Envisioning a Mediterranean Pacific: photography and sugar cane migrants

Dr Andonis Piperoglou is the inaugural Hellenic Senior Lecturer of Global Diasporas at the University of Melbourne. Andonis is a specialist in migration and ethnic history and has published extensively on Greek migration to Australia. He works on historical connections between colonialism, racism, and migration, as well as human movements between the Mediterranean and the Pacific. In the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Andonis teaches subjects on migration, diaspora, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalisation. Currently, Andonis is the Vice President of the International Australian Studies Association.

Abstract

During the early decades of the twentieth century many migrants from the Mediterranean region worked in Queensland’s catering industry, yet an increasing number found employment as bush-clearers, sugar-cane cutters, and labourers in sugar refineries. In many ways, this history of migration from the Mediterranean region in Queensland’s sugar districts has been told as one of hard work and successful assimilation. Yet, another source of migrant labour predated this labour flow. During the nineteenth century forced migration from the South Pacific acted as a crucial source of labour in Queensland sugar industry. Histories of labour migration from Pacific and Mediterranean are often framed separately, yet this presentation will reveal that they are part of the same historical story. Via a focus on visual culture – comprised of photos, cartoons and sculpture - I will chart how migrant labour has been represented by Mediterranean and Pacific diasporas. In doing so, I aim to open up a space for comparative histories of diaspora to engage with the dynamics of Australian settler colonialism, while reinterpreting exhausted narratives of assimilation.