2012/08/09 by Christine Winter · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy #German Colonialism and Identity Studies #Diaspora, migration, transnational identity #History
paper · doi:10.1080/00223344.2012.714092
published in Journal of Pacific History 47(3), 347-367 (Routledge)
openalex publication_date 2012/08/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This paper investigates Melanesian-German history across national and regional boundaries, highlighting conflicting pressures on Pacific Islander-Germans during the interwar years; it brings to the fore a Kafkaesque web of contradictory transnational policy developments, legislation and radicalised government practices that impacted on the lives of German-New Guineans who lived in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea and as (transient) diasporas in Australia and National Socialist Germany. The assertions and challenges of Melanesian-Germans to externally ascribed racialised identities by German and Australian agencies are explored within the wider context of German-Pacific Islander experiences and linked to present-day remembering and representations. Whether the descendants of German fathers and New Guinean mothers were fellow citizens or enemy aliens, Germans, New Guineans, Europeans, natives, mixed-bloods or half-castes depended on the political circumstances and on who defined and framed their being and their rights.