Key personnel: Prof Martin Gibbs, Dr Richard Tuffin, Caitlin D’Gluyas
This ongoing project takes a multi-scalar approach to examine the distribution of convicts throughout the Australian colonies. Currently (2020-21), the project is carrying out a desktop study to identify government-run convict camps, stations and establishments. The aim of the study is to provide an atlas of convict Australia through a web-based portal, as well as provide coherent spatial and non-spatial datasets that can be used by other researchers.
Hello, I am interested in your topic and wonder how far you have progressed. I am a geographer and am interested both from the convict point of view and the analysis of spatial distribution. Are you primarily historians or geographers?
Regards
Clare
Hi Clare. Thanks for the comment. We’re even better – we’re historical archaeologists…though we use a bit of historical geography in our work. We’ve put out a few papers on what we’ve been doing (check out the UNE RUNE repository) as well as have an ever-growing stable of webmaps (look for ‘Convict Landscapes’ online). It’s all very visual at the moment, with not a particularly large analytical component.