About
The AAPHN
The aim of the Australia and Aotearoa NZ Public History Network is to develop public history across Australasia by creating opportunities to communicate, meet and share knowledge among individuals and organisations who practice public and applied history in the academy, communities, industry and professions. We aim to promote teaching, research and engagements between these diverse communities and encourage best practice through an online portal.
There are a number of history organisations across Australia such as Museums Australia, Australian Historical Association, the several Professional Historians Associations (PHA), History Council of NSW, several Family and Local Historical Societies (some helpfully listed by the National Library), Heritage Councils, AIATSIS, the several State and Territory History Teachers Associations, Oral History Australia and the Federation of Australian Historical Societies. However, members of these groups who understand themselves as public historians don’t always communicate effectively with each other about public history. The same can be said of the many fabulous history organisations across Aotearoa / New Zealand, including the Professional Historians’ Association of New Zealand/Aotearoa (PHANZA), Museums Aotearoa, which was formerly the Art Galleries and Museums Association of New Zealand, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, New Zealand Society of Genealogists, New Zealand Federation of Historical Societies, New Zealand Historical Association, National Oral History Association of New Zealand, Te Pouhere Kōrero, New Zealand History Teachers’ Association, and Historic Places Aotearoa. Our new Public History network will encourage national and international communication and collaboration at a time when we need to emphasise the cultural and social benefits of public history learning, teaching and community engagement for everyone.
The Network
In order to create opportunities to “communicate, meet and share knowledge among individuals and organisations who practice public and applied history in the academy, communities, industry and professions” the AAPHN is home to a vast network of specialists and enthusiasts who have shared contact details, biographies and resources. This way members of our community can collaborate and share their vast expertise with one another, all the while members of the broader community are able to reach out to the appropriate specialists for any historical, heritage or cultural enquiries. The network member list is available here. If you would like to be added to the network please contact us at [email protected] with your name, a short 50-100 word bio, a form of contact you are happy to have public and any resources you think will be of use to history practitioners across Australia and Aotearoa.
AAPHN Blog
In order to “promote teaching, research and engagements between these diverse communities” through the AAPHN, this website is home to a blog where history practitioners and enthusiasts from across Australia and Aotearoa NZ can disseminate their research, history and culture, as well as provide updates about their respective fields and regions. If you would like to contribute to this resource please send through a short (~150 word) description of your proposed post to [email protected] and we will inform you of the rest of the submission process. We are accepting entries from all members of our network on any topic to do with public history or the application of history in public settings. If you have any questions about content on our website please also do not hesitate to get in contact with us.
All content on the blog is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0).
AAPHN Newsletter
We have a virtual AAPHN newsletter which we distribute via our email contact list to all of our network members. This newsletter will contain information about upcoming events and funding opportunities, and will also highlight some of the popular posts from the AAPHN blog. If you are not a member, but would like to receive this newsletter (as well as other communications from the AAPHN) or would like to have an event or funding opportunity advertised, please subscribe to our mailing list by following this link here.
The Team
Associate Professor Tanya Evans
Professor Tanya Evans is Director of the Centre for Applied History at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia where she teaches public history and modern history. Her books include Making Histories (De Gruyter 2020, with Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton as co-eds), the prize-winning Fractured Families: Life On The Margins in Colonial New South Wales (New South, 2015); Swimming with the Spit, 100 Years of the Spit Amateur Swimming Club (New South, 2016); with Pat Thane, Sinners, Scroungers, Saints: Unmarried Motherhood in Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2012) and ‘Unfortunate Objects’: Lone Mothers in Eighteenth-Century London (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). She has published many scholarly articles and book chapters on family history. She curates exhibitions and works as a consultant for television production companies making historical documentaries. She is currently finishing a book on the practice and meanings of family history in Australia, England and Canada and undertaking ARC-funded collaborative work with family and local historians on a social history and archaeological project in the Blue Mountains.
Research Profile: Macquarie University Research Profile
Professor Paula Hamilton
Professor Paula Hamilton is Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Technology, Sydney. She was involved in setting up and teaching in the public history program there from 1989 and was founding co-director of the Australian Centre for Public History and co-editor of Public History Review journal. She is also an adjuct professor at Macquarie University. She has worked in a range of historical projects with community groups, museums, heritage agencies and trade unions over thirty years. She has also published widely in oral history and memory studies. Her most recent books are Making Histories (edited with Paul Ashton & Tanya Evans) de Gruyter publishers, Germany (new series in Public History edited by Mike Frisch and Indira Chowdhury) 2020; Migration Memories: Oral History and Heritage in Australia (edited with Kate Darian-Smith) Palgrave Memory Studies series, London 2019; The Oxford Handbook of Public History (edited with James Gardner) Oxford University Press, New York, 2018
Professor Paul Ashton
Professor Paul Ashton is adjunct professor at the Centre for Applied History at Macquarie University and founding co-director of the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney where he also holds an adjunct professorship. He has authored, co-authored, edited and co-edited 36 books. In 2020 he was awarded the NSW History Council’s Annual History Citation for outstanding contributions to public and Australian history.
Research Profile UTS Research Profile
Ewan Coopey
Ewan Coopey is PhD candidate and Research Assistant at the Centre for Applied History. His research explores the interplay between identities, communities and objects, with particular focus on Roman archaeology and archaeological theory. He is passionate about public engagement and collaboration within archaeology and history. As part of this, he is dedicated to promoting Open Access (OA) and Open Data practices, as well as the application of digital tools (both basic and complex) in history and archaeology.
Research Profile: Macquarie University Research Profile
Acknowledgement of Country
We at the AAPHN acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land upon which we work, the Wallamattagal people of the Dharug nation, whose cultures and customs have nurtured, and continue to nurture, this land, since the Dreamtime. We pay our respects to the Dharug people and the Wallamattagal clan. We also acknowledge the Elders of the Dharug nation, past, present and future, and pay our respects to them.