Just Relations

The story of Mary Bennett's crusade for Aboriginal rights

Published by UWA Publishing
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

This book charts the life and work of one of Australia’s leading twentieth century human rights advocates. It recovers the efforts of Mary Bennett (1881-1961) to found a ‘just relationship’ between Aborigines and non-Aborigines in Australia from the late 1920s, when the possibility of Aboriginal human rights was first mooted on the international stage, to the 1960s, when an attempt was made to have the Aboriginal question raised before the United Nations. By placing Bennett’s biography in the context of her humanitarianism—her crusade— Alison Holland reveals the ethics of care, as well as the tensions, contradictions and investments at the heart of humanitarian intervention. Along the way, she shows the forces and ideas which shaped Bennett’s advocacy and the wider context within which her story and her efforts took shape. In demonstrating the close connection between humanitarianism as a political project and the rise of human rights, Holland tells an important chapter in the little known history of human rights in Australia.

About The Author

After being awarded a PhD in history at the University of New South Wales in 1998, Alison Holland held a variety of research and academic positions, before being appointed a lecturer in the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University in 2005. She has taught a variety of Australian history subjects, including environmental and Aboriginal history. She specialises in Aboriginal-settler relations which she now teaches in a global comparative frame. Alison has published widely on issues of Aboriginal and feminist history, as well as a related interest in citizenship, in a range of national and international journals and books, and is co-editor of Rethinking the Racial Moment: Essays on the Colonial Encounter. In 2013/14 she won the Frederick Watson Fellowship at the National Archives of Australia where she focused on Aboriginal policy and governance in the Northern Territory between 1930 and 1950.

Product Details

  • Publisher: UWA Publishing (September 1, 2015)
  • Length: 472 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781742586878

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