On the Topic of the Grenville Research Excursions...

Kate Grenville's The Secret River was a rather thought-provoking read, and so it follows that the resultant research excursions are interesting forays into unique facets of dialogue that the novel promotes. Although each of the research excursions brings a swathe of information, I'd like to focus on three in particular.

In Bianca's essay on settler women, she speaks about the importance of needlework for settler women, and its correlation with class. From a modern perspective, evaluating someone's worth on their finesse in a particular hobby would be unthinkable, but at the time, women were to exclusively be homemakers, so the emphasis on needlework makes sense in that regard. Also, I thought it was odd that even though whiteness was closely associated with privilege and societal power for colonial women, white women were still unable to travel without facing prejudice.

Over the course Bailey's essay on Captain James Cook's voyage, he provides a comprehensive overview of the journey that Cook embarked on that led to the colonization of Australia. One thing that I found fascinating was that a key purpose of his voyage--to build an observatory in order to calculate the distance of planets and points on the Earth--was kept to the utmost confidentiality. Although we take geographical knowledge for granted today, in the past, it is clear that cartography was highly coveted, and possession of such information was a political and strategic advantage over other nations.

Lastly, Bella's essay on contemporary Aboriginal struggles provides a significant amount of historical context for these struggles. One thing I took note of was children of Aboriginals and colonists who were called "half-castes," mirroring their reduced social status in comparison to pureblood whites. This social hierarchy reminded me of Spanish colonization, where mixed offspring were called mestizos, and also had a lower social standing. It was also interesting to me that modern Aboriginals are often viewed as simple drunkards, which they attribute to having their culture systematically obliterated; I am curious as to why they do not assimilate into modern Australian culture and society, even if they do not have to or want to given historical precedent.