{"id":6362,"date":"2015-09-09T06:29:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T20:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-711166-2356953.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=6362"},"modified":"2015-11-25T07:54:51","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T20:54:51","slug":"marginality-in-the-hoddle-grid-and-the-colour-of-public-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peril.com.au\/back-editions\/marginality-in-the-hoddle-grid-and-the-colour-of-public-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Marginality\u2019 in the Hoddle Grid and the Colour of Public Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"
Melbourne is replete with posters, monuments and plaques that ask pedestrians to remember the Hoddle grid\u2019s colonial order as a majority\/minority, white\/Chinese binary that hinged along Little Bourke Street. But these calls\u00a0to memory conceal more than they divulge. Not only do they erase the sovereignty of the traditional Indigenous owners, but also the diverse populations of colour who have lived in Melbourne from its inception as a city, built over the meeting grounds of the five Kulin nations. Where\u00a0non-white urban-dwellers have been memorialised, they are usually consigned to marginal and\/or racially marked streets, such as Little Bourke Street’s Chinatown. How, I ask here, might we memorialise the dynamic presence of \u2018coloured colonials\u2019 in Melbourne\u2019s streets and footpaths? <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Anyone who strolls east to west across Melbourne\u2019s rectilinear street grid will regularly pass an evocation of Melbourne\u2019s pre-national past.<\/p>\n