Race and gender in recent Australian historiography

This article gives the text of the Keynote Address presented by Professor Curthoys at the Second Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Conference held at the University of Newcastle in June 1995. The address drew on two other papers by Professor Curthoys: a review of the literature on Aboriginal labour history, written jointly with Clive Moore, for a special issue of Labour History, November 1995, and a review of Creating a Nation, published in Labour History, May 1995. There is a growing body of writing within the fields of women's history, Aboriginal history and, most importantly, of writing which attempts to deal with the relationship between the two. The purpose of my paper today is to describe and discuss this changing historiographical context.