History, Territory and Sovereignty: Celebrating Settler Nationalism in South Australia, 1900–1968

Abstract

This thesis traces the development of nationalism in South Australia from 1901 to the 1960s, with a particular focus on the state’s relationship with Britain and the empire. Through a study of commemorative events, it examines not only how South Australians viewed the empire and their place in it, but how imperial sentiment was shifting and changing at a time when ideas of colonial nationhood were slowly giving way to a developing continental identity. The main claim of this thesis is that these three elements of South Australian nationalism did not remain static, but were continuously reconfigured into communities of people that reflected and emphasised particular aspects of their community of interest: the protection and development of the Australian continent as part of the larger imperial project. Rather than focusing on sentimental ties, or an ethnic or cultural identity, this thesis argues that settler nationalism was grounded in self-interest. Since the end of the Second World War, but especially since the 1970s, scholars have tended to conceptualise Australian nationalism as self-contained, singular and uniform; as something that developed separately to the country’s connection with Britain and the empire. This understandable focus on the depth and complexity of a distinctively Australian experience has, however, produced an amnesia about the significance of the country’s British roots and imperial past, and obscured regional variations in the articulation of nationalism that existed both before, and well after, Federation. By drawing on the work of historians who are re-examining Australia’s imperial past, this thesis suggests that nationalism was characterised in each of the colonies (and later, states) by a multilayered identity. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the colonies/states were asserting a growing sense of nationalism that was both pro-imperial and characterised by the idea of autonomy within empire. Nationalism in Australia during this time was bound up and underpinned by imperialism. The two phenomena not only informed and shaped one another, they were necessarily interconnected and interdependent. In examining how South Australia’s imperial connection shaped and reflected its ideas and expressions of nationalism, this thesis finds that the major commemorations of the period essentially and necessarily honoured an event from the past. What they celebrated was the state’s history and progress. What they emphasised was its role in the protection and development of the Australian continent as part of the larger imperial project. Tied to territory, and grounded in self-interest, South Australian nationalism also expressed ideals about communities of people that existed in both space and time. While the six colonies joined in Federation in 1901, they struggled to come together as a nation, and to celebrate a shared sense of Australian nationalism, until the states were united in both areas of their community of interest. Specifically, until they had a common history and a shared sense of destiny in both. Older attachments to Britain and the empire, and the persistence of regional nationalisms, meant this did not begin to happen until after the Second World War. Then, as Britain abandoned its settler empire during the 1960s, Australia was forced to look for its future within its own region. Yet, even in the accompanying search for a “new nationalism,” the focus remained on the nation’s interests in developing and protecting the continental land mass.