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Connor, Kimberley
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Biography
I am a historical archaeologist and food historian interested in the social roles of food among immigrants in the 19th century. I combine archival and archaeological evidence to study the different types of foods that people in the past ate, the ways that they cooked and dined, and how this created and reflected social practices.
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Publication Open Access 'To Make the Emigrant a Better Colonist': Transforming Women in the Female Immigration Depot, Hyde Park Barracks(Taylor & Francis, 2021) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesThe immigrant’s journey is a paradigmatic example of the ‘betwixt and between’, both physically and socially ambiguous, suspended momentarily outside of normal society. For archaeologists studying nineteenth-century immigration around the British Empire, ‘institutions of immigration’ (emigrant and immigrant depots, quarantine stations, processing centres, etc.) provide access to this transitional state. Using the example of the Hyde Park Barracks Female Immigration Depot (1848–1887) in Sydney, Australia, the author demonstrates how these the institutional sites encountered throughout the immigrant’s journey were integral to the process of turning immigrants into settlers through the creation of new forms of daily practice.Publication Open Access "Suitable food for old and worn out persons...": Archaeological evidence of institutional foodways in Australia(2025) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesThe archaeology of institutions holds an outsized place in Australian historical archaeology. This is in part due to their continued physical presence in the cultural landscape, but also stems from a popular narrative which cites the origins of the Australian identity in convictism, in particular, and institutionalisation, more broadly (Casella and Fredericksen 2004). While only a small proportion of Australian migrants in the early colonial period experienced confinement in institutions, focusing on food highlights the impact that these places had on culture beyond their walls. For example, we see how forms of institutionalisation spread beyond the confines of prisons and barracks into whaling camps, ration depots and the domestic sphere. Surprisingly limited attention has been given to the specific roles of food both within Australian residential institutions and in Australian society more broadly by archaeologists to date. This is a significant oversight given the ways in which food has been used to control and manage populations historically, but also how significant it has been in the formation of identities and as a means of resistance. This chapter provides an overview of the emergent archaeology of institutional food in Australia, showing how institutional forms of consumption have shaped Australian foodways and colonial identities more widely. At the same time, this survey points to the need for improved methodologies and increasingly sophisticated analytical frameworks that are specifically adapted for historical archaeology in Australia.Publication Open Access History under the floorboards: decoding the diets of institutionalised women in 19th century Sydney(The Conversation, 2025-01-22) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesThis research sheds new light on the diets of settlers in 19th century Sydney and the importance of combining documentary research with archaeology to understand the history of institutions where official records alone can’t tell the whole story. Keywords: History; Australian history; Australian culinary histories; Sydney history; New research, Australia New ZealandPublication Open Access Eating in colonial institutions: desiccated plant remains from nineteenth-century Sydney(Cambridge University Press, 2025-01-21) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesInstitutional food is renowned for being monotonous and unappetising, yet the accuracy of these prescribed diets is difficult to verify archaeologically. Desiccated plant remains from beneath the floorboards at Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney offer a rare insight into the culture of food at the Female Immigration Depot (1848–1887) and the Destitute Asylum (1862–1886). Here, the author reveals the wide range of unofficial plant foods accessed by inhabitants at these two institutions—representing resources sourced from across the British Empire—and the sometimes-illicit nature of their consumption, highlighting the importance of incorporating archaeological evidence into discussions of institutional life. Keywords: Australasia, nineteenth century AD, historical archaeology, archaeobotany, institutions, foodPublication Open Access Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt By Jessica Barnes, Durham: Duke University Press. 2022. 296 pp.(American Anthropological Association, 2024) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesA protestor waving a loaf of bread. A man in a bakery purchasing subsidized loaves for his family. A woman shaping dough in front of an oven. Connecting these disparate domains is bread, which nearly all Egyptians eat at nearly every meal. Starting with these three vignettes, in Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt Jessica Barnes examines the centrality of bread in Egyptian life by tracing the path from field to bureaucrat's desk to table. In bringing together national security with the sense of satisfaction a housewife derives from sacks of grain stored in her living room, Barnes seeks to explain “how staple security infuses everyday life.”Publication Open Access Seeking Margaret Baker: Identifying the Author of Three Manuscript Receipt Books(ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 2022) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesThis paper uses recipe contributors named in three early modern manuscript receipt books (Sloane MS 2485, Sloane MS 2486 and Folger V.a 619) to identify the author as Margaret Baker, daughter of Richard Baker the Chronicler (c.1568-1645) and Margaret Mainwaring (died c.1652). A familial connection is also made to Wellcome MS 212. The Margaret Baker example is used to argue for the necessity of identifying a broader range of receipt, or recipe, book writers in order to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of recipe book production, and their social context. In the case of Margaret Baker, additional information about her family background, marital status and age at the time of writing the books both shed light on the recipes included in the book, and raise new questions about her culinary and medical practices. Keywords: recipes, receipt book, early modern, genealogyPublication Open Access Trove. National Library of Australia(Wiley, 2021-07) Connor, Kimberley; Arts & SciencesHosted by the National Library of Australia, Trove is a search engine and metadata aggregator for more than 6 billion items in collections held by libraries, museums and archives around Australia. Aimed at both the public and professional historians, Trove is freely available and features an easy-to-use interface with highly customisable search and filter options. For historians the most valuable categories are ‘Newspapers and Gazettes’ and ‘Magazines and Newsletters’, which contain full-text, searchable copies of publications from Australia and the Pacific from 1803 onwards. While of primary interest to scholars of Australasia and the Pacific, the extensive range of materials included in Trove make it a useful source for modern historians more generally.