An Update
This year went off track, to put it plainly. I broke my ankle at the end of January, didn’t find out it was broken until March and then had to get surgery with another 12-week recovery period. After a period of sick leave, I was determined to still go on my research trip to Tasmania/lutruwita. I couldn’t bear putting off the archival research again, especially after the lockdowns and border closures we had last year. So, with my crutches, and my very generous partner Mark, we left for Hobart/nipaluna.
The first two days were the Conviction Politics team workshop. After years of virtual meetings, we were able to be in the same place sharing ideas; what we’ve been working on and have in the works. This included the travelling exhibition with its first iteration at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, collaboration with the NSW curriculum, and further development of the online hub. It was great to hear from different stakeholders, and their points of view on the role of historical research and storytelling, especially the museum curators, archivists and union bodies that are partners of the project. We need scholarship to reach the public, whether that’s by responding to a need for lesson plans for teachers, developing accessible resources, apps for walking tours, or more traditional publications. It’s exciting to see and be a part of this process in this public-facing project!
Additionally, the project also seeks to democratise data by making the Digital History Tasmania Convict database accessible and expanding it to include records Australia-wide. This means that future projects can continually build upon the research and data that has been collected. I personally have drawn on this data for my research and it’s been invaluable in allowing me to identify and trace my two groups of political prisoners. The potential here is really exciting, showcasing what digital history brings to the table, and how it allows for new approaches and ways of understanding the past. For instance, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Michael Quinlan’s new book Unfree Workers: Insubordination and Resistance in Convict Australia, 1788-1860, utilises this data to paint a picture of early convict collective action and resistance, radically changing the field and our understanding of labour history and Australian history.
After the workshop, I was meant to spend most of my time at the Tasmanian state archives. I’d ordered a trolley full of materials including, letters, legal documents, colonial correspondence, photographs, memoirs, lectures, and research files. In one research file I found letters of George Rudé, who wrote Protest and Punishment: The Story of the Social and Political Protesters Transported to Australia, 1788-1868 in 1978, which is a key text for my research and Conviction Politics. Letters between the Young Ireland prisoners were also great to read and full of feeling. Especially the letters between Martin and O’Doherty during their sentence and a letter addressed to William Smith O’Brien from a group of sympathisers in Launceston upon his release in 1854.
Letter to William Smith O’Brien from northern Tasmania congratulating him and Martin and O’Doherty upon their release. NS1376/1/4. Hobart C 230 3.
However, four days into the trip, and after only two days in the archives, Mark and I contracted COVID-19 and spent the next 10 days in hotel quarantine. This kind of confinement did have a level of irony, considering the individuals that I was meant to be studying were also confined to this island. Upon release, I went into salvage mode, scanning as many materials in the archive as possible before our flight back to Melbourne in the evening.
While I still got to access most of the materials I ordered, it wasn’t under the same conditions I had expected or planned for. The Archive Fever podcast by Clare Wright and Yves Rees delved into these tensions in episode 1, ‘Archives Anonymous’. Particularly, the physicality and movements of going to the archive and having no distractions; being deeply immersed in that time and place, and how important that is for bringing the archive to life. What I’ve found is how much of a privilege that is and that it’s not always possible, or accessible. And yet, we need this slow research. Like Farge writes in The Allure of the Archives: “One cannot overstate how slow work in the archives is, and how this slowness of hands and thought can be the source of creativity” (p. 55). This got me thinking about the broader pressures and impacts on knowledge production and scholarship – institutional demands, financial restraints, mobility constraints – which do not make this creativity accessible.
I can’t say I got much of a feel for Hobart or the archival records, but fortunately, I will be able to travel back to Hobart again at the end of the month. Ideally, I’ll be able to visit some of the historical sites, like Port Arthur, Maria Island, and the Cascades Female Factory too. On a more positive note, I just found out I was accepted to present a paper in Florence, Italy for the Society for the History of Emotions (SHE) conference in late August! The topic is Going Places: Mobility, Migration, Exile, Space and Emotions and my paper will come from Chapter 3 of my thesis, The Emotions of Political Exile. I plan to coincide this with visiting family in Scotland and further research in the UK. Let’s hope the rest of the year I’m able to ‘go places’ and that I only ever break a leg again figuratively.
