NEW CONFERENCE - Rediscovered Past: Chinese Tropical Australia (Cairns, Qld) [29.06.2011]
Conference Announcement
Rediscovered Past: Chinese Tropical Australia || The fourth “no fuss” Conference
11-12 February 2012
Organised by Chinese Heritage in Northern Australia Inc. (CHINA Inc), at the Hotel Sheridan Plaza, 295 Sheridan Street, Cairns, QLD, 4870.
Following on from the successful previous three Rediscovered Past conferences held in Cairns, the organisers are pleased to announce a fourth conference to be held in 2012. Again this will be a “no fuss” multidisciplinary event run over two days and will be open to contributions from all fields of Chinese Australian studies – including history, archaeology, heritage management, law, literature, linguistics, art, and library science. The conference will maintain the previous casual, friendly atmosphere that everybody has enjoyed.
The theme of the conference, ‘Chinese Tropical Australia’, aims to focus attention on the historic emergence of Chinese Australian communities in the Far North. Chinese have been part of the region for several centuries, starting with sporadic visits by traders and fishermen and culminating in the large scale immigration of miners, workers and business people during the 19th century. Yet these people have usually not been considered settlers, but rather transient visitors who remained separate from other communities and did not alter their cultural practices or identity. Research in recent years challenges this view, showing that early Chinese immigrants interacted, adapted and transformed themselves in diverse ways. They became part of the social fabric of their new land, established new ways of life, and founded families and communities.
The conference will comprise for a full day on the Saturday and a half-day on the Sunday. The program is yet to be finalised but the event will be run in consecutive sessions. As before, the popular Saturday night conference dinner and concluding yumcha lunch will be continued.
The fees are: Full Conference attendance of AUD $45; Single Day (Saturday) attendance of AUD $30; and Half-day attendance of $15. The Conference Dinner and Yumcha will be pay as you go.
The city of Cairns has been a major regional historical site of Chinese Australian life since the 1870s. Researchers of Chinese history and heritage may investigate the Cairns Historical Society collections as well as the Pioneer and Martyn Street cemeteries. From Cairns, visitors may travel to Aloomba –a site of extensive Chinese sugarcane farming – to Innisfail (Geraldton) – a site of Chinese banana growing, and to Atherton – the site of the Hou Wang Chinese temple. Those who have the time could venture further afield to Croydon, where the remains of the former ‘Chinatown’ precinct exists as a significant Chinese Australian archaeological site, and to Cooktown, the site of early Chinese immigration associated with the Palmer River Gold Rush.
Cairns is a well-known holiday destination for domestic and international visitors. Information about travel and accommodation can be found through a Google search. Accommodation is available at the conference venue, the Hotel Sheridan Plaza, at a rate of $110 per night. February is a relatively quiet period for Cairns and as a consequence flights and accommodation tend to be cheaper and more readily available.
If you think you would like to present at or attend the conference, please email an expression of interest and/or abstract to: china_nth@yahoo.com.au.
The deadline for presentation proposals on the conference theme is 30 November 2011.
Conference registration will run from December 2011, and full registration details will be issued soon.
For general enquiries and correspondence please contact:
Secretary, Chinese Heritage in Northern Australia Inc, Dr Kevin Rains, 5 Railway Street, EAST IPSWICH, QLD, Australia 4305 || email: krains@goldcoast.qld.gov.au
Further details will soon be published on the CHINA Inc website at: http://chinainc.yolasite.com