Dr Alexandra Dellios
Areas of expertise
- Migrant Cultural Studies 200208
- Multicultural, Intercultural And Cross Cultural Studies 200209
- Australian History (Excl. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander History) 210303
- Heritage And Cultural Conservation 210202
- Archival, Repository And Related Studies 210201
Research interests
migration and refugee histories, memory studies, public history, oral history, multiculturalism and ethnicity, cultural heritage management and interpretation, industrial and working class heritage, migrant rights movements
Biography
Alexandra Dellios is a historian and senior lecturer in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies at the Australian National University. Her research considers the public and oral history of migrant and refugee communities, their experiences of settlement, and working and family life. She has published on: child migration; popular representations of multiculturalism; immigration centres and hostels; the intersections of migrant, industrial and labour heritage; public history practices, and cultural heritage management in Australia.
She is the author of Heritage Making and Migrant Subjects in the Deindustrialising Region of the Latrobe Valley (Cambridge University Press, April 2022) and Histories of Controversy: Bonegilla Migrant Centre (Melbourne University Publishing, 2017), editor of Memory and Family in Australian Refugee Histories (Routledge: 2019), and co-editor (with Eureka Henrich) of Migrant, Multicultural and Diasporic Heritage: Beyond and Between Borders (Routledge: 2020).
She is Chair of the Editorial Board for Studies in Oral History, a founding member of the Australian Migration History Network, and Executive Committee member of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies.
She remains engaged in oral history projects and teaching, community volunteering, and heritage interpretation efforts.
Researcher's projects
Post-war Migration and Collaborative Community Heritage Practices (2017 - )
This project analyses community-initiated heritage and public history projects that pertain to post-WWII migration and settlement in Australia (the Latrobe Valley, in particular). It is interested in community negotiation (and challenge) to heritage discourses and multiculturalism/social inclusion rhetoric.
Remembering Migrant Protest and Activism: Migrant Rights Discourses in pre-Multicultural Australia (2019 - ) / The Community Origins of Multiculturalism in Australia: A New History (2022 - )
This project explores 'migrant rights' discourses and collective community memories of activism and protests in pre-Multicultural Australia (1960s and 1970s) - focussing, in the first instance, on the community archives and oral histories of Greek, Turkish and Italian community groups, and their allies (including ecumenical charities and trade unions), with particular attention to the work of women in leadership and welfare service provision/as social welfare workers and advocates. Future trajectories of the project will trace the impact of these discourses and ideological developments in 'multiculturalism' on social welfare services, practices and frameworks into the 1980s and beyond, and on the situaiton for migrant workers in Australia.
CH Currey Memorial Fellowship at the State Library of NSW for the project: Greek-Australian Women and Building Alternative Multiculturalisms: Grassroots histories of migrant welfare in New South Wales, 1960s–1980s (2022)
A grassroots history of early multiculturalism from the perspective of ethnic minority communities (especially women) who worked at the ‘front-lines’ of migrant welfare and service provision from the 1960s to the 1980s, in NSW (in state-funded agencies and from within community organisations, particularly in Sydney). Read the full Fellowship announcement from SLNW.
ARC funded projects:
Architecture and Industry: The migrant contribution to nation-building, DP190101531 (2019 - 2022)
Lead CI: A/Prof Anoma Pieris (the University of Melbourne, Andrew Sangia – University of Melbourne, Mirjana Lozanovska – Deakin University, David Beynon – University of Tasmania, Alexandra Dellios – Australian National University.
Project Description: Migrants after World War II were critical to the spatial making of modern Australia. Major federally-funded industries driving post-war nation-building programs depended on the employment of large numbers of war displaced persons. Directed to remote, rural and urban industrial sites, migrant labour and resettlement altered the nation’s physical landscape, providing Australia with its contemporary economic base. While the immigrant contribution to nation-building in cultural terms is well-known, its everyday spatial, architectural and landscape transformations remain unexamined. This project aims to bring to the foreground post-war industry and immigration to comprehensively document a uniquely Australian shaping of the built environment.
Current student projects
- Renee Dixon, ‘Developing a crowdsourced digital LGBTIQ archive: a new methodology to challenge knowledge hegemonies and hierarchies of normative archive practices’, PhD (2019 – ).
- Kavya Kalutantiri, 'Appeasing the Palate in Cosmopolitan Cities: An exploration of South Asian diasporic subjectivity through foodways', PhD (2020 - ), Chair.
Publications
- Dellios, A 2022, 'Listening intersubjectively: re-analysing migrant rights activism in 'new' and 'old' oral history collections', Oral History, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 63-73.
- Dellios, A 2022, Heritage Making and Migrant Subjects in the Deindustrialising Region of the Latrobe Valley, Cambridge University Press, London.
- Dellios, A 2020, 'Migration Parks and Monuments to Multiculturalism: Finding the Challenge to Australian Heritage Discourses through Community Public History Practice', The Public Historian, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 7-32.
- Dellios, A & Henrich, E, eds, 2020, Migrant, Multicultural and Diasporic Heritage: Beyond and Between Borders, Routledge, London.
- Dellios, A & Henrich, E 2020, 'Migratory Pasts and Heritage Making Presents: Theory and Practice', in Alexandra Dellios and Eureka Henrich (ed.), Migrant, Multicultural and Diasporic Heritage Beyond and Between Borders, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London, pp. 1-20.
- Dellios, A 2020, ''It was just you and your child': Single migrant mothers, generational storytelling and Australia�s migrant heritage', Memory Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 586-600.
- Dellios, A 2019, 'Community expectations and capturing community values in conservation management plans', Historic Environment, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 64-80.
- Dellios, A, ed., 2019, Memory and Family in Australian Refugee Histories, Routledge, London.
- Dellios, A 2019, 'Personal, Public Pasts: Negotiating Migrant Heritage-Heritage Practice and Migration History in Australia', in Darian-Smith, Kate, Hamilton, Paula (Eds.) (ed.), Remembering Migration Oral Histories and Heritage in Australia, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, London, pp. 219-236.
- Dellios, A 2019, 'Unsettling Post-War Settlement: Remembering Unassimilable Families in the Space of the Migrant Camp', in Springer (ed.), Interdisciplinary Unsettlings of Place and Space, Springer, Heidelberg, pp. 217-232.
- Pieris, A, Lozanovska, M, Dellios, A et al. 2019, 'Forum: Industrial sites and immigrant architectures. A case study approach', Fabrications The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 257-272.
- Dellios, A 2019, 'Italians in Australia: History, Memory, Identity', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 274-275.
- Dellios, A 2019, 'Industrial Heritage and regional identities', Fabrications The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 300-303.
- Dellios, A 2018, 'Memory and Family in Australian Refugee Histories', Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 79-86pp.
- Dellios, A 2018, 'Remembering Mum and Dad: Family History Making by Children of Eastern European Refugees', Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 105-124pp.
- Dellios, A 2018, 'Conflict and Communication Expanding the field with two new books in heritage studies', The Public Historian, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 135-138.
- Dellios, A 2017, Histories of Controversy: Bonegilla Migrant Centre, Melbourne University Publishing
- Dellios, A 2016, 'Displaced Persons, Family Separation and the Work Contract in Postwar Australia', Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 418-432pp.
- Dellios, A 2015, 'Marginal or mainstream? Migrant centres as grassroots and official heritage', International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 21, no. 10, pp. 1068-1083pp.
- Dellios, A 2015, 'Commemorating migrant camps: vernacular memories in official spaces', Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 252-271pp.
- Dellios, A 2014, 'Sharing Bonegilla Stories', Life Writing, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 493-498pp.
- Dellios, A 2014, 'Exchanging Memories in the Australian Museum: Migrant Stories and Bonegilla Migrant Centre', Museums and Social Issues, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 34-55pp.
- Dellios, A 2014, 'RESPONSE - Generational storytelling and public history: a response to Once my Mother'.
- Dellios, A 2013, 'A Cultural Conflict? Belonging for Greek Child Migrants in 1960s and 1970s Melbourne', Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 84, no. 2, pp. 303-325pp.
- Dellios, A 2013, 'Ethnic Women', in Judith Smart, Shurlee Swain. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Australian Women's Archives Project 2014, Australia, pp. 1pp.
- Dellios, A 2013, Greek journeys at Bonegilla Heritage Park, pp. 1-4pp.
- Dellios, A 2012, 'Bonegilla Heritage Park: Contesting and Coordinating a Public History Site', Public History Review, vol. 19, no. 2012, pp. 21-42pp.
- Dellios, A 2012, 'Talk about Place (Exhibition Review of Belonging: Reflections on Place)', History Australia, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 217-219pp.
- Dellios, A 2012, 'Rediscovering the Political?: Professionalising the Postgraduate Experience in the 1990s', in Keir Wotherspoon and Erik Ropers (ed.), Written into History - Celebrating Fifty Years of the Melbourne Historical Journal, 1961-2011, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, pp. 301-320.
- Dellios, A 2010, ''Going Back': Homeland and Belonging for Greek Child Migrants', Migrant Security: 2010, ed. Dr Anna Hayes; Dr Robert Mason, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, pp. 49-55.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Architecture and Industry: The migrant contribution to nation-building (Secondary Investigator)