Luke Stegemann - Amnesia Road: Landscape, Violence and Memory

L UKE S TEGEMANN is an Hispanist and cultural historian based in rural south-east Queensland. He has held senior positions in media, publishing and higher education in Australia, Europe and Asia. Luke has written on art, politics and history for a wide range of Australian and Spanish publications, and is the author of The Beautiful Obscure(2017). In 2018 he received the Malaspina Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of cultural relations between Australia and Spain. On weekends he travels extensively around Queensland in his role as a referee on the state amateur boxing circuit.

To the memory of my father

LANDSCAPE, VIOLENCE AND MEMORY

LUKE STEGEMANN

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com

Luke Stegemann 2021

First published 2021

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act,no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

ISBN 9781742236728 (paperback)

9781742244839 (ebook)

9781742249339 (ePDF)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Cover designPeter Long

Internal designJosephine Pajor-Markus

Cover imagegettyimages / Greg Sullavan

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

Brief sections of chapters 7 and 8 of this book have previously appeared in Quarterly Essay 70 (Correspondence)and Meanjin,vol. 77, no. 4.

This book has at times been difficult to write due to the explicit nature of the violence described, and the fact that the impacts of these events, in both Australia and Spain, are still felt. Further, the disputed nature of some of the events described has demanded I treat material as judiciously as possible. Any errors of interpretation or fact are entirely my own.

The names and spellings applied to different regions of Indigenous Country are taken from Hazel McKellars Matya-Mundu: A History of the Aboriginal People of South- West Queensland,and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) map of Indigenous Australia.

While this book makes constant reference to Indigenous Australia, the author recognises this is not a homogenous group, and among Indigenous peoples great variety exists in tradition, language and culture.