.
Thomson, Alistair. 'I live on my memories: British return migrants and the possession of the past', Oral History 31, 2, 2003, pp 55-65.
Thomson, Alistair. "Voices we never hear: the unsettling histories of postwar 'ten pound Poms who returned to Britain", Voices of a 20th Century Nation: Oral History Association of Australia Journal 24, 2002, pp 52-59.
Thomson, Alistair. "Landscapes of memory: the migrations of Elizabeth Jolley", Meanjin (Australia), 61, 3, 2002, pp 81-97.
Thomson, Alistair. "The past in the present and the present of the past: comparative reflections on memories and letters as sources for migration history", Proceedings of the the XIIIth International Oral History Conference, Rome, June 2004.
Thomson, Alistair. "I live on my memories": migrant life stories and the possession of the past, in Philippe Denis and James Worthington (eds), The Power of Memory: Memory, Healing and Development, Proceedings of the XIIth International Oral History Conference, South Africa, Volume 2, 2002, pp 1033-1047.
Thomson, Alistair. 'Experience never ends: migrant memories, unsettled identities and historical change', in Crossroads of History: Experience, Memory, Orality, Proceedings of the XIth International Oral History Conference, Istanbul, June 2000, pp 1081-1087.
Institutions affiliated with this project:
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| University of Sussex |
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| La Trobe University |
| Melbourne |
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Dr Alistair Thomson |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Alistair Thomson |
| Title | The Forgotten Migrants: A Cultural History of Postwar British Migrants Who Returned 'Home' from Australia |
| Record created | 2005-11-07 |
| Record updated | 2011-05-11 16:07 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2050 |
| Citation of record | Alistair Thomson: The Forgotten Migrants: A Cultural History of Postwar British Migrants Who Returned 'Home' from Australia. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2050> created: 2005-11-07, last updated 2011-05-11 16:07 |