Abstract

History curriculum in Australia has moved beyond its traditional British imperial roots and currently takes a world history approach. Postmodern and postcolonial approaches have challenged the dominant Western metanarrative projected on and by curriculum and the inclusion of Asia-related histories has contributed to the diversification of the narratives represented. Nonetheless, as the analysis presented in this paper demonstrates, the traditional points of reference for framing Asia – imperialism, colonialism, cold war structures, and the nation-state – continue to play a significant role in the way Asia is positioned. This paper reports on a study that investigated the representation of Asia in Victorian senior secondary history curriculum documents of the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) over the last three decades. Chen’s Asia as method and deimperialisation are employed to critically examine how Asia is imagined by curriculum. The paper examines the potential of deimperialisation as an intervention for disrupting dominant curricular constructions of Asia. It argues that in order to reconceptualise Asia as relational, dynamic, and an active participant in historical processes, history curriculum needs to provide opportunity for reflection on the ongoing effects of imperialism on subjectivity formation and engage with contemporary historiographical developments.

摘要

澳大利亚的历史课程已超越了传统的英国帝国主义根源，目前采用世界历史方法。后现代和后殖民的方法挑战了课程上和课程上所预测的西方主流叙事，而与亚洲相关的历史的纳入也促进了所代表叙事的多样化。但是，正如本文所进行的分析所表明的那样，构筑亚洲的传统参照点-帝国主义，殖民主义，冷战结构和民族国家-继续在亚洲的定位方式中发挥重要作用。本文报道了一项研究，该研究调查了过去三十年来维多利亚在维多利亚教育证书（VCE）的维多利亚高中历史课程文件中对亚洲的代表情况。陈的亚洲作为方法和反帝国主义被用来批判性地研究课程如何想象亚洲。本文考察了非帝国化作为干预亚洲主导课程结构的一种潜力。它认为，为了重新将亚洲概念化为关系，动态和历史过程的积极参与者，历史课程需要提供机会来反思帝国主义对主体形成的持续影响，并参与当代史学的发展。