_{George French Angas, North-West of Stuart's Creek. From John McDouall Stuart, Explorations in Australia, 1865}

'What is an Expedition?' Conference Workshop and Proposed Publication

The Brief

Expeditions were the means of organising a preliminary foray into foreign territory by an imperial power. So significant is their aftermath that they have shaped the world as we know it. Not surprisingly, there is an almost infinite literature dealing with exploration and its effect over time. But the expedition itself, a culturally and historically specific way of organising a journey and creating discourse about it, is surprisingly under-examined. A workshop-style conference, to last two or three days in mid 2012, will put together a quorum of researchers who can offer in-depth case studies of explorations and other expeditionary journeys. This small conference will be a stepping-stone to a volume of essays, to be offered to an academic publisher.

The conference/book will be an opportunity for historians or other historically minded scholars to present original research on a range of expeditions or expeditionary texts. Since fantasy is an ingredient of nearly all expeditions, it is anticipated that expeditions both real and imagined (as depicted, for example, in film, literature and other media) will be among the case studies. The overall purpose of the conference/book is to track the development and transformation of the expedition as a cultural construct over a substantial timeframe. While the periodisation cannot be fully determined until expressions of interest are received, the project is likely to spotlight the period from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. This would allow us to chart the historical transit of the expedition, beginning in the heyday of imperial expansion and ending with its unravelling in the era of decolonisation.

Expeditions demand attention because of their indexical relationship to the societies that produce them. Some would argue that they are—or at least were—a uniquely Western mode of moving through space and acquiring knowledge, although perspectives from Asia might challenge this view. It can be said with certainty, given their centrality to empire building in the exploratory phases, that expeditions have been central to the construction of the idea of ‘the West’ and the claimed advancement of Western over other societies. By definition, an expedition is much more than a journey. Often, it will dislocate living or non-living objects from the environment it traverses, transforming them into specimens. Invariably, it will produce maps, pictures or written documents. It is a generic requirement of the expedition that its trajectory into the ‘unknown’ must be disseminated to its natural audience—its host society—by means of the communication technologies available at that historical moment. So expedition history and media history are intimately connected.

The intercultural aspect of expeditions is of course an important theme of the conference. Expeditions are said to venture into ‘unknown’ territory—often with the assistance of people who have known it forever. The role played by Indigenous people in assisting or resisting expeditions is a major area of investigation. The performative aspect of expeditions—the fact that they are the subject of observation, as much as they are vehicles from which to observe—is also key to their significance and complexity as cultural events. Expeditions are organised political entities. Traditionally, they have a pyramid-type organisation, modelled on the military. With a leader at the top and guides and carriers at the bottom, they are carefully shaped projections of the societies that produce them. Hierarchical display is pivotal to the way an expedition functions as an expression of power—as becomes apparent when expeditions interact with the local political organisations they encounter.

For the most part initiated and conducted by men, expeditions are rightly thought of as expressions of masculinity. Critical engagement with the gender politics will be a vital aspect of the conference. This will require consideration of how women have been written out of expedition history. Cases of women’s involvement, whether as leaders, participants, advisors or patrons are strongly encouraged.

Other case studies that link expeditions with their social and economic milieu are likewise encouraged. The capitalisation of expeditions—the raising of funds through subscription, for example—and the close connections with imperial capitalism demand investigation. Participants are urged to explore the innate textuality of expeditions, not only in terms of textual production, but in terms of the books or other texts carried by expedition participants (which often include writings on other expeditions).

Other possible themes:

• Expeditions, fieldwork and the natural sciences.
• Punitive or retaliatory expeditions.
• Expeditions, missions and religion.
• Expeditions in search of expeditions.
• Re-enactment of expeditions.
• Memorialisation.
• Failed expeditions.

These ideas are intended to be suggestive, not prescriptive.

The Conference

As a workshop type event, the conference is intended as a gathering of peers, each of whom will have a one hour session inclusive of discussion to present a substantial section of their chapter-in-progress. In addition to their own presentation, speakers will be delegated other roles in terms of chairing sessions or acting as respondents.

With this type of program, it is essential that papers be prepared well in advance. During the preparation period, the conference will have a web-based discussion area where participants can report on progress, suggest readings and so forth.

The conference is 27th - 30th June 2012.

Fittingly, the venue is the Kioloa Coastal Campus of the Australian National University. Kioloa is a field station on the South Coast of New South Wales. It provides conference facilities and cottage accommodation in beautiful surrounds. For further information see:

http://kioloa.anu.edu.au/accommodation-facilities/accommodation.php

While we anticipate that the event will attract some funding from university and other sources, participants are likely to have to meet their own travel expenses.

Call for expressions of interest

Submissions

This call for papers was developed by Martin Thomas, ARC Future Fellow in the School of History at the Australian National University, with the generous input of colleagues from both ANU and the University of Sydney.

Expressions of interest should be sent to Martin Thomas at m.thomas@anu.edu.au by 31 August 2011.

Submissions of 800 words or less should give an overview of the proposed paper and explain how it addresses the themes of the book/conference. Selected presenters will then be asked to develop a more solid abstract, suitable for circulation among publishers.