Developing an Archaeology of Childhood Experiences in Australia from

1788-1901.

By: Margaretha Vlahos University of Queensland School of Social Science Advisor: Dr Jon Prangnell

Research questions

Q. 1: What does it mean to be a child in Victorian era Australia?

Q. 2: How are children’s experiences reflected

in the material culture? Sub Q.: What are the differences between the degree of structure and

control in children’s daily lives? (differences in levels of agency).

What do we mean by experiences?

• Two phenomenological principles that demonstrate the perception of experience are consciousness and intentionality. Consciousness underpins our basic understanding of an object as it brings together past intentions associated with the object and the present relationship with it (Dahlberg et al. 2001).

• Experience gained prior to the mind giving it an interpreted meaning (Van

Manen:1990). Suggests unintentional and spontaneous experiences upon which meaning is interpreted after the event.

• People participate in the world in ways that depend on previous experiences – that dependency forms the response to new experiences.

• Thus a child engages in a purposeful action and at the same time, responds to the action reacting to the experience.

Three assumptions in material culture analysis

• the idea that objects contextualise and mediate experiences

• objects provide structure and form to lived experiences

• and objects form part of an experiential exchange between humans and objects (Wood 2009).

Four general principles of agency • The material conditions of social life. • The simultaneous constraining and enabling

influence of social, symbolic and material structures and institutions, habitations and beliefs.

• The importance of the motivations/[intentions] and actions of agents.

• The dialectic of structure and agency (Dobres and Robb 2005:8).

What is interpretive reproduction? • Focus is on childhood as a social construction resulting from the

collective actions of children with adults and each other. • Recognises childhood as a structural form and children as social agents

who contribute to the reproduction of childhood and society through their negotiations with adults and through their creative production of a series of peer cultures with other children.

• Is a social phenomenon that replaces the traditional notion of socialisation with the concept of interpretive reproduction.

• Reflects children’s evolving membership in their culture, which begins in the family and spirals outward as children create a series of embedded peer cultures based on the institutional structure of the adult culture.

• Challenges sociology to take children seriously and to appreciate children’s contributions to social reproduction and change.

Breaking down the terms The term ‘interpretive’ captures innovative and creative aspects

of children’s participation in society. Children produce and participate in their own unique peer cultures by creatively appropriating information from the adult world to address their own peer concerns.

• The term ‘reproduction’ captures the idea that children do not simply internalise society and culture, but also actively contribute to cultural production and change. The term also implies that children are, by their very participation in society, constrained by the existing social structure and by social reproduction.

Discovering children’s experiences in material culture.

John, Catherine and Emily Gilbert at ‘Pewsey Vale’ (State Library of South Australia, The Gilbert Family Collection, PRG266/43).

The sites and collections Terrestrial sites/collections

(urban)

Terrestrial sites/collections (rural)

Maritime sites

Casselden Place (Vic) Cohen Place (Vic) Cumberland Gloucester St (NSW) Devonshire Arms Hotel (Vic) Lilyvale (NSW) Rockpool (NSW) Royal College of Surgeons (Vic) Saltwater Crossing (Vic)

Corinella (Vic) Gilbert Family Collection (SA) Lucy Family Collection (SA) Melbourne Museum Collection (Vic) Peel Town (WA) Short’s National Hotel (Vic) Unitarian Collection (SA) Viewbank (Vic)

Fiji Shipwreck (Vic) Loch Ard Shipwreck (Vic)

What was reflected?

• Agency • Creativity and innovation • Self-discipline and motivation • Play and recreation • Education • Religion and moral instruction • Self expression

• Work (including overlap of work and play

• Supervision, naughtiness and punishment

• What drove/inspired the children • Free will and choices • Emotions and concerns • Thoughts, feelings and sentiments

A variety of moralising china fragments from Casselden Place(Godden Mackay Logan in Crook et al. 2006)

A lathe turned spinning top (Godden Mackay Logan in Crook et al. 2006)

Assorted wooden chess pieces (Godden Mackay Logan in Crook et al. 2006)

The Gilbert family at ‘Pewsey Vale’ (State Library of South Australia, The Gilbert Family Collection, PRG266/29/1).

Conclusion • The research is unique in its theoretical and methodological approach with

the use of the sociological theory of interpretive reproduction in an archaeological study of children in the past.

• The application of interpretive reproduction theory in the analysis of childhood related material culture, has made agency and the creativity of the children themselves more visible.

• Whilst adults controlled the sourcing, purchase and selection of material culture they deemed appropriate for children, according to their ideals, hopes and aspirations, some Victorian era children had a considerable degree of agency, creativity and choice.

• The study adds to the body of research of children and childhood in the past both in Australia and internationally.

• There is potential for future research with a comparative study of childhood

experiences from urban and rural contexts.

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Image credits:

Godden Mackay Logan.

2004 Images in Crook et al. 2006, Exploring the archaeology of the modern city project databases, archaeology and people and place. The Archaeology of the Modern City Series (13) Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.

State Library of South Australia, The Gilbert Family Collection, images PRG266/29/1, PRG266/43.