Healthy Citizens? Migrant Identity and Constructions of Health in Post-War Australia. (360G-Wellcome-104391_Z_14_Z)

Psychological and epidemiological frames dominate studies of migrant health in Australia, resulting in understandings of migrants as either possessing a physical health advantage or a propensity to mental health disorders. However, this project sees Australia's unique post-war migration revolution, in which 3 million British and European people relocated to the other side of the world, as an opportunity to examine how constructions of health, migrant identity and national identity are intricatel y linked. It will investigate these connections through an analysis of migrants' life writings, held in Australian libraries, museums and community archives, as well as through oral history interviews and material culture. To contextualise these experiences the project will trace medical professionals' perspectives on migrants' psychological and bodily health between 1945 and 1970; evaluate how constructions of Australia as a 'healthful haven' were harnessed by government bodies to attract new a rrivals; and assess how the doctrine of assimilation pervaded the delivery of health care and advice to migrants. In doing so it will demonstrate how an interdisciplinary approach to the history of medicine, encompassing medical literature, oral history and material culture, can better explain popular attitudes to health in the mid-twentieth century.