Australian history is dominated by stories of misguided ideas and governance doing damage to Aboriginal
communities. This project will investigate the relationship between ideas about race and settler colonial
governance in a formative period in Australian history by producing the first study of an important community
of ethnographers and anthropologists. Furthermore, in examining the cross-racial relationships that enabled
the production of racial knowledge, this project will provide new understandings of how Aboriginal people
and settlers reconciled the racial divides of colonialism in their everyday lives. As we struggle to negotiate a
reconciled Australia, we need to investigate these histories.