Liberal Intellectuals as Pacific Supercargo: White Australian Masculinity and Racial Thought on the Boarder-Lands.

Some internationally minded liberal intellectual men in Melbourne and Sydney in the 1920s and 1930s became obsessed with the Pacific, viewing its peoples as instructive and appealing, even as possible guides for solving Australia's population problems. I follow three of them—Frederic W. Eggleston, Stephen H. Roberts, and Adolphus P. Elkin—as they read the lessons of Oceania. In particular, experiences in Hawaii and intimacies with Pacific peoples led them to revise their opinions of Aboriginal Australians, re-evaluate the mixing of races, and even question the white Australia policy. Additionally, I consider here what these reflections on the beach and entanglements in the boarder-lands of the surf may have meant for the development of a style of internationalist white masculinity during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]