Christine Hansen | University of Gothenburg (original) (raw)

Papers by Christine Hansen

Environmental Humanities Journal, 2018

In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dens... more In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dense bush in the southeast corner of Australia, killing 173 people and leaving more than 7,000 homeless. In the aftermath of the disaster, commentators almost universally described the blaze as "unprecedented." This essay examines that claim in the light of contex-tualizing environmental histories and finds that although such firestorms are rare, they are far from unprecedented; they are in fact a necessary part of the cycle of regeneration in certain types of eucalypt forest. The idea that a never-before-witnessed event is unprecedented calls into question the shallow temporal frames through which deep time environmental phenomena are understood in Australian settler culture and offers an insight into often unno-ticed ways in which contemporary society struggles with the colonial legacy. This struggle sits next to the ambition of land management authorities to adopt traditional Indigenous mosaic-patterned cool-burning techniques as part of a fire mitigation strategy, without directly addressing the colonial history inscribed on the land they are commissioned to manage.

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The ordinary stories of ordinary Aboriginal people are a necessary part of Australian history. Ye... more The ordinary stories of ordinary Aboriginal people are a necessary part of Australian history. Yet museums throughout Australia, and in particular the National Museum of Australia, which are charged with the task of telling these stories, struggle to find appropriate material means to do so: the history which shaped Australian museum collections and the history which shaped contemporary Aboriginal communities do not neatly converge. This research reflects on both.

The structure of this thesis is fashioned around three distinct voices. The first of these is my own where I give an account of my engagement with the Ngarigo community from the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales into whose contemporary reality and history I am drawn. This reflexive narrative also provides the means for consideration of the complex and sometimes confronting research process as it unfolds in the field. Stories rather than objects were central to the interests of the community participants and it was a story, or rather a series of stories, which I felt would best serve the thorny conjunction of politics, history and representation at the core of this project. Story is also the central method in the second voice of this work, that of the historical narrative. Here the plot centres not so much on reflection as on reconstruction of a Ngarigo family history. It is this voice that provides a powerful juxtaposition between the reality of lived lives and the constructions of Aboriginality emanating from both the academy and from within institutions of popular culture such as museums. The third voice of the thesis offers an analytical examination of the ideas underpinning the conceptual and historical elements out of which a museum is constructed. In this way I explore how the processes which have constituted the museum might be re-configured to accommodate the particularities of Aboriginal social history.

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"Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin ... more "Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin in the lee of Kinglake plateau and the Great Dividing Range. The escarpment walls of the range drop in a series of ridges to the valley and form the south-eastern boundary of the Kinglake National Park. The gentle undulations that flow out from the valley stretch into the productive and picturesque landscape of Victoria’s famous wine growing district, the Yarra Valley.
Late on the afternoon of 7 February 2009, the day that came to be known as Black Saturday, the Kinglake plateau carried a massive conflagration down the fringing ranges into the Steels Creek community. Ten people perished and 67 dwellings were razed in the firestorm. In the wake of the fires, the devastated residents of the valley began the long task of grieving, repairing, rebuilding or moving on while redefining themselves and their community.

In Living with Fire, historians Tom Griffiths and Christine Hansen trace both the history of fire in the region and the human history of the Steels Creek valley in a series of essays which examine the relationship between people and place. These essays are interspersed with four interludes compiled from material produced by the community. In the immediate aftermath of the fire many people sought to express their grief, shock, sadness and relief in artwork. Some painted or wrote poetry, while others collected the burnt remains of past treasures from which they made new objects. These expressions, supplemented by historical archives and the essays they stand beside, offer a sensory and holistic window into the community’s contemporary and historical experiences.

A deeply moving book, Living with Fire brings to life the stories of one community’s experience with fire, offering a way to understand the past, and in doing so, prepare for the future."

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Critical to understanding urban Aboriginal identities is a consideration of Indigenous history an... more Critical to understanding urban Aboriginal identities is a consideration of Indigenous history and, particularly, its under-representation, exclusion and misrepresentation in historical texts. This volume contributes a unique set of chapters that focus on the history of Aboriginality and urban identities.

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in Heritage as Common(s) – Common(s) as Heritage Ed. Benesch, Hammami, Holmberg, Uzer Curating th... more in Heritage as Common(s) – Common(s) as Heritage
Ed. Benesch, Hammami, Holmberg, Uzer
Curating the City Series, Gothenburg: Makadam Publishers

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In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dens... more In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dense bush in the southeast corner of Australia, killing 173 people and leaving more than 7,000 homeless. In the aftermath of the disaster, commentators almost universally described the blaze as “unprecedented.” This essay examines that claim in the light of contextualizing environmental histories and finds that although such firestorms are rare, they are far from unprecedented; they are in fact a necessary part of the cycle of regeneration in certain types of eucalypt forest. The idea that a never-before-witnessed event is unprecedented calls into question the shallow temporal frames through which deep time environmental phenomena are understood in Australian settler culture and offers an insight into often unnoticed ways in which contemporary society struggles with the colonial legacy. This struggle sits next to the ambition of land management authorities to adopt traditional Indigenous mosaic-patterned cool-burning techniques as part of a fire mitigation strategy, without directly addressing the colonial history inscribed on the land they are commissioned to manage.

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Trough two case studies, one in Australia and one in Sweden, this paper looks at how seemingly st... more Trough two case studies, one in Australia and one in Sweden, this paper looks at how seemingly stable heritage institutions such as museums, archives and government repositories can be reformed through engagement with subaltern subjects. Highlighting institutional permeability rather than conservative resistance, we follow the movement of this “motion and flow” and how it in turn affects ideas of what constitutes both “heritage experts” and broader notions of “heritage”. Although these examples vary in scale, they nevertheless share the contemporary myths and misunderstandings around what happens when heritage institutions meet with subaltern peoples and the challenges they o er from within for the inner workings of the institution. In one case a radical inclusion has been achieved while the other has begun what is likely to be a long-term, complex, cultural conversation. Taken together, these institutional achievements may offer an alternative to recent critiques of official heritage institutions as merely inheritors of a nineteenth-century legacy.

Keywords: Heritage, subaltern histories, heritage institutions, Aboriginal Australians, Sweden’s Roma people, ephemeral places, memory, Swedish Roma history, Aboriginal history, National Museum of Australia, Swedish minorities.

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in Climate Change, Museum Futures (2015) Edited by Fiona Cameron, Brett Neilson Routledge

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From Fötter Rörelser Genom Slöjden (2015) Curated by Thomas Laurien Växjö Konsthall

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Review of Enduring Civilisation exhibition at the British Museum in ReCollections, Journal of the... more Review of Enduring Civilisation exhibition at the British Museum in ReCollections, Journal of the National Museum of Australia

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Review of Melbourne's Barak Building, The Conversation Australia, March 19, 2015

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Review of Parihaka Album by Rachel Buchanan. Australian Historical Studies, 43:2, 312-334

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Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin i... more Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin in the lee of Kinglake plateau and the Great Dividing Range. Late on the afternoon of 7 February 2009, the day that came to be known as Black Saturday, the Kinglake plateau carried a massive conflagration down the fringing ranges into the Steels Creek community. Ten people perished and 67 dwellings were razed in the firestorm. In Living with Fire, historians Tom Griffiths and Christine Hansen trace both the history of fire in the region and the human history of the Steels Creek valley in a series of essays which examine the relationship between people and place. These essays are interspersed with four interludes compiled from material produced by the community.These expressions, supplemented by historical archives and the essays they stand beside, offer a sensory and holistic window into the community’s contemporary and historical experiences.

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Environmental Humanities Journal, 2018

In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dens... more In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dense bush in the southeast corner of Australia, killing 173 people and leaving more than 7,000 homeless. In the aftermath of the disaster, commentators almost universally described the blaze as "unprecedented." This essay examines that claim in the light of contex-tualizing environmental histories and finds that although such firestorms are rare, they are far from unprecedented; they are in fact a necessary part of the cycle of regeneration in certain types of eucalypt forest. The idea that a never-before-witnessed event is unprecedented calls into question the shallow temporal frames through which deep time environmental phenomena are understood in Australian settler culture and offers an insight into often unno-ticed ways in which contemporary society struggles with the colonial legacy. This struggle sits next to the ambition of land management authorities to adopt traditional Indigenous mosaic-patterned cool-burning techniques as part of a fire mitigation strategy, without directly addressing the colonial history inscribed on the land they are commissioned to manage.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The ordinary stories of ordinary Aboriginal people are a necessary part of Australian history. Ye... more The ordinary stories of ordinary Aboriginal people are a necessary part of Australian history. Yet museums throughout Australia, and in particular the National Museum of Australia, which are charged with the task of telling these stories, struggle to find appropriate material means to do so: the history which shaped Australian museum collections and the history which shaped contemporary Aboriginal communities do not neatly converge. This research reflects on both.

The structure of this thesis is fashioned around three distinct voices. The first of these is my own where I give an account of my engagement with the Ngarigo community from the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales into whose contemporary reality and history I am drawn. This reflexive narrative also provides the means for consideration of the complex and sometimes confronting research process as it unfolds in the field. Stories rather than objects were central to the interests of the community participants and it was a story, or rather a series of stories, which I felt would best serve the thorny conjunction of politics, history and representation at the core of this project. Story is also the central method in the second voice of this work, that of the historical narrative. Here the plot centres not so much on reflection as on reconstruction of a Ngarigo family history. It is this voice that provides a powerful juxtaposition between the reality of lived lives and the constructions of Aboriginality emanating from both the academy and from within institutions of popular culture such as museums. The third voice of the thesis offers an analytical examination of the ideas underpinning the conceptual and historical elements out of which a museum is constructed. In this way I explore how the processes which have constituted the museum might be re-configured to accommodate the particularities of Aboriginal social history.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

"Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin ... more "Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin in the lee of Kinglake plateau and the Great Dividing Range. The escarpment walls of the range drop in a series of ridges to the valley and form the south-eastern boundary of the Kinglake National Park. The gentle undulations that flow out from the valley stretch into the productive and picturesque landscape of Victoria’s famous wine growing district, the Yarra Valley.
Late on the afternoon of 7 February 2009, the day that came to be known as Black Saturday, the Kinglake plateau carried a massive conflagration down the fringing ranges into the Steels Creek community. Ten people perished and 67 dwellings were razed in the firestorm. In the wake of the fires, the devastated residents of the valley began the long task of grieving, repairing, rebuilding or moving on while redefining themselves and their community.

In Living with Fire, historians Tom Griffiths and Christine Hansen trace both the history of fire in the region and the human history of the Steels Creek valley in a series of essays which examine the relationship between people and place. These essays are interspersed with four interludes compiled from material produced by the community. In the immediate aftermath of the fire many people sought to express their grief, shock, sadness and relief in artwork. Some painted or wrote poetry, while others collected the burnt remains of past treasures from which they made new objects. These expressions, supplemented by historical archives and the essays they stand beside, offer a sensory and holistic window into the community’s contemporary and historical experiences.

A deeply moving book, Living with Fire brings to life the stories of one community’s experience with fire, offering a way to understand the past, and in doing so, prepare for the future."

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Critical to understanding urban Aboriginal identities is a consideration of Indigenous history an... more Critical to understanding urban Aboriginal identities is a consideration of Indigenous history and, particularly, its under-representation, exclusion and misrepresentation in historical texts. This volume contributes a unique set of chapters that focus on the history of Aboriginality and urban identities.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

in Heritage as Common(s) – Common(s) as Heritage Ed. Benesch, Hammami, Holmberg, Uzer Curating th... more in Heritage as Common(s) – Common(s) as Heritage
Ed. Benesch, Hammami, Holmberg, Uzer
Curating the City Series, Gothenburg: Makadam Publishers

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dens... more In the late summer of 2009, a massive firestorm swept through more than one million acres of dense bush in the southeast corner of Australia, killing 173 people and leaving more than 7,000 homeless. In the aftermath of the disaster, commentators almost universally described the blaze as “unprecedented.” This essay examines that claim in the light of contextualizing environmental histories and finds that although such firestorms are rare, they are far from unprecedented; they are in fact a necessary part of the cycle of regeneration in certain types of eucalypt forest. The idea that a never-before-witnessed event is unprecedented calls into question the shallow temporal frames through which deep time environmental phenomena are understood in Australian settler culture and offers an insight into often unnoticed ways in which contemporary society struggles with the colonial legacy. This struggle sits next to the ambition of land management authorities to adopt traditional Indigenous mosaic-patterned cool-burning techniques as part of a fire mitigation strategy, without directly addressing the colonial history inscribed on the land they are commissioned to manage.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Trough two case studies, one in Australia and one in Sweden, this paper looks at how seemingly st... more Trough two case studies, one in Australia and one in Sweden, this paper looks at how seemingly stable heritage institutions such as museums, archives and government repositories can be reformed through engagement with subaltern subjects. Highlighting institutional permeability rather than conservative resistance, we follow the movement of this “motion and flow” and how it in turn affects ideas of what constitutes both “heritage experts” and broader notions of “heritage”. Although these examples vary in scale, they nevertheless share the contemporary myths and misunderstandings around what happens when heritage institutions meet with subaltern peoples and the challenges they o er from within for the inner workings of the institution. In one case a radical inclusion has been achieved while the other has begun what is likely to be a long-term, complex, cultural conversation. Taken together, these institutional achievements may offer an alternative to recent critiques of official heritage institutions as merely inheritors of a nineteenth-century legacy.

Keywords: Heritage, subaltern histories, heritage institutions, Aboriginal Australians, Sweden’s Roma people, ephemeral places, memory, Swedish Roma history, Aboriginal history, National Museum of Australia, Swedish minorities.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

in Climate Change, Museum Futures (2015) Edited by Fiona Cameron, Brett Neilson Routledge

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

From Fötter Rörelser Genom Slöjden (2015) Curated by Thomas Laurien Växjö Konsthall

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Review of Enduring Civilisation exhibition at the British Museum in ReCollections, Journal of the... more Review of Enduring Civilisation exhibition at the British Museum in ReCollections, Journal of the National Museum of Australia

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Review of Melbourne's Barak Building, The Conversation Australia, March 19, 2015

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Review of Parihaka Album by Rachel Buchanan. Australian Historical Studies, 43:2, 312-334

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin i... more Within the Yarra River catchment area nestles the valley of Steels Creek, a small shallow basin in the lee of Kinglake plateau and the Great Dividing Range. Late on the afternoon of 7 February 2009, the day that came to be known as Black Saturday, the Kinglake plateau carried a massive conflagration down the fringing ranges into the Steels Creek community. Ten people perished and 67 dwellings were razed in the firestorm. In Living with Fire, historians Tom Griffiths and Christine Hansen trace both the history of fire in the region and the human history of the Steels Creek valley in a series of essays which examine the relationship between people and place. These essays are interspersed with four interludes compiled from material produced by the community.These expressions, supplemented by historical archives and the essays they stand beside, offer a sensory and holistic window into the community’s contemporary and historical experiences.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact