Peter John Read (born 1945)
is an Australian historian specialising in the history of
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
. Read worked as a teacher and civil servant before co-founding Link-Up. Link-Up was an organisation that reunited aboriginal families who had undergone forcible separation of children from their families through government intervention. Read coined the term "
Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church mis ...
" to refer to the children subject to these interventions in a 1981 study. After graduating with a doctorate, Read worked as an academic for the rest of his career primarily working on Australian Indigenous history. He has also published work on the relationship between non-indigenous Australians and the land. In 2019, Read was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his work on Indigenous history.
Life and career
![Original Sorry badge and card produced by Link-Up](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Original_Sorry_badge_and_card_produced_by_Link-Up.jpg)
Read was born in
Sydney in 1945. He attended
Knox Grammar School
, motto_translation = The Manly Thing Is Being Done
, established =
, founder = John Gilmore, William McIlrath, Robert Gillespie and Andrew Reid
, type = Independent school, Independe ...
before studying at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...
(ANU),
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
and
University of Bristol
, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter
, type ...
.
Read taught in
Canberra and
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
before becoming a curriculum research officer for the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
Department of Education from 1976 to 1978.
With
Coral Edwards, Read founded the organisation Link-Up in 1980.
Link-Up reconnected
Aboriginal families who had children forcibly separated from them by the government via adoption and state
wardship
In law, a ward is a minor or incapacitated adult placed under the protection of a legal guardian or government entity, such as a court. Such a person may be referenced as a "ward of the court".
Overview
The wardship jurisdiction is an ancient ...
. Read was the first to employ the term "
Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church mis ...
" to describe these practices in a 1981 study titled "The Stolen Generations: The removal of Aboriginal children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969".
Link-Up eventually opened offices in every state. A documentary called ''Link-Up Diary'' was filmed by David MacDougall in 1986 and captured the work of Read and Edwards reuniting Aboriginal families. Link-Up's work played an important role in a wider campaign that led to the
Bringing Them Home
''Bringing Them Home'' is the 1997 Australian ''Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families''. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to ...
inquiry.
Following the completion of his doctoral studies in 1984, Read worked as an academic at ANU's School of Social Sciences. In 1995, Read, with
Jackie Huggins
Jacqueline Gail "Jackie" Huggins (born 19 August 1956) is an Aboriginal Australian author, historian, academic and advocate for the rights of Indigenous Australians. She is a Bidjara/Pitjara, Birri Gubba and Juru woman from Queensland.
she ...
, started the "Seven Years On' project which interviewed the same ten people at seven year intervals like the UK documentary ''
Seven Up
7 Up (stylized as 7up outside North America) is an American brand of lemon-lime-flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper although the beverage is internationally distributed by PepsiCo. 7 Up comp ...
''. He has edited the journal ''
Aboriginal History
''Aboriginal History'' is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal published as an open access journal by Aboriginal History Inc. It was established in 1977 (co-founded and edited by Diane Barwick) and covers interdisciplinary historical studies ...
'', and from 2005 to 2006, he served as the Deputy Director at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies. He later held the position of Research Professor in the Department of History at the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...
.
Research and writing
Read is known for his work in the field of Australian indigenous history. Read conducts his work through researching government archives and through the oral accounts of Aboriginal people, a practice he started in 1977.
In an interview, he said he always travels with a tape recorder.
In his research, Read initially estimated that 5,625 Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families in New South Wales, before revising that figure up to around 10,000 in his book ''A Rape of the Soul so Profound''.
Historian
Keith Windschuttle
Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
has challenged Read's work on the Stolen Generations and his interpretation of government files.
Read refuted Windschuttle's reading of the files and historian
Stuart Macintyre
Stuart Forbes Macintyre (21 April 1947 – 22 November 2021) was an Australian historian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2008. He was voted one of Australia's most influential historians.
Early lif ...
called Windschuttle's view "absurd".
Read argues that the retelling of history encompasses "central truths" and "smaller truths".
Central truths are larger historical facts such as that Aboriginal children were forcibly separated from their families or that Aboriginal people suffered violent dispossession of their lands. Smaller truths, such as Aboriginal interclan violence or compassion shown to Aboriginal people by government officials, supplement and add complexity to the central truth but do not refute it.
In 1995, Read felt the central truth of the Stolen Generations had been established and hoped to focus his work on the smaller truths. However, Read contends that it is not feasible to tell small truths when the central truth is perpetually questioned.
According to Read, rather than being able to work in new areas that could be more impactful for Indigenous Australians, historians are often forced to rehash established facts.
Starting in 1996 with his book ''Returning to Nothing'', Read began to focus on the way non-indigenous Australians connect to the land.
Honours
In 2003, Read was elected as a Fellow of the
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Austr ...
.
He was a recipient of the
Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to Indigenous history" in the Queen's Birthday 2019 Honours List.
Publications
* ''A Hundred Years War: The Wiradjuri people and the state'' (1988)
* ''Charles Perkins; a biography'' (1990)
* ''Long Time, Olden Time: Aboriginal accounts of Northern Territory history,'' co-author Jay Read (1991)
* ''Returning to Nothing; The meaning of lost places'' (1996)
* ''A Rape of the Soul So Profound; The return of the stolen generations'' (1999)
* ''Belonging; Australians, place and Aboriginal ownership'' (2000)
* ''Haunted Earth'' (2003)
* ''Narrow But Endlessly Deep: The struggle for memorialisation in Chile since the transition to democracy'' (2016)
* ''What the Colonists Never Knew: A History of Aboriginal Sydney'', co-author Dennis Foley (2020)
Edited by Read
* ''The Lost Children'', editors Coral Edwards and Peter Read (1989)
* ''What Good Condition? Reflections on an Australian Aboriginal Treaty 1986–2006'', editors Peter Read, Gary Meyers and Bob Reece (2006)
* ''Indigenous Biography and Autobiography'', editors Peter Read, Frances Peters-Little and Anna Haebich (2008)
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Interview with Peter Read for the National Museum Australia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Peter
1945 births
Living people
Historians of Australia
Members of the Order of Australia
Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
Australian National University alumni
Australian National University people
History of Indigenous Australians
Academic staff of the University of Sydney