Captive Australians: The place of POWs in post-war Australian culture

The project examines why eyewitness accounts of atrocity in war have assumed increasing centrality in war commemoration and how captivity narratives have been mobilized in post-war Australian political and cultural life. It explores how public understandings of the meaning of imprisonment by the Japanese have altered across time and reflect changing ideas about war, Australia's relationship with Asia and about testimony itself. The outcomes will be an identification of the historical processes that accord some victims of war greater cultural presence than others, and an important contribution to understanding the key ways in which war continues to inform and influence Australian national identity.