The Archaeology of Missions in Australasia: Introduction

Abstract

Missions have long been recognized as spaces of colonial contact and cultural exchange, and they are significant places in Indigenous landscapes today. However, archaeologists have only recently begun to explore such places across Australasia. This collection canvasses a range of approaches to this dynamic field.Keywords Missions . Australasia . Colonialism . ExchangeMissions have long been recognized as spaces of colonial contact and cultural exchange, and they are significant places in Indigenous landscapes today. However, archaeologists in Australasia have been slow to explore these important sites. This special issue addresses the archaeology of Indigenous missions in Australasia, and canvasses new archaeological approaches that have begun to emerge in Australasia, toward understanding the role of missions and reserves within colonialism. The collection has its origin in a session from 'New Ground'; a conference of the major Australian archaeological associations held in Sydney 2007, and has been supplemented by three solicited papers (see Birmingham and Wilson, Ireland, and Smith). We believe that the research represented here is relevant to debates about colonialism and archaeology and deserves a wider audience.Missions are key places in the history of the "colonial encounter" in many settlersocieties. From the earliest decades of invasion, colonists sought to confine Indigenous peoples within defined and secluded bounds. Although this process of segregation varied across colonies and time period, it became a central element in antipodean Aboriginal policy. Missions as archaeological sites are particularly revealing of the dynamics of power relations, and the role of space in controlling and Int

An Archaeology of Early Christianity in Vanuatu

“…However, these missions were no less shaped by the indigenous landscapes where they were set, a pattern visible throughout Aboriginal Australia and Australasia more broadly (Lydon and Ash 2010). Aboriginal people were drawn to missions for complex reasons, having to do with new opportunities for trade, expanding social networks, dispute resolution, and escape from settler violence on the colonial frontier (e.g.…”

“…An even richer archaeological literature of Christian expansion exists in the colonial context (e.g. Crossland 2006;Hiscock 2013;Lightfoot 2005;Lydon 2009;Lydon and Ash 2010;Middleton 2003Middleton , 2007Middleton , 2008Morrison et al 2015;Panich and Schneider, eds 2014;Smith 2014;Smith et al 2012;Wingfield 2013). …”

Archaeology, Memory and Oral Tradition: An Introduction

“…Brady, et al, 2003;Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson, 2006;Zimmerman, 2007). And, in settler nations, including Australia, the U.S.A. and Canada, historical archaeologists have focused on culture contact sites, reserves, mission sites and residential schools (ColwellChanthaphonh, 2005;Lindauer, 1997; and see papers in Lydon and Ash, 2010). Other marginalised forms of memory have also been a focus of research, such as those of economically disadvantaged rural communities (e.g.…”

An Institution that was a Village: Archaeology and Social Life in the Hansen’s Disease Settlement at Kalawao, Moloka‘i, Hawaii

“…In many colonial total institutions, such as Australian missions (Lydon and Ash 2010;Sutton 2003); Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools in the United States (Lindauer 1997(Lindauer , 2009), or California missions and adobes (Lightfoot 2005;Silliman 2001), indigenous agency was suppressed, and is often revealed archaeologically in covert forms, resistant acts that took place away from the surveillance of institutional staff. In Kalawao, indigenous agency can be seen in the form of the institutional settlement pattern.…”