I went to university and all I got was this t-shirt...

It took five years and a $40,000 student loan to finish my BA. And now a year later I head back home to finally attend my graduation. It feels good to be able to finally put that part of my life into a suitcase and drop it over the side of a bridge. Only three days to go....

Solomon's Journey

In the middle of the nineteenth century farmers in Australia were finding it increasingly difficult to recruit Australian labourers to work on the sugar and cotton feilds in the Queesnland area; the heat being too great and the work too hard.
From the 1860s, agents took schooners to the Pacific Islands such as the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and the Solomon's to 'recruit' for the plantations. Some went willingly, others were recruited through fraud but most were kidnapped and sold into a form of slavery as indentured servants. Some were offered 'pleasure cruises' that never returned to their islands. It is believed that around 57,000 Pacific Islanders were brought to Queensland and the northern NSW between 1863 and 1904 (www.foundingdocs.gov.au).
Reasons would have varied from individual to individual , some would have been excited at the opportunity of travel, to gain welath and possessions seen amongst white men, while others were tricked and kidnapped in the process known as 'black-birding'.
Although black-birding was popularly referred to as indentured labour - where Islanders were contracted for three years work in exchange for wages and were to be ex-patriated home afterwards, in many cases it was outright slavery. This practice continued for forty years unabated, despit the introduction of labour laws designed to protect the Islanders. The colony of Queensland for example passsed the Polynesian Labourers Act 1868, to bring control over the notorius trade in Pacific Islanders.
Some Australian labourers were threatened that their jobs may be jeopardised by the influx of cheap Islander labour, though there were some who showed their compassion. There was oublic outcry over the trade when in January 1868 the 'Syren' arrived in Brisbane with twelve dead Islanders and anothe twelve in quarantine. By March 1868 some 2107 Islanders had been imported into the colony, often after violence and deception in so-called recruitment.
If those indentured workers died before the end of their contract, as was bound to happen, then they were neither paid nor ex-patriated to thier homes. Most were never to return to families or homes anyway. Only when Australia introduced the Pacific Islands Labour Bill 1901, otherwise referred to as the 'White Australia Policy', did the trade finally begin to abate.

Doesn't history just give you the warm fuzzies?!

After a year long hiatus

I moved back into education. I enrolled in a MA. I study the effects of colonisation on the Peoples of the Pacific.

Here are some thoughts....

One of the more difficult things in moving to Australia so far has been around the issues of "cultural identity". It seems to me that the process/ess of culturally identifying a group as indigenous New Zealanders, as Maori, is easier to do. By this I mean that, although there are tribal differences, in whakapapa (geneaology), myths, legends, beliefs, geographically - these are slight. Whilst it is important to undestand that Maori are by no means a homogenous culture there are elements of the pan-tribal. The Maori language is the same in the North Island as the South Island. The beliefs and mythology around how the world came into being are the same across all tribes.
I understand the difference (correct me if I am wrong or not understanding things properly) between Aboriginal diaspora groups (do I say Nation groups?) to be vastly different. The languages are in many situations completely different as are beliefs, mythologies and other custom stuctures. I am finding it difficult to understand how to place yourself with this structure or the process around the identifying of somebody as Aboriginal when there is so much difference between groups.

I do however, understand that, in both situations the identifying term, whether 'Aborignal' or 'Maori', has been imposed on what I will call a "peer group" - that meaning a set of individuals who share similar common characteristics and are therefore recognised by others (in this case the coloniser) as a distinct social collectivity. This was most useful to those who where seeking to gain control over a relationship. Nowdays, there has been what some recognise as a 'reclaimation' over these cuturally identifying terms, terms which were initially used imposed upon them.
This is certinly the case with Maori and, I suspect with Aboriginal. A problem I have here is, do both groups acknowledge this imposition - or should there be a continuation of adaption of imposed structures to a material or temporal advantage of members in this group?

Losing the Cherry

I've just discovered the reason they've all been pointing at me and disguising their laughter beneath clenched claws covering orifices that shit usually comes from (you know, the mouth)...
Hi, my name's Anonymous Kat, and I am not a blogger.

Well, I wasn't until just now - when I thought I would catch the last train out of Sydney.....
All aboard! Now, I'm still trying to figure out if I am going to keep a blog because I want to be part of a so-called 'community' or because I want to see my writing out in the public arena (not the Roman type of course, I don't need lions, tigers and bears - oh my!, to rip my writing to pieces - my other half does that just fine thanks!)

or, [and here is really the most likely explanation] - as something to keep the boredom away when at work. Not that I don't enjoy my job - it's just, well, you know and I know where you are reading this from...and it ain't the comfort of your room. Nope, I suspect you are sitting in a god-awful uncomfortable chair, trying to block out Steve's voice (who never quite realises why people wince when he walks into the room).
Come on, 'fess up. No need to be shy about it - come on, embrace it! Take ownership of it.

You know you want to.