(Individual abstract for proposed roundtable)
Historians working in and writing on Australia and New Zealand often find themselves contributing to empire or, more recently, Pacific rim histories. Many of the important conversations within business history, however, take place within a trans-Atlantic framework. North Americans look to Britain and Europe; Europeans seek comparisons with the United States. For those of us working in the southern hemisphere, this dominance of the trans-Atlantic frame in comparative and transnational histories is both apparent and annoying.
When I began my research into 19th century businesswomen in the Australasian colonies I found myself a lone voice down under in a sea of domesticity historiography – until I looked up and discovered Susan Ingalls Lewis’s work in the US and Alison Kay’s study in the UK. Suddenly I felt less alone. Soon I discovered that historians throughout the world were rewriting business histories of the nineteenth century. Had anyone pulled it all together? Beatrice Craig’s Women in Business Since 1500 was inspiring – but had a trans-Atlantic focus.
When Jennifer Aston and I started scouting around for people working on women in business – endeavouring to cover the world – particular issues began to emerge. There were issues of language, networks, historiographical priorities and there were gaps, absences. I also began to realise that being in Australia was not the only way of being peripheral.
My focus in this round table is on the problems of peripherality and the importance of making connections beyond one’s own backyard in order to overcome them.