Research
Publications
Mia Martin Hobbs, “Calamity or Commodity? Conceptualizing Security in the Nuclear Debate in Fraser’s Australia”, History Australia, (April 2022): https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2022.2057339.
Presentations
Carolyn Holbrook, The Anzac Legend and the War on Terror, Historicizing National Security in the 21st Century Workshop, October 2023.
The Anzac legend became a quasi-religious symbol of Australian nationhood after the war. Following a malaise in the post-Second World War decades, the Anzac legend was revived in the 1980s, and with the demise of the First World War generation politicians stepped into the breach to become the Anzac legend’s ‘commemorators-in-chief’. That Australia’s premier national mythology is a warrior legend has provided the state with a rich vein of military-related rhetoric. Drawing on scholarship on the discursive function and rhetorical ideals of ‘national security’ in the post-war US, this paper examines the ways that the Australian state employed the discourse of Anzac in the transformed security environment of the War on Terror. I will examine particularly the Anzac centenary in 2015 and the elevation of Ben Roberts-Smith, VC as a contemporary embodiment of the Anzac idol.
The Anzac Legend and the War on Terror.pptxDavid Lowe, A Modern National Security State: the Canberra monster securing Australians from monsters, Historicizing National Security in the 21st Century Workshop, October 2023.
This paper explores the accretion of powers in Canberra in the name of national security in the 21st century, focussing on the increasingly administrative means by which national security is defined and the growing disconnection between the Australian public and these definitions. The security apparatus built in Canberra has continued to expand without apparent boundaries, even as security advocates have urged holistic, joined-up approaches. The paper considers two significant consequences. One is the marginalisation of traditional sources of strength in interpreting international and transnational change, and the implications for Australia. The second is the administrative blurring of the traditionally-drawn contract between citizens’ rights and obligations on the one hand, and a nation-state’s role to protect its citizens, on the other.
Mia Martin Hobbs, National Security from slogan to satire in 21st century Australia, Historicizing National Security in the 21st Century Workshop, October 2023.
This paper explores the effects of government use of ‘national security’ on Australian culture. In 21st century Australia, the concept of ‘national security’ was largely associated with defence, espionage, and counter-terrorism. The growth of national security bureaucracy, legislation, and competing claims to security by political leaders was increasingly parodied by political satirists. Drawing on cartoons in mainstream newspapers as well as popular television shows, this paper shows that Australian satirists portrayed ‘national security’ as a nonsense slogan, ridiculing its use to project strength, add weight to political claims, silence critics, and create transparent illusions of public safety. These satirical sources mirror scholarly critiques of technostrategic discourse, securitisation, and security theatre.
CH end of empire.pptxCarolyn Holbrook, Searching for 'homo Australicus': The New Nationalism and the Anzac Legend, End of Empire workshop, June 2023
The Anzac legend is Australia’s premier mythology of nationhood. It was conceived during the First World War, when soldiers from the newly formed Australian nation fought as part of the British Empire in Turkey, France, Belgium and the Middle East. The original version of the Anzac legend was deeply implicated with British imperialism; it sloughed off doubts about the racial degeneration of British stock infected by the ‘convict stain’ and celebrated the martial capacity of the Australian as a distinctive offshoot of the British race. The dissolution of the British empire and Britain’s turn towards Europe in the 1960s and 1970s undermined the imperial foundations of Australian national sentiment and eroded popular support for the Anzac legend. This paper examines how the Anzac legend defied predictions of its demise during the period of the New Nationalism and emerged transformed and restored as the centrepiece of Australian national iconography, where it remains to this day.
Mia Martin Hobbs, Imperial Nostalgia in Australian Defence Policy in the 21st Century, End of Empire workshop, June 2023
The announcement of the AUKUS agreement in 2021 intensified concerns about Australia’s relationship with the US and the possibility of being drawn into a war with China. Less attention has been paid to the UK-Australian relationship within the AUKUS framework. In this paper, I argue that imperial nostalgia serves to normalise the UK-Australian defence relationship in the 21st century, with both the UK and Australia drawing on their historic ties with the ‘lesser’ partner to counteract fears of US dominance and smooth over anxieties about working within an ‘Anglosphere’ in the Indo-Pacific.
David Lowe, Enacting National Security Law: Intelligence and Intransigence, Ideas and Concepts of National Security: Australia and Europe in Comparative Perspective, University of Marburg, December 2022.
Carolyn Holbrook, Concepts of National Security in Australia during the Interwar Period: The National Insurance Debate, Ideas and Concepts of National Security: Australia and Europe in Comparative Perspective, University of Marburg, December 2022.
Mia Martin Hobbs, Compound Threats: Themes and Uses of 'National Security' in Australia in the 1930s, Ideas and Concepts of National Security: Australia and Europe in Comparative Perspective, University of Marburg, December 2022.
Carolyn Holbrook, 'National Security and Public Health - A History From Below', Concepts of national security: Australian and international perspectives, online Conference, 25 November 2020
Australian historians have found connections between national security and public health in programs like school hygiene, physical education and maternal health. These analyses are focussed on the state.
This presentation argues that by understanding more clearly the uses of public health and national security that lie outside the power and apparatus of the state, we can better understand the popular well-springs of these concepts—and hence, their power to shift public opinion.
Please contact me at carolyn.holbrook[at]deakin.edu.au for more information.