This twelve month pilot project will involve conducting research on the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's involvement in Australia's defence services, across the major conflicts and in peacetime operations. Funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs in collaboration with the ANU National Centre for Indigenous Studies and the ANU Australian Centre for Indigenous History, it is designed to develop a larger project with major national institutions.

Drawing upon resources such as biographies, autobiographies of wartime service, oral histories, photographs, letters and archival sources the initial project will provide comprehensive overview of existing material on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's contribution to defence services. It will also begin to explore the potential of family collections and memories to further understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's perspectives on defence services participation and the impacts it had on their lives and communities.

Image: Stella Bowen, Private, Gowrie House, Oil on hardboard, 11 June 1945 AWM, ART26277