Liberating spirits

Book review of "Larrikin angel : a biography of Veronica Brady" by Kath Jordan. ISBN: 978-0-9806108

The role of creativity in entrepreneurship

This paper evaluates the contribution of creativity to entrepreneurship theory and practice in terms of building an holistic and transdisciplinary understanding of its impact. Acknowledgement is made of the subjectivist theory of entrepreneurship which embraces randomness, uncertainty and ambiguity but these factors should then be embedded in wider business and social contexts. The analysis is synthesised into a number of themes, from consideration of its definition, its link with personality and cognitive style, creativity as a process and the use of biography in uncovering data on creative entrepreneurial behaviour. Other relevant areas of discussion include creativity's link with motivation, actualisation and innovation, as well as the interrogation of entrepreneurial artists as owner/managers. These factors are embedded in a critical evaluation of how creativity contributes to successful entrepreneurship practice. Modelling, measuring and testing entrepreneurial creativity are also considered and the paper includes detailed consideration of several models of creativity in entrepreneurship. Recommendations for future theory and practice are also made.

Negotiating memory and identity : the Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial, London

In 1983, 38 years after the end of World War II, Britain gained its first public memorial dedicated solely to victims of the Holocaust: the Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial Garden. Organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, this campaign revealed the ways that memorialization of the Holocaust in Britain during the 1980s was cross cut with issues of identity, memory and history. In attempting to restore the «biography» of the memorial, this paper examines the way the memorial's relationship with its potential locations is important in the making of meaning and shows how debates over the perceived appropriateness of the sites were structured by, and in turn structure, various discourses concerning Anglo-Jewish identity.

Mary De Garis

The thesis is a biographical study of the life and times of Dr Mary De Garis, (1881-1963) an early medical woman. It examines her extensive writing, her research on childbirth and her modernising of the Geelong Hospital in the 1920s and 1930s. Her life illuminates Australian women in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Liam Jurrah story : from Yuendumu to the MCG

Known as the 'Warlpiri Warrior,' the 'Jurrahcane' and 'Cougar,' Liam Jurrah is a rising star of the AFL, known for his startling displays of skill, artistry and the 'deadly' impact of his football ability. But despite Liam's prodigious talent, he is a relative newcomer to the AFL. This book tells the incredible journey travelled by Liam, a fully initiated Warlpiri man, from the remote Aboriginal desert community of Yuendumu to the MCG, as the first of his kind to play football at an elite level. Along the way the book describes how the author and his family came to understand and treasure the richness of Liam's Warlpiri culture.

Ebia Olewale : a life of service

Over the last seven decades, Papua New Guinea (PNG) has grown from a disparate collection of traditional societies loosely governed by its neighbour, Australia, to a thriving, developing state. The story of how PNG came to lose its colonial shackles and gain independence is one of collective endeavour, as the tiny group of Papua New Guineans who gathered in the dusty streets of Port Moresby transformed into the leaders of the new nation. One of them was the young teacher, Ebia Olewale, who in his own journey from the village to the nation experienced many triumphs and tragedies. PNG’s story – from the village to the world – is retold in this book, through the experiences of Ebia Olewale.

Lessons in hypnotism

A review of I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons.

'Nobody but a bunch of mothers' : grassroots activism and women's leadership in 1970s Melbourne

This group biography draws on oral history interviews to show how crucial women's leadership was to Melbourne's urban protest movement in the 1970s. Inner city resident's action groups were characterised by a high degree of participation by women. For most it was a radicalising experience as they became involved in action for the first time in their lives. Their involvement in local action and politics contributed to the development of more open and participatory governance focused on community building and environmental issues.

From estrangement to a sense of place …

Maggie MacKellar in her book Core of my Heart, my Country writes 'What is sense of place? Why is relationship with place so fundamental to our identity as individuals and as communities?' MacKellar rightly acknowledges that 'A sense of place is a complex connection between land and self. Place is both inside and outside; it takes us beyond ourselves, yet allows us to make sense of ourselves. Attachments to place are born into us, but they are also formed through movement, through labour, through words.' My mother Maria Radzimirski-Herzog considered herself truly Swiss and thoroughly Australian. Through one migrant's story this paper explores something of the complex intertwining of place, memory and identity. It grapples with the notion of belonging to one's country of birth and one's adopted country via a rich understanding of place. In Maria's case, place becomes inextricably bound with who she became as a person. In the early 1940s, Maria explored Switzerland on bike and on foot during war-time restrictions on cars and she came to know it intimately. She photographed the land and the mountains; she documented her journeys. Spirn writes perceptively that 'Significance does not depend on human perception or imagination alone.' For Maria significance was, to use Spirn's words, 'there to be discovered, inherent and ascribed, shaped by what senses perceive, what instinct and experience read as significant, what minds know'. For Maria, Landscape was not 'mere scenery'. The ability to see, to listen, to be present in place, stood her in good stead in her adopted country, Australia. Maria called place into being for her children: through her lived experiences, her memories, her story telling, through language, traditions and history, Maria shared her Swiss identity with her children. But imperceptibly she also taught them how to understand her new homeland Australia, their birth country. How did Maria become Australian? Was that her creative response to exile from Switzerland? How did she come to feel at home in both countries, to understand both places? How did they seep into her and she into them? Through my own research on place I have discovered that assessing 'sense of place' is not an exact science but a creative analysis of the attributes of a place. The methodology I have adopted to explore the complex interrelationships between place, memory and identity allows recovery and reclamation, rediscovery, juxtaposing the subjective and the objective, the co-presence of different evidence. This paper draws on place research, on personal papers, letters and photographs, and the author's own experiences and memories. Through story and narrative it interweaves autobiography and biography with theoretical scholarship, to illuminate one migrant's journey from estrangement to a sense of place in her adopted country, Australia.

Collecting diversity: the changing relationships between museums and culturally diverse communities

 Much of the focus of scholarship around cultural diversity and museums has taken the advent of multiculturalism in 1973 as a starting point. However, public museums also collected and exhibited items relating to culturally diverse communities from the time they were set up from the 1850s onwards, and my research seeks to produce a pre-history of contact between museums, governments and culturally diverse communities and individuals. By using objects and collections life histories from the time they enter the museum for collection and/ or exhibition purposes, I will analyse the way that these relationships have changed over time. One case study is of the gamelan Digul, parts of which are currently on display in the Australian Journeys gallery at the National Museum of Australia. The gamelan Digul first entered the collection of the National Museum of Victoria in 1946 when the museum accepted the donation of these musical instruments from Indonesians who were being deported after World War II. The gamelan remained in this collection until 1976 when it was deacessioned to Monash University who restored and exhibited it in 1999. The National Museum of Australia borrowed some instruments from the gamelan in 2009. Some of the questions I will explore are: What were the motivations behind the former political prisoners/ Indonesian citizens in donating the gamelan Digul to the National Museum of Victoria and why did the museum accept it? Why was the gamelan Digul deaccessioned to Monash University?  How does the display of these instruments at the NMA represent the historical Indonesian communities in Australia which was deported?