Professor Margaret Allen

Qualifications

B.A. (Hons) (Adelaide) 1969

Diploma of Education (Adelaide) 1970

Master of Arts (History) (Adelaide) 1976

Master of Arts (Social History) (Essex) 1979

Ph.D (Flinders University of South Australia) 1992

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate Subjects

Introduction to Gender Studies

Gender, Work and Society

Life Stories: Australia 1850-1980

Gender and Race in Australian History

Research Interests

Margaret Allen is interested in transnational, postcolonial and feminist histories and whiteness. Her current ARC funded research focuses upon relationships between India and Australia and Indians and Australians in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. She is working on Australian women missionaries in India as well as exploring the ways Indian men domiciled in Australia negotiated the White Australia Policy. Gender and notions of difference are central in her work. She has also researched 19th century Australian women writers and the making of a colonial culture. Professor Allen is working on a biography of the writer, Catharine E.M. Martin. She has long experience in oral history, and participated in a project on oral histories of older women of Non English Speaking Backgrounds. She is currently doing interviews as part of the Don Dunstan Oral History Project.

She has been a Chief Investigator on the ARC funded Australian Women's Archives Project since 2003. see http://www.nfaw.org/women-s-history/

During 1995-1997 she was involved in an ARC funded project 'Quaker Families and the Construction of Social Difference' and later was engaged in a longitudinal survey of the 'Professional Career Experiences of Young Australian Graduates'. In 1997 she carried out a feasibility study of the establishment of Women's Studies at the National University of Laos for the Swedish International Development Agency and the Laos Ministry of Education. She is on the editorial boards of Australian Feminist Studies, Hecate and Outskirts.

Publications

Selected publications

Monographs and Edited Books
Intersections: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Australasian Studies Delhi, Prestige, 2007. Co-edited with R. K. Dhawan

Fresh Evidence, New Witnesses Finding Women's History Adelaide, Stateprint, 1989 with Alison Mackinnon and Mary Hutchison

Limited Access: Women's Disadvantage in Higher Education Employment NTEU, Melbourne, 1995 with Tanya Castleman, Wendy Bastalich and Pat Wright

All Her Labours 2 vols Sydney, Hale and Iremonger 1984 edited with Women and Labour Publications Collective

Book Chapters

'The deluded white woman and the expatriation of the white child' in Jane Carey, Leigh Boucher and Katherine Ellinghaus (eds) Re-Orienting Whiteness: A new Agenda for the Field   Palgrave, New York, 2009 pp. 165-179.

'"A fine type of Hindoo" meets "the Australian type": British Indians in Australia and diverse masculinities'. In (eds) Desley Deacon, Penny Russell and Angela Woollacott, Transnational Ties: Australian Lives in the World ANU E-Press, Canberra, 2008, pp. 41-58 at http://epress.anu.edu.au/transnational_citation.html.

'Observing Australia as the "Member of an Alien and Conquered Race" ' in Amit Sarwal and Reema Sarwal (eds) Reading Down Under: Australian Literary Studies Reader, New Delhi: SSS Publications, 2009. pp.560-570.

'Identifying Sher Mohamad: "a good citizen"' in R . Crane, C. Vijayasree Anna Johnston, (eds) Empire Calling: Administering Colonial Spaces in India and Australasia. forthcoming 2009.

'Through Colonial Spectacles' in K. Douglas and G. Bastin (eds) Journeying and Journalling Lythrum Press, Adelaide forthcoming 2009

'Otim Singh in White Australia' in N.Bierbaum et. al. (eds) Something Rich and Strange (Adelaide: Wakefield Press) forthcoming  2009

'Noblesse Oblige: Religion, class and "race" in Kooroona' in M. Anderson (ed) Adelaide Snapshots forthcoming Wakefield Press forthcoming 2009

'"The Chinaman had no fault except that they were Chinese": An Indian view of Australia in 1888' in S. Sareen (ed) Interconnections Identity, Representation and Belonging New Delhi, Mantra Press 2006, pp. 202-217.

'So complete is "the exile of London's poorest from civilisation": Catherine Martin encounters London' in Tully Barnett, Nena Bierbaum, Syd Harrex, Rick Hosking and Graham Tulloch (eds) London was full of rooms Adelaide, Lythrum Press 2006. pp. 128-137.

'"Innocents abroad" and "prohibited immigrants"; Australians in India and Indians in Australia 1890-1910' in Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake (eds) Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective Canberra, ANU E Press, 2005 pp. 111-124. Also at http://epress.anu.edu.au/cw/pdf/cw_part2.pdf

'"To put on record, as faithfully as possible": Catherine Martin (1847-1937)' in Fiona Paisley, Anna Cole and Vicki Haskins (eds) Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra. 2005. pp. 240-256.

Catherine Martin, '"The Moated Grange", Tennyson and Alick's diaries' in Nena Bierbaum, Syd Harrex Susan Hosking (eds) The Regenerative Spirit: Polarities of Home and Away, Encounters and Diasporas, in Post-colonial Literatures volume 2 (Lythrum Press, Adelaide, 2004) pp. 179-191.

'Catherine Martin' biographical introduction to Rosemary Campbell (ed): C.E.M.Martin 'An Australian Girl' The Academy Editions of Australian Literature, St.Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2002 pp. 639-655.

'Fighting the Pipeline Fallacy' in Ann Brooks and Alison Mackinnon (eds) Gender and the Restructured University Open University Press, 2001[with Tanya Castleman] pp. 151-165.

'The Playground and the Boarding House Realities of Daily Life' in Fay Gale (ed) Making Space Women and Education at St Aloysius College Adelaide 1880-2000 Wakefield Press, Adelaide 2000 pp. 123-151

'Fred Martin' in Martin family committee (ed)The Hatbox Letters Privately published, Adelaide, 1999 pp. 99-104

'Catherine Martin: An Australian Girl?' in Debra Adelaide (ed): A Bright and Fiery Troop: Australian Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century (Ringwood, Penguin, 1988) pp. 152-164 Republished on Auslit 2002

Refereed Journal Articles
'Imperial Emotions: Affective communities of Mission in British Protestant Women's Missionary Publications c1880-1920' (with Jane Haggis) in Journal of Social History (Spring 2008) pp. 691-716

'The Australian horse traders winter in Calcutta 1930', JOSA Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia October 2008, Vol. 39-40 Part One pp. 37-49..

'Betraying the White Nation: The case of Lillie Khan' in Athanor: Semiotica, Filosofia, Arte, Letteratura, special issue White Matters/Il Bianco al Centro della Questione 17(10) 2006-7, pp. 346-353. Also in Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity; pages: 80-88. Boucher, Leigh (Editor); Carey, Jane (Editor); Ellinghaus, Katherine (Editor). Melbourne: RMIT Publishing in association with the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne, 2007.

'Making Spaces: Women teachers and students in two Adelaide high schools around 1955', History Australia vol. 2 (2) pp. 37- 1-11. 2005.

'"She seems to have composed her own life": thinking about Catherine Martin' Australian Feminist Studies vol. 19 (43) March 2004. pp. 29-42.

'Homely stories and the ideological work of "Terra Nullius"' Journal of Australian Studies no 79 2003, pp. 104-115 and 234-236.

'The gendering of professional careers for young Australians: some early findings of a longitudinal study', Special Issue Australian Journal of Labour Economics, Dec 2003 pp. 49-66. with Rosslyn Reed, Tanya Castleman and Darryl Coulthard.

'The Brothers up North and the Sisters down South: The Mackay family and the frontier', Hecate vol. XXVII (2) November 2001 pp. 7-31.

'Thinking Back Through Our Aunts: Emily and Matilda Sturge', Lilith November 2001 pp.41-57.

'Learning our Shared Histories: Reconciliation and Aboriginal Galleries in the Western Australian and South Australian Museums' Cultures of the Commonwealth Essays and Studies 'Reconciliation' no.7 Winter 2000-2001 pp. 133-148 ] with Chilla Bulbeck

Editorial 'Gender in the Contact Zone' Special Issue of Australian Feminist Studies Vol. 15 no.31, March 2001 pp. 4-8.

'"White Already to Harvest" South Australian Women Missionaries in India' Feminist Review (UK) no 65 June 2000 pp. 92-107

'The Author's Daughter, the Professor's Wife, Harriet Miller Davidson' Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia no. 27 1999 pp.103-124.

'Matilda Sturge '"Renaissance Woman"' Women's History Review (UK) volume 7 (2) 1998 pp. 209-226

'The "Pipeline Fallacy" and Gender Inequality in Higher Education Employment'. Policy, Organisation and Society no. 15, Summer 1998 pp. 23-44 (with Tanya Castleman).

'Offices and Services: Women's Pursuit of Sexual Equality within the Society of Friends, 1873-1907' Quaker Studies (UK) vol.2 (1) Summer 1997 pp. 1-29 (with Sandra Stanley Holton)

'The Domestic Ideal and the Mobilisation of Womanpower in World War Two' Women's Studies International Forum (UK) vol. 6. no. 4, 1983.pp. 401-412

Other Publications
Pamphlet
Catherine Martin's Library: With a list of the Books Bibliographica Historica Australiae no.12 (Canberra, Mulini Press, 2002) 60pp.

Edited Works
'Gender in the Contact Zone' Special Issue of Australian Feminist Studies Vol. 15 no.31, March 2001, pp. 1-111. sole editor

Special issue of Outskirts feminisms along the edge an on-line journal 2000-2001. sole editor

Co-edited 'Between Rationality and Revelation: women, faith and public roles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'. Special Issue Women's History Review vol. 7(2) 1998 (with Sandra Stanley Holton and Alison Mackinnon).

Co-edited 'Women, Religion and Citizenship: Intersections'. Special Issue Australian Feminist Studies vol. 13 no. 28 1998 (with Sandra Stanley Holton and Alison Mackinnon).

Entries in Biographical Dictionaries/Historical Companions

Entry on Mary Smith, Child psychologist for Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press forthcoming, 2010

Entries on C.E.M.Martin, C.H.Spence, H.M.Davidson, L.Miller and the Greig sisters for S.Reynolds and S.McInnes (eds) Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2005.

Entry on John Medway Day, journalist and editor for Australian Dictionary of Biography,Supplementary Volme, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2005, p. 97.

Entry on Matilda Sturge New Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, London, 2004 vol. 53 pp. 141-142.

Entries on Marriage and Divorce, Social Structure, WCTU and Cheer Up Society in W. Prest (ed) The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History (Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 2001) pp. 336-8, 493-6, 587-8, 100-101.

M. Veta MacGhey, educationalist and unionist, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15 (Melbourne University Press, 2000) p. 214

Entries on 'Matilda Jane Evans', 'Catherine Martin' and 'Marian' in Lorna Sage (ed) Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999 pp. 226, 420, 423-4.

Conference Reports
'Women's Studies into Gender Studies - will it go?' Report on Sixth Newcastle Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Conference 1999 Australian Feminist Studies, no. 30 1999

Public History Reviews

Review of ‘Blue Jeans Jungle Greens: Revisiting the Sixties and Seventies’ History Trust of  SA in Australian Historical Studies, 40, 2009, 251-2 

 

Review of 'Every Stitch Tells a Story Migration Museum, Adelaide Australian Historical Studies 2004 with Chilla Bulbeck

 

Review of 'Western Australia: Land and People, Western Australian Museum' Australian Historical Studies no. 119, 2002 pp.193-4. (with Chilla Bulbeck)

'Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery at the South Australian Museum' Australian Historical Studies no. 115 October 2000 pp. 345-7 (with Chilla Bulbeck)

 

Other recent reviews 

Review Meera Kosambi, Crossing Thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History, (New Delhi and Ranikhet, Permanent Black, 2007).in Australian Feminist Studies v.26 (60) June 2009.pp. 295-6. 

 

Review of Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008) forthcoming in Social History  35:1 (January 2010)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professional Associations

Member of Australian Historical Association

Board Member and Newsletter Editor International Federation for Research on Women's History

Community Engagement

2001-7	Board Member, History Trust of South Australia
2005-	Member Australian Dictionary of Biography Working Party for SA.
2005	Member Expert Reference Group, Review of State Government Office for Women
1995-	Life Member, National Tertiary Education Union

Expertise for Media Contact

Categories	History
Expertise	Women (especially Australian women's history); 19th century Australian women writers; India (Australian links in the late 19th-early 20th century); women and work
Notes	Alt phone: (08) 8303 3715

Entry last updated: Sunday, 15 Nov 2009