Cricket in the ‘contact zone’: Australia’s colonial far North frontier, 1869–1914

Abstract

The ‘contact zone’ is a concept developed by Mary Louise Pratt (1992). It is a space of colonial encounters where people from very different cultures meet and often clash, but despite their differences and asymmetrical power relations, new relationships are forged. Cricket is generally acknowledged as an important agent in developing imperial bonds and its vicissitudes a barometer of the ‘Britishness’ of a community. While the belief was strong in most Australian colonies that cricket was a valuable ‘civilising’ tool in developing relationships between Aborigines and White settlers, the same could not be said of northern Australia’s ‘contact zone’. The small White minority of the towns of Broome and Palmerston defined and differentiated northern Australia from other Australian colonial societies. A hybrid imagined community evolved in the publicly contested social terrain surrounding sporting activities, providing a microcosm to examine the complex social interrelationships of the ‘contact zone’.

Keywords:

• colonisation
• cricket
• contact zone
• Australian Aboriginal
• representation
• frontier

Notes

^1. Blackbirding is a euphemism for kidnapping and enslavement of indigenous people.

^2. Larrakia are the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land where Darwin now stands.

^3. The Broome Historical Society newspaper cutting ‘collection’ (BHS collection) is available from http://www.broomemuseum.org.au/. This collection did not always retain the newspaper title. Most items were from The Northern Times 1905–1909, The North West Echo 1912–1930 or The Broome Chronicle 1908–1912.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Stephen

MATTHEW STEPHEN is Manager, Oral History Unit, Northern Territory Archives Service.