Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity vi Historicising Whiteness: Towards a New Research Agenda Jane Carey University of Melbourne Leigh Boucher Monash University Katherine Ellinghaus Monash University This paper suggests that the field of whiteness studies, whilst offering considerable analytic and political potential, needs to pay closer attention to historical specificity, power-relations and transnational processes of material and discursive exchange if it is to move forward. Through a wide-ranging historiographical survey, this introduction ‘takes stock’ of the field and offers a number of strategies through the analytic and political pitfalls that have characterised studies of whiteness in the past fifteen years. Perhaps most significantly, this paper draws on a burgeoning literature from Australia to address the largely American criticisms of whiteness studies. Keywords: Whiteness Studies, Historiography; Whiteness, Historiography; Australia, Historiography; U.S., Colonialism The papers presented in this collection emerged from a conference on ‘Historicising Whiteness’ held at the University of Melbourne in November 2006. 1 This gathering was inspired by our realisation that, while studies of whiteness have proliferated across numerous disciplines, there had not to date been a major scholarly meeting specifically devoted to a broad examination of the intersections between whiteness and history. Bringing an unashamedly historical focus to whiteness studies has much to add to a field which has been marked by its interdisciplinarity and a focus on contemporary contexts. The conference drew together a broad range of scholars interested in teasing out the promise, or otherwise, of this field for historians. While not all of the participants had previously directly engaged with whiteness studies in their work, the conference signified a shared interest in exploring the potential of this field for historians broadly engaged with issues of ‘race’. Traversing a wide variety of theoretical concepts, countries, periods and methodologies, it explicitly set out to move beyond the North American focus which has been a feature of scholarship in this area. Thus this collection brings together historians of Australia, New Zealand, North America, South Africa, Europe and Asia to focus on the development of the concept of whiteness through time, tracing the emergence and disappearance of this figuration of identity and power through both the modern and non-modern periods, and its growth into the powerful, international concept that now has currency across the world. Indeed, these essays are the first to collectively address the global nature of the concept of whiteness. They are based on the conviction that historicising whiteness, in its global manifestations, is an essential project, but we need to seriously interrogate how this endeavour should proceed. The essays presented here by no means represent a singular view on the utility or otherwise of ‘whiteness’ as a category of historical analysis. They represent the starting