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Salvage: Locating Lives in the Migration Museum.

Authors :
Whitlock, Gillian
Source :
Life Writing; Dec2017, Vol. 14 Issue 4, p427-440, 14p
Publication Year :
2017

Abstract

The 'Locating Lives' conference in Adelaide in December 2015 included two off-campus expeditions in its programme: a visit to the Adelaide Migration Museum, and a beach walk to Glenelg. Given the unique oceanic imaginary attached to the Asia Pacific region, museums, beaches and boats are key sites for locating life narratives here. A series of life narratives that feature memories of child migration to Australia in the early sixties are featured here: Jimmy Barnes' memoir Working Class Boy; the testimonies in the 'On Their Own - Britain's Child Migrants' exhibition that has featured in migration museums in Britain and Australia; Joe Sacco's essay 'The Unwanted'; and my own recollections as a British child migrant. Late last century, a turn to 'human rights museology' and 'history from below' facilitated new migration museums and exhibition spaces such as the Adelaide Migration Museum, that are open to personal testimony and artefacts that locate lives more intimately and experientially. On display, artefacts become evocative objects open to multiple stories of migration, both past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14484528
Volume :
14
Issue :
4
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Life Writing
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
125574982
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2017.1364961