Our people

Professor Amanda Nettelbeck FASSA FAHA

Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences

Areas of expertise: Australian history; Indigenous history; British imperialism and comparative settler colonialism; colonial law and policing; colonial violence and its afterlives; humanitarian governance; historical memory and memorialization

HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Full

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7099-6075

Email: amanda.nettelbeck@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

Amanda Nettelbeck is a Professor in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University. Her research centres on the history and memory of colonial violence, Indigenous/settler relations, and the legal governance of Indigenous peoples. She is author, co-author or co-editor of numerous books, including most recently Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood (Cambridge 2019), Intimacies of Violence in the Settler Colony (co-edited with Penelope Edmonds, Palgrave 2018), Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World (co-edited with Philip Dwyer, Palgrave 2017), and Fragile Settlements (co-authored with Russell Smandych et al, UBC Press 2016). She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Publications

Books and edited books

• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2019. Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood: Protection and Reform in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108559225
• with Samuel Furphy, 2019. Aboriginal Protection and its Intermediaries in Britain’s Antipodean Colonies. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429316364
• with Penelope Edmonds, 2018. Intimacies of Violence in the Settler Colony: Economies of Dispossession around the Pacific Rim. Palgrave MacMillan. https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2019.1559446
• with Philip Dwyer, 2017. Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World. Palgrave Macmillan. 10.1007/978-3-319-62923-0
• Amanda Nettelbeck, Russell Smandych, Louis Knafla and Robert Foster, 2016. Fragile Settlements: Aboriginal Peoples, Law & Resistance in South-West Australia & Prairie Canada, University of British Columbia Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2017.1286703
• Robert Foster & Amanda Nettelbeck, 2012. Out of the Silence: South Australia’s Frontier Wars in History and Memory. Wakefield. https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Out_of_the_Silence
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, 2007. In the Name of the Law: William Willshire and the Policing of the Australian Frontier. Wakefield. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314610701849727
• Robert Foster, Rick Hosking & Amanda Nettelbeck, 2001. Fatal Collisions: The South Australian Frontier and the Violence of Memory. Wakefield. https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=248

Selected book chapters and refereed journal articles of the last 10 years

• Amanda Nettelbeck & Lyndall Ryan, 2020. ‘Frontier Violence in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire’, The Cambridge History of Violence, vol 4, ed. Louise Edwards, Nigel Penn & Jay Winter, Cambridge University Press, 247-45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316585023.012
• Peter Whellum, Amanda Nettelbeck (corresponding author) and Alex Reilly, 2019. ‘Cultural Accommodation and the Policing of Aboriginal Communities: A Case Study of the APY Lands’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1177/0004865819866245
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2019. 'Protective Governance and Legal Order on the Colonial Frontier', Aboriginal Protection and its Intermediaries in Britain's Antipodean Colonies, Routledge, 77-94. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429316364/chapters/10.4324/9780429316364-5
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2018. ‘Creating the Aboriginal Vagrant: protective governance and indigenous mobility in colonial Australia’, Pacific Historical Review, vol 87 (1): 79-100. https://online.ucpress.edu/phr/article/87/1/79/80420/Creating-the-Aboriginal-VagrantProtective
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Lyndall Ryan, 2018. ‘Salutary Lessons: Native Police and the civilising role of legalised violence in colonial Australia’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol 46 (1), 47-68. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2017.1390894
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2018. ‘Intimate Violence in the Pastoral Economy: Aboriginal Women's Labour and Protective Governance’, Intimacies of Violence in the Settler Colony: Economies of Dispossession across the Pacific Rim, Palgrave Macmillan, 67-88. DOI: 1007/978-3-319-76231-9_4
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2017. ‘Colonial Protection and the Intimacies of Indigenous Governance’, History Australia vol 14 (1): 32-47. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14490854.2017.1286703
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2017. ‘Flogging as Judicial Violence: the colonial rationale of corporal punishment’, Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World, Palgrave Macmillan, 111-127. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-62923-0_6
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2017. ‘Interracial Intimacy, Indigenous Mobility and the Limits of Legal Regulation in Two Settler Colonial Societies’. law&history, 4(2), 103-124. https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=297505410115142;res=IELNZC
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2016. ‘Bracelets, Blankets and Badges of Distinction: Aboriginal Subjects and Queen Victoria's Gifts’, Mistress of Everything: Queen Victoria and Indigenous History, Politics and Imagination, eds. Maria Nugent & Sarah Carter, Manchester University Press, 110-127. https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526100320/9781526100320.00019.xml
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2016. ‘Proximate Strangers and Familiar Antagonists: Violence on an Intimate Frontier’, Australian Historical Studies, vol 47(2): 209-224. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1031461X.2016.1153120
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2016. ‘“We are Sure of your Sympathy”: Aboriginal Uses of the Politics of Protection in 19th Century Australia and Canada’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, vol 17 (1), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/613284
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2015. ‘We should take each other by the hand: Ceremonial diplomacy in colonial Australia and North West Canada’, Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers: Conflict, Performance and Commemoration in Australia and the Pacific Rim, ed. K. Darian-Smith & P. Edmonds. Routledge, 36-53. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315812946
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2014. ‘“Keep the Magistrates Straight”: Magistrates and Aboriginal management on Australia's north-west frontiers’, Aboriginal History, 38: 19-37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43687002
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2014. ‘“On the Side of Law & Order”: Indigenous aides to Mounted Police on the settler frontiers of Australia and Canada’, Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History, vol 15 (2), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/549511
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2014. ‘Queen Victoria’s Aboriginal Subjects’ in Changing the Victorian Subject, ed. M. Tonkin et al, University of Adelaide Press, 21-35. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/changing-the-victorian-subject
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2013. ‘“Equals of the White Man”: Prosecution of settlers for violence against Aboriginal subjects of the Crown, colonial Western Australia’, Law & History Review, 31 (2): 355-390. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248013000060
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, 2013. ‘On the Trail of the Great March: The North West Mounted Police in Canadian Historical Memory', Place and Replace: Essays on Western Canada, ed. L. Morton & A. Perry, University of Manitoba Press, 128-152. https://www.worldcat.org/title/place-and-replace-essays-on-western-canada/oclc/791165787
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2012. ‘Indigenous Dispossession in the National Museum: The National Museum of Australia and the Canadian Museum of Civilization’. Time and Society, ‘Historical Injustices’ special issue, 21 (1): 39-54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X11431335
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2012. ‘"A Halo of Protection"': Colonial Protectors and the policy of Aboriginal protection as punishment', Australian Historical Studies, vol 43. 3: 396-411. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1031461X.2012.706621
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, 2012. ‘Food and Governance on the settler frontiers of colonial Australia and Canada', Aboriginal History vol 36: 21-41. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322563092_
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, 2012. ‘As Fine a Body of Men: How the Canadian Mountie brought Law and Order to the Memory of the Australian Frontier', Journal of Australian Studies vol 36.2: 125-140.
• Amanda Nettelbeck, 2011. ‘The Australian Frontier in the Museum’. Journal of Social History, 44 (4): 1115-1129. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41305426
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, 2010. ‘Colonial Judiciaries, Aboriginal Protection and SA's Policy of Punishing with "Exemplary Severity"', Australian Historical Studies vol 41. 3: 319-336. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2012.671186
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Robert Foster, 2010. ‘Commemorating Foundation: A Study in Regional Historical Memory', History Australia, vol 7. 3: 53.1-53.18. https://doi.org/10.2104/ha100053
• Amanda Nettelbeck & Russell Smandych, 2010. ‘Policing Indigenous Peoples on Two Colonial Frontiers’, ‘Indigenous Justice’ special issue, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 43 (2): 356-375. https://doi.org/10.1375/acri.43.2.356

Projects

Australian Research Council funded projects

• ARC Discovery Project, 'Envisaging Australian Citizenship’, 2020-2023 (DP200100088), $501,000. Co-CI.
• ARC Linkage Project, 'Reconciling with the Frontier', 2020-2023 (LP190100561), $353,000. Co-CI.
• ARC Discovery Project, 'Intimacy and Violence in Anglo Pacific Rim Settler Colonial Societies, 1830-1930', 2015-2018 (DP150100914), $500,137. Co-CI.
• ARC LIEF Project, ‘Australasian Legal History Library II’, 2015 (LE150100051), $410,000. Co-CI.
• ARC Discovery Project, 'Protection & Punishment: the Legal Reform of Indigenous People, Australia 1837-1911'. 2014-2016 (DP140103049), $164, 130. Sole CI.
• ARC LIEF Project, ‘Australian Legal History Library’, 2012 (LE150100051), $330,000. Co-CI.
• ARC Discovery Project, 'The Rule of Law in History and Memory: Australian and Canadian Settler Frontiers', 2010-2012 (DP 1095363), $195,000. Co-CI.
• ARC Linkage Project, 'Frontier Conflict in History and Memory’, 2005-2007 (LP0560550), $210,000. Co-CI.

Accolades and awards

• 2020, Winner, ANZLHS Annual Prize in Legal History for Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood (Cambridge, 2019)
• 2018, Winner, Australia & New Zealand Law and Society Association Prize for 'Creating the Aboriginal Vagrant', Pacific Historical Review 1 (2018)
• 2018, Shortlisted, Australian Historical Studies Patricia Grimshaw Prize for 'Proximate Strangers and Familiar Antagonists', Australian Historical Studies 2 (2016)
• 2008, Honourable Mention, John Barrett Awards for Australian Studies for 'Practices of Violence/Myths of Creation', Journal of Australian Studies 1 (2008)
• 2008, Shortlisted, Chief Minister's Northern Territory History Book Award for In the Name of the Law (Wakefield, 2007)
• 2002, Winner, John Tragenza National Community History Award for Fatal Collisions (Wakefield, 2001)
• 2002, Shortlisted, NSW Premier's Award (non-fiction) for Fatal Collisions (Wakefield, 2001)

Appointments and affiliations

• Keith Cameron Chair in Australian History, University College Dublin (2018)
• Vice-President and Executive Committee, Australian & New Zealand Law and History Society
• Executive Committee, Australian Historical Association
• Executive Committee, International Association of Australian Studies
• Adjunct member, Purai Global Indigenous and Diaspora Research Centre, University of Newcastle
• Adjunct member, Research Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Newcastle
• Member, Public Law and Policy Research Unit, University of Adelaide
• Board member, Libraries Board of South Australia
• ARC College of Experts (2020-2023)

Editorial roles

• Editorial board, Australian Historical Studies
• Editorial board, law & history
• Editorial board, Australian History series, Anthem Press

Public engagement

• 2020 Roundtable on ‘Reconciling with Contested Histories’, hosted by the Australian Embassy to Ireland, Dublin
• 2019 Annual Norman Tindale Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Royal Anthropological Society of SA
• 2019 Tom Stannage Memorial Lecture and Masterclass, hosted by the Australian Studies Institute, WA
• 2018 ANZAC Day Dawn Service Address, Grangegorman Military Cemetery, hosted by the Australian Embassy to Ireland, Dublin
• 2018 ‘Oxford Talks’ series speaker, hosted by All Souls College, Oxford
• 2017 Australian & New Zealand Law & History Society Keynote Address (theme ‘Legal and Social Change’), Christchurch, New Zealand.
• 2017 Plenary panel on ‘Violence and Persecution, Australian Academy of the Humanities 48^th annual symposium.
• 2016 ‘Research Tuesdays’ Public Lecture (theme: ‘Colonial violence and the limits of the law’), hosted by the University of Adelaide.
• 2016 ‘Talking History’ Public Lecture, hosted by History Trust SA
• Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week panel chair (1996-2017)
• Judging panel, Voss Literary Awards (2014-2016)
• Judging panel, South Australian Premier’s Awards (2001-2012)