Suchergebnisse

Australian goldminers were among the first white men to have sustained contact with Papua New Guineans. Some Papua New Guineans welcomed them, worked for them, traded with them and learnt their skills and soon were mining on their own account. Others met them with hostility, either by direct confrontation or by stealthy ambush. Many of the indigenous people and some miners were killed. The miners were dependent on the local people for labourers, guides, producers of food and women. Some women lived willingly in the miners' camps, a few were legally married, and some were raped. Working conditions for Papua New Guineans on the claims were mixed; some being well treated by the miners, others being poorly housed and fed, ill-treated, and subject to devastating epidemics. Conditions were rough, not only for them but for the diggers too. This book, republished in its original format, shows the differences in the experience of various Papua New Guinean communities which encountered the miners and tries to explain these differences. It is a graphic description of what happens when people from vastly different cultures meet. The author has drawn on documentary sources and interviews with the local people to produce, for the first time, a lively history.

Australian goldminers were among the first white men to have sustained contact with Papua New Guineans. Some Papua New Guineans welcomed them, worked for them, traded with them and learnt their skills and soon were mining on their own account. Others met them with hostility, either by direct confrontation or by stealthy ambush. Many of the indigenous people and some miners were killed. The miners were dependent on the local people for labourers, guides, producers of food and women. Some women lived willingly in the miners' camps, a few were legally married, and some were raped. Working conditions for Papua New Guineans on the claims were mixed; some being well treated by the miners, others being poorly housed and fed, ill-treated, and subject to devastating epidemics. Conditions were rough, not only for them but for the diggers too. This book, republished in its original format, shows the differences in the experience of various Papua New Guinean communities which encountered the miners and tries to explain these differences. It is a graphic description of what happens when people from vastly different cultures meet. The author has drawn on documentary sources and interviews with the local people to produce, for the first time, a lively history.

From late 1942, Australians knew that the Japanese had shipped women to Rabaul, where they worked in brothels catering for Japanese troops. Japanese captured on the Kokoda Track and elsewhere described the brothels, and New Guineans and who had been in Rabaul talked about them. Australian military and civilian prisoners saw the brothels, and a few of those Australians observed them over a long period. Japanese who served in Rabaul have left reminiscences about the brothels, and one Korean woman has testified that she worked in Rabaul. As result, there is scattered material on perhaps 3,000 comfort women in an Australian Territory, but when Australian reporters and commentators need to give the comfort women an Australian relevance, these women are never mentioned. Their experiences are not used to provide evidence on the recurring debates about whether the comfort women were coerced or free and whether they were recruited, shipped and employed by private contractors rather than the Japanese military or government.

From late 1942, Australians knew that the Japanese had shipped women to Rabaul, where they worked in brothels catering for Japanese troops. Japanese captured on the Kokoda Track and elsewhere described the brothels, and New Guineans and who had been in Rabaul talked about them. Australian military and civilian prisoners saw the brothels, and a few of those Australians observed them over a long period. Japanese who served in Rabaul have left reminiscences about the brothels, and one Korean woman has testified that she worked in Rabaul. As result, there is scattered material on perhaps 3,000 comfort women in an Australian Territory, but when Australian reporters and commentators need to give the comfort women an Australian relevance, these women are never mentioned. Their experiences are not used to provide evidence on the recurring debates about whether the comfort women were coerced or free and whether they were recruited, shipped and employed by private contractors rather than the Japanese military or government.

The PhD is a new degree. Those colour splashed and scarified PhD gowns on graduation days imply a direct link to a medieval past, to learned monks in dark cloisters who thought the day of the colour photograph was close. In fact the links to a distant past are tenuous. The first Australian PhDs were awarded by Melbourne University in 1948. By 1949 all six Australian universities had PhD rules. In 1950 eleven PhDs were awarded within Australia. In 1960 still only 137 PhDs were awarded. For Australia, then, the PhD is a post Second World War development, and the growth has been in the last thirty years. Those distinguished scholars who taught me or were my eminent colleagues, such as Charles Rowley, Max Crawford, Bill Scott, Jack La Nauze and Manning Clark did not have PhDs. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, who lectured me at Melbourne University, had gone from her honours degree at Melbourne to Oxford to do another undergraduate degree. That was not then unusual. It cannot be said that the Australian Universities picked up an overseas tradition which itself had a long unbroken past. In Britain the history of any higher degrees, MA or PhD, by dissertation is just over 100 years. The PhD got to England by a devious route. It went from Germany (where it increased in popularity and sharpened in definition early in the nineteenth century) to Yale which offered the PhD from the early 1860s, and it soon spread to other American colleges. American scholars wanted doctorates and those who were attracted to Germany. The intense rivalry between Germany and England immediately before and during the First World War influenced the British who did not wish to copy the German system but did not like the best and brightest of American scholars going to Germany. The British adopted the PhD from America. Oxford began its DPhil courses in 1917, but by then several British universities were on their way to introducing the PhD. Ernest Rutherford, New Zealander, physicist and Nobel Prize winner in 1908, spoke strongly in favour of the new postgraduate degree by thesis. In 1918 he said: "It should be made clear that the new degree which many universities propose is an entire innovation. it will involve . introducing into Britain a system practically identical with that which obtains in America, and to a large extent in Canada also. It will be a real and very great departure in English education - the greatest revolution, in my opinion, of modern times." The PhD took over another thirty years to get to Australia.

most of the chapters started life as papers presented at the conference "China in Oceania: towards a new regional order?" held at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan, 26-27 March 2007