Being International at Home: Australian Public Opinion in the League Era

Abstract

During the interwar years, Australian internationalists sought to promote League internationalism to Australians at home. In addition to attending international conferences, participating in the League of Nations, or joining non-government organisations with international affiliations, within Australia they gave lectures, were interviewed by the press, and contributed to information events and publications. Each activity was designed to encourage a more internationally or Pacific-minded Australia in the world. When considered together, the range of publics they created points to an emerging culture of internationalism in Australia more diffuse and disparate than previously recognised. In particular, when women and men internationalists are considered in the one frame, a more active and engaged internationalist Australia emerges—one in which white, middle-class academics, activists and professionals sought to encourage a new way of being a ‘’White Australian” that was sufficiently self-reflexive to encourage cross-cultural exchange in the region while retaining authority in (settler) colonial affairs.