AustLit

'Opening "The Australian Legend", Russel Ward reported that "[a]ccording to the myth the 'typical Australian' is a practical man a great improviser, ever willing 'to have a go' at anything. He tends to be a rolling stone, highly suspect if he should chance to gather much moss". Although Ward drew this version of the "nomad tribe" of improvisers from pastoral workers, he could have been writing about building and construction labourers who, moreover, shared the characteristics of drinking and gambling, mateship, independence and Irishness.

'This article unpicks four strands of improvising nomads in relation to building and construction labourers. First, their nomadism will be documented, showing how their switching between industries required relocation. Second, the labourers' movements gyrated around localities to which most attached themselves, for if many were nomadic, few were rootless. As ever, memories threaded together the flows across space and time. Third, the pursuit of jobs spurred labourers 'to have a go', an improvising which required mobility up and down the trades, giving a twist to equality and independence. Finally, the analysis moves past the folklorist and literary approaches by returning the nomadic improvisers to their place within the dynamics of wage-labour versus capital.'

Source: Article abstract.