Anniversary Reckonings: The Contested Reinvention of National Identity in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Canada, 1988-1992
Between 1988 and 1992, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Canada all struggled to mount state-sponsored national anniversary celebrations. They did so amidst intense conflicts that focused primarily on these settler societies’ colonial roots and ethnic makeup, but also reflected concerns about national unity, shifting conceptions of human rights, neo-conservative economic retrenchment, and environmental degradation. The Australian Bicentennial (1988), the 150th Anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi (1990), and the Canada 125 celebrations (1992) thus provide an important window onto the ways that settler nations have grappled with politically charged questions about their pasts, their presents, and their futures.
My new research project teases out the significance of these developments by exploring the connection between public memory and political culture in a comparative and transnational context. The project examines the hotly contested process in which some members of these three settler nations slowly, awkwardly, and, often reluctantly, acknowledged their colonial roots and attempted to consolidate a new sense of national identity as multicultural nations, while others staunchly resisted such attempts. It also underscores the efforts undertaken by Indigenous leaders and other activists to disrupt and challenge the anniversaries’ official narratives of national unity and accomplishment. In doing so, the project will shed new light on contemporary political divisions in all three nations while simultaneously addressing key historiographical debates.
From a contemporary perspective, the project examines and documents the roots of present-day political polarization. My preliminary research suggests that each of these three public anniversaries brought into sharp relief, and served as catalysts for, nascent debates between advocates of “progressive” and “populist” conceptions of national identity. In particular, each anniversary occurred within a highly contested and combustible political context that was dominated by debates about multiculturalism and colonialism. Our understanding of contemporary battles surrounding colonialism and Reconciliation, and asylum seekers and refugees, for example, will be enhanced by the project’s exploration of all three nations’ late-twentieth century campaigns to forge independent identities that endeavoured to “reset” their official historical narratives.
From a historiographical perspective, the project speaks to a core comparative question posed by scholars examining settler societies in a variety of contexts. To what extent have recent historical developments in settler nations been shaped by common transnational patterns or by nation-specific developments? In exploring this question, the project contributes to a growing body of comparative literature examining the relationship between colonialism and the development of political culture in settler societies.
Overall, “Anniversary Reckonings” explores the public discourse surrounding these three anniversaries, including the forceful opposition to their official goals and rhetoric. By communicating my findings to both academic and general audiences through a variety of venues including academic journals, an academic monograph, op-eds, online commentaries, and media interviews, I hope to offer new insights into the contested nation-building processes that have shaped present-day debates and crises in each nation while simultaneously highlighting common and divergent patterns in order to contribute to the growing comparative literature examining settler societies.