150 Years of Italians in Queensland: An Introduction

Abstract

On 17 October 2009, over 70 people from a broad spectrum of Australian society gathered at the Dante Alighieri Society premises in Newmarket, Brisbane, to participate in a scholarly symposium. The purpose was to reflect on the long history of Italians in Queensland in a public manner, as part of the state's sesquicentenary celebrations. The programme included 13 papers by scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, whose shared passion for exploring Italian migrant experiences has inspired their separate paths of enquiry into unique features of Queensland's history. The expertise and research of the presenters encompassed methodologies of archival investigation, anthropological fieldwork and oral history interviews, allowing a number of perspectives to be articulated for public debate.