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Doctor

Kate Bagnall

(She/her/hers)

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Humanities

History and Classics

Orcid identifier0000-0003-1426-7294
  • Lecturer/Senior Lecturer Humanities
    History and Classics
  • +61 3 6226 2248 (Work)
  • School of Humanities, History and Classics, 356 Humanities Building, Sandy Bay Campus, TAS

BIO

Kate Bagnall is a social historian whose research focuses on the intersections of migration, family and the law in the British settler colonial world. She is best known as a scholar of Chinese Australasian history, specialising in histories of women, children and families, and the history of the White Australia Policy and colonial anti-Chinese laws and policies.

Kate's recent book, 'Locating Chinese Women: Historical Mobility between China and Australia' (HKU Press, 2021), co-edited with Julia Martínez, is the first scholarly collection on Chinese-Australian women’s history. Her more recent research on Chinese Australian women builds on her earlier work on interracial relationships and Chinese-European families in colonial and early post-Federation Australia.

Kate began her career in public history and archives, completing her PhD in History at the University of Sydney while working at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. At the National Archives, Kate worked on ground-breaking digital history projects such as 'Documenting a Democracy' and 'Uncommon Lives'. She continues her interest in digital history with projects such as the 'Real Face of White Australia' with Tim Sherratt.

Kate has worked extensively with family and community historians and, from 2017 to 2019, she ran the Chinese Australian Hometown Heritage Tour with Sophie Couchman. Visiting Hong Kong and Guangdong, the tour enabled descendants of early Cantonese migrants to Australia to experience the history, culture and landscapes of their ancestral homes. The tour drew on Kate’s fieldwork in towns and villages of the Pearl River Delta, an area she first visited in the mid-1990s.

Before joining the University of Tasmania in 2019, Kate was an ARC DECRA Research Fellow at the University of Wollongong (2016–2019), researching the history of Chinese naturalisation in colonial Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Senior Lecturer
    University of Tasmania, School of Humanities, Hobart, Australia2019 - present
  • DECRA Research Fellow
    University of Wollongong, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, Australia2016 - 2019

NON-ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Freelance Historian and Editor
    Self-employed, Canberra, Australia2014 - 2015
  • Senior Editor
    Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Canberra, Australia2011 - 2014
  • Editor
    Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, Australia2009 - 2011
  • Early Career Summer Fellow
    National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia2009 - 2009
  • Website Content Developer
    National Archives of Australia, Canberra, Australia2003 - 2009
  • Graduate (Australian Public Service)
    National Archives of Australia, Canberra, Australia2002 - 2002
  • ESL Teacher
    Zhuhai Australian English Language Centre, Zhuhai, China1997 - 1997

DEGREES

  • PhD (History)
    University of Sydney, Australia1998 - 2006
  • BA Hons (History)
    University of Sydney, Australia1993 - 1996

LANGUAGES

  • English
    Can read, write, speak, understand and peer review
  • French
    Can read, speak and understand
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
    Can read, speak and understand
  • Chinese (Cantonese)
    Can speak and understand

SCHOOL AND PORTFOLIO

  • School of Humanities

FIELD OF RESEARCH