History Council of Western Australia
2023 Award Winners
Studies in Western Australian History (SWAH)
is the pre-eminent refereed journal for research on Western Australian history. SWAH volumes are usually thematic, with leading and emerging scholars contributing to the journal’s high-quality articles. Themes have included convictism, bosses and workers, war and conflict, the Indian Ocean, Aboriginal citizenship, Asian and Indigenous history in WA, sport and society, women's history, celebrations in Western Australian history and many more. Other volumes have focused on the legacy of the late Tom Stannage (a founder of the Centre for Western Australian History) and the Indian Ocean port city of Fremantle. While the articles focus on Western Australia, they also inform broader Australian history and provide a different perspective on well-known themes, such as the ethics and practice of historians, and the ways in which they make history.
Each volume is edited by one or more scholars who are experts in the chosen theme of that issue of the journal. To date, 35 volumes have been published under the SWAH banner.
Place Names Walyalup
https://www.can.org.au/place-names-walyalup
The wider Fremantle / Walyalup area is a rare region of WA that has very few Nyoongar place names on the map. This project corrects this. The maps and videos produced that detail Nyoongar places names of the wider Fremantle / Walyalup region is the result of mammoth scholarly and community effort.
Using Nyoongar knowledge and research in colonial records, this project has re-mapped and re-shaped understandings of Nyoongar boodja in a work of Nyoongar language reclamation and community revitalisation. Produced by the Community Arts Network (CAN) in partnership with Moodjar Consultancy, the Noongar community and the City of Fremantle, the result is captivating exploration of the cultural significance embedded within placenames.
This project is a testament to the importance of preserving and celebrating the ancestral wisdom and stories that are intricately woven into the fabric of Walyalup. This project makes a significant contribution to local and regional histories and will be of great use not only to the Nyoongar community, but to students, teachers and locals who wish for a deeper appreciation of the Nyoongar heritage and future of this region.
Ann Curthoys, Shino Konishi, and Alexandra Ludewig, The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island: A Biographical History of Wadjemup/Rottnest Island, Routledge, 2023
This co-authored book makes an enormous, original contribution to understudied aspects of WA’s History. Wadjemup/Rottnest Island is famous as a holiday-destination and a place for a Quokka selfie.
Using slim archival records in creative and richly contextualised ways, this book traces the many and varied uses of the island through select biographical stories.
Through taking an expansive approach, and by telling the voices of the high and low, men and women, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, this book makes a signal contribution to understandings not only of Wadjemup, but the broader social and cultural history of Western Australia.
The Historical Panoramas project: Curtin University HIVE (Hub for Immersive Visualisation and eResearch) with staff from the State Library of Western Australia.
The Historical Panoramas project provides a unique and visually dramatic way to explore the development of Perth and Fremantle from the 1860s. The virtual tour provides visitors with the ability to explore several panoramic locations around Perth and Fremantle allowing users to zoom in on fine details, zoom out to see the big picture, and pan around to explore locations and compare changes over different time periods.
The historic panoramic images from the State Library of Western Australia’s collections were restored and digitised in 2015 with generous support from the Friends of Battye Library through the Sholl Bequest. The digitised images were reimagined as a virtual tour by students and staff from Curtin University HIVE (Hub for Immersive Visualisation) facility in collaboration with staff from the State Library of Western Australia.