Sport and the Chinese: Case Studies from Australian Rules Football in Victoria, 1882-1938

Sport history is still a relatively young discipline. In the Australian context, as a number of historiographical overviews have confirmed, the field received impetus from the first 'Sporting Traditions' conference in 1977, the subsequent formation of the Australian Society for Sports History (ASSH) in July 1983, and the publication of its bi-annual journal in the following year. However, as Daryl Adair notes, while there has been some welcome progress in terms of the research output achieved by scholars of Australian sport over the last three decades, there are still significant gaps in knowledge of particular areas. Moreover, as he laments, a key problem is not just the 'lack of theoretical and methodological vision', but the failure of researchers to 'systematically revisit historical archives'. Despite this somewhat gloomy view, it should be acknowledged that it is possible for research practices to be revitalised quite rapidly. This is evident in the case of Chinese involvement in Australian sport, where new research, much of it based on genealogical methods and under-researched museum archives, has challenged old assumptions about the ethnic and racial dimensions of competitive physical activities.