This project investigates dynamics of ambiguity and distinction in travel narratives on Australia from the early colonial to the national period. Orientalism as a ’travelling concept’ is of key importance as it provides the conceptual framework for the identification and classification of peoples and places on the continent, and the ensuing dynamics that enable or prevent the (dis)ambiguation of identities. The focus throughout the second funding period is on shifting dynamics and interferences between gender, race and religion from 1770 to 1901. 

This project is one of eight research projects within the Research Group „Ambiguität und Unterscheidung: Historisch-kuturelle Dynamiken“ („Ambiguity and Difference: Historical and Cultural Dynamics“), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).