The Quest For a New 'Right Way': Reinventing Remembrance in the Anzac Centenary

Abstract

In the years following the devastating conflicts of the First World War (WWI) a movement of memorialisation swept across the globe. Ken Inglis characterised this movement as “a quest for the right way, materially and spiritually” to commemorate, mourn, honour, and remember those who served and those who died. A hundred years later, we seem to have reached a new moment in commemoration history. With the passing of the witnesses, memory has well and truly passed into history, so that today, our collective remembrance of WWI is more a political product than a reflection of individual experience. One of the key ways this new ‘memory’ of war is created is through commemorative institutions like memorials and museums – both must adapt to serve the needs of current and future generations. Arguably we find ourselves on a new quest, a quest for the new ‘right way’. This thesis explores this quest through two major Australian centenary projects – the Centenary Extension of Sydney’s Anzac Memorial (AM), and the establishment of the National Anzac Centre (NAC) in Albany, Western Australia. It journeys through these sites, exploring the ways remembrance is constructed in order to understand what narratives and interpretations of war are being presented and privileged 100 years later. It highlights the inherent diversity of war memorials and museums, and the intrinsic challenges of making and remaking them. By combining this research with scholarship on memory, collective remembrance, and contemporary museum and memorial practice, this thesis ponders the question of what the ‘right way’ of remembering might be at the close of the Anzac Centenary. Ultimately it argues that there is no singular ‘right way’. Approaches to remembering and commemorating war have always been plural and subjective. Likewise, what is ‘right’ is not static, but rather shifts with each generation. Therefore, the quest endures, even as we leave the centenary behind. Show more