Big Ideas

Who gets to write history?

10.30.2023 - By ABC listenPlay

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To write history is to omit. The historical archive is the end-product of a series of choices, and in the wash, particular voices get privileged over others. But around the globe, historians are attempting to identify the gaps in 'official' history, and in so doing, understand how and why they were created. Santilla Chingaipe is among them. Her recent work has told the stories of the hundreds of convicts of African descent transported to Australia during colonial rule. In her 2023 EW Cole Lecture for the Wheeler Centre, Santilla asks the question: Who gets to write history?

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