From Alcatraz Island to Norfolk Island, Nauru to Palm Island, islands continue to hold our imagination as symbols of confinement and incarceration. To what extent can we attribute this persistence to the myths and images of island carcerality that emerged through literature? How might an alternative picture of carceral islands as an archipelago of islands, littorals, isthmuses and bays change our view of Australian and Pacific literature and history?
Archipelagic Connections in Australian and Pacific Literatures aims to remap Australian and Pacific literature through the archipelagic connections of different islands used for confinement in convict transportation, plantation labour, Aboriginal reserves, medical quarantine, and offshore detention.
Archipelagic Connections is led by Dr. Dashiell Moore at the University of Sydney and is funded by a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award by the Australian Research Council (ARC).
A single man standing in front of what was once the doorway to a jail cell reputed to have houses Rufus Dawes, the convict characterised in the novel For the Term of his Natural Life. Image courtesy of the Auckland Museum.
Aboriginal prisoners in the courtyard of the Rottnest Island Prison. Courtesy of the State Library of Western Australia.
Photograph of Christmas Island Detention Centre. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Ruins of church, Boydtown, Twofold Bay. Never consecrated, depicted in Francis Webb's A Drum for Ben Boyd. Courtesy of the University of Newcastle.
Plan of Palm Island Compound, Justices Department, 7 January 1931. Depicted in Thea Astley's novel, Multiple Effects of Rainshadow and in the play, Beautiful One Day, dir. Maza, et al. Courtesy of the Collection of Queensland State Archives.
Lock Hospital on Fantome Island, c. 1933. Depicted in Thea Astley's novel, The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow. Image courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.
Sketch & description of the settlement at Sydney Cove Port Jackson in the County of Cumberland taken by a transported convict on the 16th of April, 1788, which was not quite 3 months after Commodore Phillips's landing there. Depicted in many works, including Kate Grenville's The Secret River and Ross Gibson's 26 Views of a Starburst World. Image courtesy of the State Library of NSW.
Ingham Plantation. Haigh Photograph Album 1874-1880. Influenced Jean Devanny's novel, Cindie. Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.
Picture drawn by child detained in the Construction Camp immigation detention facility on Christmas Island. Depicted in Behrouz Boochani's autobiography, No Friend But The Mountains. Image courtesy of the Australian Human Rights Commission 2010 report on Immigration Detention on Christmas Island.
The ruins of Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, which operated for 11 years, still stand on Sarah Island. Depicted in Marcus Clarke's novel, For the Term of His Natural Life. Image Courtesy of Alamy.