Professor Amanda Nettelbeck FASSA FAHA

Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences

Professor Amanda Nettelbeck

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

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

  • Amanda Nettelbeck, 2023. ‘Precarious Subjects: Envisaging Indigenous People’s Relation to the Law in 19th Century Australia’, ‘Picturing Citizenship’, special issue of Australian Historical Studies, vol 54 (1), 330-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2022.2130380
  • Amanda Nettelbeck, 2023. ‘Regional Memorials and Frontier Violence’, Aftermaths: Remembering Colonial Violence in the Pacific, ed. Lyndall Ryan and Angela Wanhalla, Otago University Press, 39-48. https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago0236220.html
  • Amanda Nettelbeck, 2022. ‘Protection Regimes’, The Cambridge Legal History of Australia, ed. Peter Crane, Lisa Ford & Mark Macmillan, Cambridge UP, 482-501. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108633949
  • Amanda Nettelbeck, 2022. ‘From Humanitarianism to Humane Governance’, Humanitarianism, Empire and Transnationalism, ed. Trevor Burnard, Joy Damousi & Alan Lester, Manchester UP, 179-98. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526159564.00014
  • 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 Criminologyhttps://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&history4(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.

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

  • Chair of the Editorial board, Australian Historical Studies
  • Editorial board, law & history
  • Editorial board, Australian History series, Anthem Press
  • Editorial board, Australian Colonial Culture series, Melbourne University Publishing

Recent public engagement

  • ‘Voice, Treaty, Truth: compared to other settler nations, Australia is the exception, not the rule’, The Conversation 9 June 2023, https://theconversation.com/voice-treaty-truth-compared-to-other-settler-nations-australia-is-the-exception-not-the-rule-206092
  • ‘Land of Plenty: is the Federal government looking for too much unity in a country nourished by difference?’, Inside Story, 26 March 2021, https://insidestory.org.au/land-of-plenty/
  • ‘The Place of Reconciliation: does our opening up to Indigenous history work best locally?’, Inside Story, 29 June 2021, https://insidestory.org.au/the-place-of-reconciliation/
  • ‘The Overhead Telegraph Line: A Transcultural History’. Digital exhibition curated with History Trust SA, State Library SA, and SA Museum, launched with public panel 22 August 2022: https://otlhistory.sa.gov.au/
  • 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

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