Experimental History. Communications & Media Essay

SPECULATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Speculative Bibliography
Research Statement
Research into the events and lives of individuals can play an important role in predicting the history and values of the society at any given lace. A speculative biography involves the study of the life of individuals in a given period and utilizing the information presented to imagine the world at the time of the growth of the subject. The actions that a protagonist took at a particular instance represents the circumstances that led to the actions taken. Historians have utilized this method in their discovery of the origin of the earth and several other species that were never known. The historians and anthropologists utilize a series of research papers coupled with imaginations to sustain their arguments. In our speculative study of the biography of Mary Summerland and Caroline Quinn, we utilize both the available facts and our imagination to create an idea of what the society looked like. A comparison of the two cases helps us validate our our imaginations. The way that Caroline Quinn is treated in the contemporary world indicates the similar way that women were treated in the modern society. First of all, women were not allowed to engage in sex before marriage as evident by the way the society respondent to Mary Summerland’s case. The same values are still present in the contemporary society as the women are still not expected to engage in premarital sex. In both cases, the role of men is not discussed, which helps us understand the preferential treatment of the men and the women. The comparison shows the largely insignificant changes that the society has undergone in terms of its values irrespective of the gap between the two periods. It indicates that societal transformations remain a challenging procedure, where the norms are only transformed from one state to another without key changes. Therefore, the speculative bibliography plays an important role not only towards understanding the history of an individual, but also that of the society.
Introduction
The article entitled “Wet Their Bones with Sweat and Blood, Knit Their Bones with Me: Reflections on Arts-Based Research into Colonial Western Australia Child Murder (1829-1901)” by Gardiner Amanda highlights the experiences of Mary Summerland, a 20-year-old woman accused in 1832 of murdering her newborn child at the port town of Fremantle, Western Australia. The article, in a thesis entitled Unearthing Mary Summerland, tells Mary Summerland’s story in three interwoven voices that interact to create a better interpretation of her life’s experiences. Gardiner tries to uncover the live of a women who did not get a chance to experience her full motherhood. He tries to present the experience of the mother who does the taboo crime of killing her child. By delving into the lives of such women, the author allows the reader in contemporary times to perceive the world in the colonial times and try to imagine that incidents that led to the murder. The author allows the reader to speculate about the life of Mary Summerland and that of several other women in terms of the challenges they faced and how these challenges could have led to the murder. Because of the little experience available to guide the narration of the crimes, the author employs speculative biography to retell the story and create a glimpse into the accompanying events.
Mary Summerland was an unmarried domestic servant who lived and worked in Fremantle. In September 1832, the body of a baby was found on a beach close to where she lived. The event occurred three years after Western Australia had begun being colonized by the British (Pettit, 2015). The discovery of the body of a child in such a small center led to an inquest into his death, which led to the investigation of Mary over the suspicious death. According to the records presented before the courts, Mary might have given birth alone approximately a week before the body of the child was found. However, no one in the apartment where she lived, including her family and employer, appeared to have known that Mary was pregnant. She also appeared not to have been aware of her pregnancy and when she was accused of giving birth to the baby, she strongly denied having been pregnant and giving birth to any child. It remains unclear how the child was disposed of in the ocean and it is also unknown whether Mary was eventually charged with child murder or concealment. However, in either of the scenario, the case was dismissed as “no true bill” upon facing the trial.
Mary’s story is comparable to that of Caroline Quinn, whose case also has very scant details to the extent that even the sex of the Quinn’s purported child was not revealed in any of the coverage that the matter received. A close examination of the scant details captured in her charge of “concealment of birth” shows glaring similarities between the two cases. Caroline was travelling with friends in the Kimberly region of Western Australia in May 2014 and like in Mary’s case, she claimed that she had ever been pregnant and that she had never given birth to any child. Like in the case of Mary, Caroline also appeared to have given birth alone, without the knowledge of her close family members or those of her close friends (Gardiner 2014). Like in the case of Mary, the circumstances of the death of the child remai...