The European Association for Studies on Australia (EASA) has sponsored biennial conferences for more than a decade – in Berne (Switzerland), Sitges-Barcelona (Spain) Copenhagen (Denmark), Klagenfurt (Austria), Toulouse (France), Lecce (Italy) and now Aveiro (Portugal). It is an organisation founded by a group of scholars and critics, many of whom teach and research English-language literature (including Australian writing). A significant number are also historians, political scientists and others who find themselves representing Australia for European audiences. Comparing Australia and European nations is central to EASA’s brief. Comparative scholarship demands a public intellectual engagement, and this conference, like many of the earlier ones, was complemented by practical works in the visual arts, music, creative writing and political diplomacy.

Portugal and Australia have more than just light and sea breezes in common. An Australian eye can hardly miss the ecological connections. Eucalypts line the runway at Lisbon airport and continue northwards toward Aveiro. Spindly Tasmanian Blue Gums (E. globulus) planted too close for comfort have apparently never been thinned. In the poorer soils, especially on landfill in old quarries, the normally tall and straight blue gums appear to ‘maliee’ – or shorten and divide into multiple trunks. The ubiquity of the even-aged gums and their feral habits (reminiscent of blackberry canes in Australia) led me to wonder about the eucalypts’ contribution to the recent fires in the Portuguese interior. Never have fires burned more ferociously in this small country. Admittedly, it was an extraordinarily hot summer all over Europe, but there had never been such a high level of inflammable eucalyptus oil in the Portuguese atmosphere.

Although evidence of cooperative ventures in forestry abound, Portugal and Australia have not always had good diplomatic relations. The 1990s was a low point, with the Australian Embassy in Lisbon closing in 1992, and the Portuguese taking Australia to court over Timor Gap. Suharto’s departure in 1998, however, marked a change in the political climate and paved the way for renewed discussions about an independent future for Timor Leste. A year later, the new nation was declared, and in 2000 Australia reopened a small but energetic embassy in Portugal.

The embassy presence at the EASA conference was strong and included not just the Australian but also the East Timorese ambassador to Portugal. The Australian embassy sponsored our opening reception, and also a major lecture by Portuguese activist António Barbedo de Magalhàes reflecting on the events leading to the new nation of Timor Leste.

The Australian ambassador Greg Poulson, also introduced and enthusiastically endorsed the Dili Allstars, an Australian Timorese band that gave us an energetic evening of musical activism. Eight men, very different in styles, treated us to some seriously multicultural rock music. Their thought-provoking lyrics reflected not just on Timor Leste but also on Australia itself. Advance Australia ... where?’ was one of the highlights of the performance. At the end of the evening, the Allstars expanded to embrace a lively contingent of young Portuguese-East Timorese fans, who finished up on stage with the band for the powerful finale: Liberdade!

The conference attracted about 150 delegates over the live days from September 23 to 27, with some ninety papers presented in themed sessions. Literary, political and historical presentations dominated, but most presenters adopted an interdisciplinary approach and explained their intellectual allegiances to a far greater extent than in a disciplinary conference. The status of speakers as ‘exiles’ or outsiders looking in’ demanded a political and comparative voice that Australians at home could not achieve. For example, Alexandra Sauvage (a young scholar from the Sorbonne) used her study of Aboriginal galleries in recent Australian museums, especially the Melbourne Museum and the National Museum of Australia, to ask why narratives of decolonisation and minority groups are so conspicuously absent from European museums. After the angst and furore of the new museology in Australia, this account of its potential international importance encapsulated some of the advantages of Australian Studies abroad.

Our activist music was complemented by political art. George Gittoes’s powerful experiences in many war zones were collected in ‘A Tale of Two Cities: New York and Baghdad at the Aveiro museum. Amidst the heavily religious Portuguese objets d’art of exquisite gold and silverwork, Gittoes’s rushed, annotated pencil drawings from Somalia, Rwanda, East Timor, as well as New York and Baghdad, seemed oddly appropriate. Gittoes describes himself as a ‘news artist’, and strives to convey the ‘other’ stories that are not represented on CNN or in official war memorials.

The Australia Council supported Gittoes’s visit to Aveiro, but did not provide for creative writers to offer readings. It deemed that the EASA conference was an ‘academic audience, so declined to support writers reading their works even though the literary event at the Hotel Imperial was open to the public. The Council thereby missed an unusual opportunity to sponsor Australian voices for Europeans and teachers of English-language literature, people who support the dissemination of Australian literature in Europe against hostile odds. Fortunately, five writers – Janette Turner Hospital, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Gail Jones, Terri-ann White and Barbara Brooks – sufficiently valued this audience to come to Aveiro at their own expense. They treated us to an evening of powerful words – prose and poetry in a variety of styles.

The organiser, David Callahan, sought to make this a conference that embraced all studies on Australia – ‘from Architecture to Zoology’, as he put it. He achieved this unusual breadth, yet gave us a conference of coherence. The overarching theme – ‘Australia: Who Cares?’ – demanded an intelligent balance between heads and hearts. Blending activism and scholarship was an achievement of many individual papers, but it was also a product of Callahan’s deliberate choices of session themes and plenary subjects.

My plenary paper about caring for the Australian arid zone explored some of the politics of science emerging through the discourse of ‘desert knowledge’. Xavier Pons from Toulouse tackled the intriguing question ‘Who cares about Aborigines?’, with its paradoxical dimensions of increasing non-Aboriginal indifference and interference. Both talks stimulated lively cross-disciplinary discussion with international comparisons.

EASA has decided to expand its brief to include New Zealand as a first step to a broader, more ‘Arca Studies’ approach that will fit current European curricula. For those planning ahead, the next conference will be in Debrecen (Hungary) in 2005, convened by the energetic Gabriella Espak. Like the Portuguese, the Hungarians have many expatriates living in Australia. Hungarian literature students are already enthusiastic about Australian and New Zealand writing, and will no doubt want to hear more. New and unusual conjunctions of countries suggest new themes, as the Portuguese example showed. Australia and its scholars need moments like these to reflect on and redefine a niche in an increasingly globalised world.