Historical Spaces of Confinement 1: Homes for Indigenous Children in Australia

Abstract

This chapter examines historical confinement via the example of homes for Indigenous children in Australia. Between 1910 and 1970 Indigenous children were removed from their families and placed in children’s homes in order to assimilate and ‘civilise’ them. Frequently, this removal was forcible. This chapter explores how these homes are remembered and imagined in oral history testimonies, as well as in the cultural representations, Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), Doris Garimara Pilkington’s life narrative and its film adaptation, Rabbit Proof Fence (Noyce, 2002).