Melbourne academic and author Joy Damousi has been shortlisted for the 2016 Ernest Scott Prize for her book Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War – a chronicle of Greek immigration to Australia following World War II. Ms Damousi is Professor of History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.
The shortlisting panel said her latest work “makes a vital contribution to re-energising the history of immigration in Australia, insisting on the multiple layers of politics in immigration and resettlement processes”.
In the book, Damousi considers the enduring impact of war on family memory in the Greek diaspora. Focusing on Australia’s Greek immigrants in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Greek Civil War, it explores the concept of remembrance within the larger context of migration – showing how intergenerational experience of war and trauma transcend both place and nation.
Shedding new light on aspects of “forgotten memory and silence within families and communities”, Memory and Migration highlights the extent of the trauma arising from displacement, war and political struggle, and argues for the need for that trauma to be incorporated into understandings of contemporary Australia.
The book, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015, has been acclaimed for the sensitive and profound analysis Damousi brings to oral histories and the testimonies of scores of migrants interviewed for her research, set against the backdrop of Australia’s immigration policies and community relationships.
The Ernest Scott Prize is awarded to work based upon original research that makes a “distinguished contribution to the history of Australia or New Zealand [and] the history of colonisation”.
Damousi previously won the Ernest Scott Prize in 2005 for Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Australia. The winner of this year’s prize, worth $13,000, will be announced on 26 April.