TY - JOUR
T1 - Old questions and 'New Biography'
T2 - labour activism, William Murphy and Racialisation in 1880s Victoria
AU - Boucher, Leigh
PY - 2012/3/1
Y1 - 2012/3/1
N2 - The work of Patrick Joyce and Joan Scott asks scholars to rigorously historicise experience, identity and, as a consequence, subjectivity. This article suggests the combination of their insights with biographical techniques has the potential to offer new explanations for intransigent historiographic problems such as the explosion of racism in late nineteenth-century Australian labour politics. The practice of biography, moreover, provides an opportunity for Australian scholars to re-engage with the challenge of post-structuralism and resist the temptation to isolate its influence to analyses of culture and representation. Using these methodologies to investigate the subjectivity of labour activist William Murphy, this article then argues that late colonial 'racism' emerged as a discursive resolution to a much wider set of questions about the legitimacy of labour in public life.
AB - The work of Patrick Joyce and Joan Scott asks scholars to rigorously historicise experience, identity and, as a consequence, subjectivity. This article suggests the combination of their insights with biographical techniques has the potential to offer new explanations for intransigent historiographic problems such as the explosion of racism in late nineteenth-century Australian labour politics. The practice of biography, moreover, provides an opportunity for Australian scholars to re-engage with the challenge of post-structuralism and resist the temptation to isolate its influence to analyses of culture and representation. Using these methodologies to investigate the subjectivity of labour activist William Murphy, this article then argues that late colonial 'racism' emerged as a discursive resolution to a much wider set of questions about the legitimacy of labour in public life.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84859348532&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1031461X.2011.649772
DO - 10.1080/1031461X.2011.649772
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84859348532
VL - 43
SP - 89
EP - 106
JO - Australian Historical Studies
JF - Australian Historical Studies
SN - 1031-461X
IS - 1
ER -