Ikarians in South Australia, 1900-1945
Emigration, Settlement, Community Building and Integration
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Anthem Press
Publishing:13th Jan '26
£80.00
This title is due to be published on 13th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Examines the little-known Ikarian Greek diaspora, focusing on Ikarians’ emigration, settlement, community building and integration in South Australia between 1900 and 1945.
This book explores the migration of Greeks from the island of Ikaria to South Australia between 1900 and 1945. This little-researched diaspora is examined alongside the key themes of emigration, settlement, community building and integration.
This book looks at a little-researched diaspora, originating on the Greek Aegean Island of Ikaria. Ikaria, being a small, isolated island, close to the Turkish coast, had a long and independent history, with periods of autonomy, including the short-lived Free State of Ikaria in 1912, which was the outcome of the Ikarian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. Ikarians remained quite insular until the nineteenth century, when they began emigrating to Ottoman port-cities and urban centres, as well as nearby Aegean islands. Eventually, they found themselves in growing hubs of migration such as Egypt and the United States. By 1910, the first Ikarians had arrived in Port Pirie, South Australia, beginning a long tradition of Ikarian migration and settlement in the state. This book explores the Ikarians in South Australia between 1900 and 1945 – an under-researched period, and a contrast from most studies on Greeks in Australia, which have focused on the mass migration post-World War II and post-Greek Civil War. The book positions itself around four key themes: emigration, settlement, community building and integration, with ideas such as localism and identity being explored as facets within those themes.
‘Ikarians in South Australia makes an outstanding contribution to the scholarship of emigration to Australia. By focusing on the first half of the twentieth century, this work opens up an unexplored and unexamined period in emigration history in innovative ways. It captures through a sophisticated analysis the centrality of emigration by Greek Aegean Islander communities and sheds new perspectives on the complexity of the Greek diaspora in Australia.’ —Professor Joy Damousi, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne, Australia
‘Yianni Cartledge has done an exceptionally well-researched study of the Ikarians in South Australia, which will become the standard work on the subject. It traces the history of this group from its origins in the Aegean to the migration process through to integration into wider Australian society, providing a fascinating case study of the migrant story.’ —Professor Andrekos Varnava, Professor of British Imperial and Colonial History, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Australia
‘Through painstaking research, Cartledge unearths the story of South Australia’s Ikarians during the early twentieth century. He shows with impressive detail how these islanders, with energy and determination, rebuilt their lives and participated in the making of the state’s Greek community. An important contribution to Greek Australian history!’ —Nicholas Doumanis, Professor and Illinois Chair in Hellenic Studies, the University of Illinois Chicago, USA
‘Ikarians in South Australia is a fascinating exploration of how diaspora identity is formed, examining how Ikarians identified as both a specific community attached to the island of Ikaria and part of the broader Greek community in Australia. Cartledge expertly shows how Ikarians built their communities and thrived amid the assimilationist environment of white Australia in the first half of the twentieth century.’ —Dr Evan Smith, Visiting Fellow, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Australia
ISBN: 9781839995675
Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 15mm
Weight: unknown
196 pages