'To see with their own eyes' : Australian travel writing on the Pacific islands c.1880-1941

Abstract

From the 1880s onwards, the Pacific Islands became increasingly accessible to the average Australian with improvements in transportation and the growth of trade and business, Christian outreach, and colonial administration in the region. Economic prosperity and social mobility in Australia facilitated their movement abroad, and the development of publishing and literacy encouraged the circulation of texts which generated excitement about travel and exotic foreign destinations. The varied experiences and impressions of Australians travelling to, and through, the Pacific Islands filled diaries, letters, books, magazines, memoirs and travelogues, many of which found a receptive Australian audience. This thesis explores this corpus of Australian travel writing on the Pacific Islands from c.1880 to 1941. In doing so, it examines how representations of the Pacific Islands within travel accounts reflected and contributed to Australian knowledge of the region. By contextualising these sources and their authors, this thesis explores the nuances and complexities of the individual Australian travel experience, whilst also situating them within the broader corpus of Australian travel literature. I discuss several themes which are prevalent in Australian travel writing of this period: the experience of seaboard travel and tourism, commerce and profit, romantic and utopian ideals, gender roles, ideas of nation and empire, theories of race and science, and notions of the 'savage' and 'civilised.' It explores how individual Australians negotiated these concepts whilst abroad in the Pacific Islands, and how their encounters and their texts highlight a diverse set of reactions, at times confirming, challenging or rejecting previous assumptions and expectations. This historical study of a previously neglected body of literature deepens our understanding of the historical engagement and exchange between Australians and Pacific Islanders. This was a relationship that reached beyond the political and economic interests of a select few - it permeated popular literature and public debate. Though European stereotypes of the Pacific Islands persisted well into the twentieth century, travel writing was crucial in familiarising and informing Australians about their close neighbours. These accounts also show that this engagement was not one-sided. The Pacific Islands played an important role in shaping the growth of the Australian nation too, and Australian travel writers recorded much about themselves as they did the exotic 'other' when placed in unfamiliar surroundings. This thesis argues that the diversity of travel writing challenges stereotypes of Australian travellers and readers, at the same time as it undermines stereotypes of the 'South Seas.' Show more