Australian Generations? Memory, Oral History and Generational Identity in Postwar Australia

Abstract

Australian media pundits and popular sociologists write blithely about generations such as the Baby Boomers and Gen X, but what they are really writing about are birth cohorts who share some common life experiences and attitudes but do not necessarily share a generational identity. Drawing upon oral history interviews conducted with 300 Australians, this article argues that while a birth cohort may share historical reference points, it will not necessarily be conscious of itself as a distinctive generation. Generations are forged by dramatic shared experiences and emergent generational awareness in youth. Generational self-consciousness is then fashioned and consolidated in memory by individuals who draw upon collective representations of generational identity in making sense of their lives. This article argues that in post-Second World War Australia there has, thus far, been only one such generation, the so-called ‘60s generation’, and illuminates that argument though a life history case study that also highlights the significance of gender and intergenerational relations.

Notes

1 Mark McCrindle with Emily Wolfinger, The ABC of XYZ: Understanding the Global Generations (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009), 2–3.

2 For a recent review of sociological debates, see Jane Elliott, ‘Talkin’ “Bout My Generation”: Perceptions of Generational Belonging Among the 1958 Cohort’, Sociological Research Online 18, no. 4 (2013). www.socresonline.org.uk/18/4/13.html (accessed 27 April 2015).

3 Elliott, section 1.1, citing B. S. Turner, ‘Strategic Generations: Historical Change, Literary Expression, and Generational Politics’, in Generational Consciousness, Narrative and Politics, eds June Edmunds and Bryan S. Turner (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002), 16.

4 McCrindle, 24. See also, N. Corsten, ‘The Time of Generations’, Time and Society 8, no. 2 (1999): 249–72.

5 Wulf Kansteiner, ‘Moral Pitfalls of Memory Studies: The Concept of Political Generations’, Memory Studies 5, no. 2 (2012): 211. See also Wulf Kansteiner, ‘Generation and Memory: A Critique of the Ethical and Ideological Implications of Generational Narration’, in Writing the History of Memory, eds Stefan Berger and Bill Niven (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 111–34.

6 See Elliott, section 1.6; S. Biggs, ‘Thinking about Generations: Conceptual Positions and Policy Implications’, Journal of Social Issues 63, no. 4 (2007): 695–711.

7 Judith Brett and Anthony Moran, Ordinary People's Politics: Australians Talk about Life, Politics, and the Future of Their Country (Melbourne: Pluto Press Australia, 2006), 8. See also Hugh Mackay, Generations: Baby Boomers, Their Parents and Their Children (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 1997).

8 William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (New York: Quill, 1991). Strauss and Howe draw on ‘generational determinists’ like Spanish historian Julián Mariás, author of Generations: A Historical Method (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1970).

9 Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 222.

10 Karl Mannheim, ‘The Problem of Generations’, in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Paul Kecskemeti (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), 309 (originally published in Germany in 1927).

11 June Edmunds and Bryan S. Turner, Generations, Culture and Society (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002). See also Edmunds and Turner, Generational Consciousness, Narrative and Politics.

12 Edmunds and Turner, Generations, Culture and Society, 12; Mannheim, 319.

13 Howard Schuman and Jacqueline Scott, ‘Generations and Collective Memories’, American Sociological Review 54, no. 3 (1989): 359–81.

14 Elliott, section 1.2; Turner, ‘Strategic Generations’, 13–14.

15 For debate about why youth constitutes a critical period for the formation of generations, see Schuman and Scott, ‘Generations and Collective Memories’; Martin A. Conway, ‘The Inventory of Experience: Memory and Identity’, in Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives, eds James Pennebaker, Dario Paez and Bernard Rimé (Mahwah, NJ: Psychology Press, 1997), 40; Howard Schuman, Robert F. Belli and Katherine Bischoping, ‘The Generational Basis of Historical Knowledge’, in Pennebaker et al., 71–5.

16 Conway, 40–3.

17 Edmunds and Turner, Generations, Culture and Society, 11.

18 Luisa Passerini, Autobiography of a Generation: Italy, 1968, first published in Italy in 1988, translated from Italian by Lisa Erdberg (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1996); Robert Gildea, James Mark and Anette Warring, Europe 1968: Voices of Revolt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). See also Joseph Maslen, ‘Autobiographies of a Generation? Carolyn Steedman, Luisa Passerini and the Memory of 1968’, Memory Studies 6, no. 1 (2013): 23–36.

19 Michael Frisch, ‘Oral History and Hard Times’, Oral History Review 7 (1979): 70–9. See also, Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

20 Janet McCalman, Journeyings: The Biography of a Middle-Class Generation 1920–1990 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993); Janet McCalman, Struggletown, Public and Private Life in Richmond, 1900–1965 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1984). See also Chilla Bulbeck, Living Feminism: The Impact of the Women's Movement on Three Generations of Australian Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

21 Alistair Thomson, ‘Australian Generations? Transformative Events, Memory and Generational Identity', in Conflicted Pasts and National Identities: Narratives of War and Conflict, ed. Michael Boss (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2014), 55–68; Alistair Thomson, ‘Biography of an Archive: “Australia 1938” and the Vexed Development of Australian Oral History’, Australian Historical Studies 45, no. 3 (2014): 425–49.

22 On project methodology, see Alistair Thomson, ‘Innovation or Revolution in Digital Aural History: An Australian Case Study’, Oral History Review (in press, 2016); and the article in this issue by Kevin Bradley and Anisa Puri, ‘Creating an Oral History Archive: Digital Opportunities and Ethical Issues’, Australian Historical Studies 47, no. 1 (2016), doi:10.1080/1031461X.2015.1122072.

23 All subsequent interview references are from the Australian Generations collection at the National Library of Australia (pseudonyms are used where interviews are not yet available for public access or cannot be identified): Ann Davie, TRC 6300/44; David Cooper, TRC 6300/160; Bronwyn McLoughlin, TRC 6300/47; Suzie Quartermain, TRC 6300/169; Phoebe Parisia, TRC 6300/101.

24 Elliott, Abstract.

25 Irene Schultz (pseudonym); Shannon Murphy (pseudonym); Clare Atkins, TRC 6300/123. Further research might also highlight specific postwar generational identities for Aboriginal Australians and for gay men and lesbians (see, for example, Donald Grey-Smith, TRC 6300/241).

26 Paul Potter (pseudonym); Leah Ashley, TRC 6300/79.

27 See Jonathon Zilber, TRC 6300/78, and Adam Farrow-Palmer, TRC 6300/136 (climate change may also become a significant element of this generational identity). International studies have also noted that ‘a “new” generation may be emerging as a result of 9/11’ and debated the impacts on today's young adults of globalisation and changed economic circumstances: Alan France and Steven Roberts, ‘The Problem of Social Generations: A Critique of the New Emerging Orthodoxy in Youth Studies’, Journal of Youth Studies 18, no. 2 (2015): 215–30.

28 Sue Beeton, TRC 6300/06; Gwen Waters, TRC 6300/152; Alyce Schlothauer, TRC 6300/174.

29 Veronica Schwartz, TRC 6300/161; Rosemary Walker (pseudonym); Josephine Sanaghan-Cross, TRC 6300/131. On the distinctive patterns of women's generational experience and identity, see Bulbeck, 19–22; Katie Barclay, Rosalind Carr, Rose Elliot and Annmarie Hughes, ‘Introduction: Gender and Generations: Women and Life Cycles’, Women's History Review 20, no. 2 (2011): 175–88.

30 On ‘the horizon of possibilities’ see Alessandro Portelli, The Battle of Valle Giulia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 276.

31 Janet Davey, interviewed by Cath McLennan in Drouin, Gippsland, Victoria on 7, 9 and 10 May 2012, TRC 6300/66. Many thanks to Janet Davey for her thoughtful and generous comments on drafts of this article.

32 Kathryn Anderson and Dana C. Jack, ‘Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and Analysis’, in Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History, eds Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai (London: Routledge, 1991), 11–26.

33 Alistair Thomson, ‘Moving Stories, Women's Lives: Sharing Authority in Oral History’, Oral History 39, no. 2 (2011): 73–82

34 Davey interview, session 1, 00:14:11, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-793~0-864. Note that this and other urls from the Davey interview refer to the segment of the interview within which the quote is located. If you click on the link in the online version of this article you can listen to that segment.

35 Davey interview, session 1, 01:37:02, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-5822~0-6010.

36 Davey interview, session 1, 01:10:46, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-4246~0-4294.

37 Davey interview, session 1, 01:14:07; 01:15:16, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-4516~0-4561; 01:17:22.

38 Davey interview, session 1, 01:16:56, 00:20:05; 01:16:56, 01:18:40 (listen at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-4562).

39 Bulbeck, 34–44.

40 Davey interview, session 3, 00:00:00; 00:05:11 (listen at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/2-0); session 1, 01:23:05.

41 Davey interview, session 3, 00:22:21, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/2-1341.

42 Davey interview, session 1, 01:24:12 and 01:28:20 (listen at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-5300~0-5483); ‘The Eve of Destruction’ lyrics are at http://artists.letssingit.com/barry-mcguire-lyrics-eve-of-destruction-s1m88lj#axzz3GqO1BUKE (accessed 21 October 2014).

43 Davey, Expression of Interest; Davey interview, session 1, 00:13:13; session 5, 01:05:02; Davey Expression of Interest; Davey interview, session 1, 00:58:22, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/0-3502~0-3588.

44 Davey interview, session 2, 00:56:46; session 3, 00:40:48; session 2, 00:56:46, at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/1-3406~1-3469.

45 Katie Holmes and Sarah Pinto, ‘Gender and Sexuality', in The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume 2, The Commonwealth of Australia, eds Alison Bashford and Stuart McIntyre (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 324–5.

46 Davey interview, session 2, 00:53:29; session 2, 01:04:28 (quote at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn6252057/1-3868~1-4020); session 3, 01:04:40; session 4, 00:00:00; session 5, 00:21:19.

47 It's Time’ was the slogan used for the Australian Labor Party election campaign in 1972.

48 See Frank Bongiorno, ‘Whitlam, the 1960s and the Program’, Inside Story, 16 December 2013, at http://insidestory.org.au/whitlam-the-1960s-and-the-program (accessed 12 February 2015).