I'm doing an term paper about the usage of Camels in 19th/early 20th century in Australia.
Initially I had thought about focusing not on the camels themselves but rather on the Afghan cameleers and their influence and reception in Australia. After talking to my lecturer and some other students I however came to the conclusion that this would be a much too large topic for a 12-15 page paper, even if I would focus myself on a period of say 1840 to 1870. Whilst talking and discussing the paper, it was suggested to me to use Daniel Headricks "Tools of Empire", in which he analyses european colonization and imperialism through the lens of technological advancements (at least from what I was told and from what I've read so far - only got the book a few days ago) and their impact on motive and means of imperialism. The idea was to see if Camels (standing in for animals in general) could also be seen as "Tools of Empire" that have allowed european expansion in Australia. Another question to be answered would be if they could be seens as some sort of "meta"-tools, seeing as they were used not only by themselves (e.g. in their use for expeditions) but also to build Headricks "Tools of Empire", e.g. the Ghan Railway or the Rabbit-Proof Fence in Western Australia.
In general this would be an attempt to use Headricks method but adopt it for Enevironmental History, not Technological History.
So far however, most of my literature is about the cameleers and I have struggled to find much about the use of Camels in other imperial endeavours, be they expeditions or technological constructions. Most of what I've read so far was Wikipedia, seeing how our university library has basically nada on this topic, so all I have are some vague anecdotes and mentions of the use of Camels but nothing concrete.
So I'd be glad if anyone could help me in determening if this is a viable approach by telling me if Camels were indeed used in such imperial endeavours and maybe pointing me towards some literature about those. I could of course also add a list of literature that I have already ordered from other libraries if necessary.
PS: I'm not a native english speaker, so I'd like to apologize for any mistakes made. I hope I was able to properly explain my question.
I think you might want to consider putting Headrick in conversation with Crosby and his 'Ecological Imperialism' or maybe Adas's 'Machines as the Measure of Men' and evaluate whether the ways in which Camels in mid-late nineteenth century Australia fit these models.
I think key will be defining how the camel is a technological innovation-- or if it is just knowledge of the camel/the ability to utilize and understand the camel-- that set one group of people apart from another. I assume in this case its Aboriginal groups vs White Settlers (& other subject populations, such as Afghans, who assisted in building the empire).
I think there is a good discussion you could have using Crosby and maybe some other classic environmental historians regarding the way in which controlling the environment, or harnessing the environment (in this case camels), was proof of technological superiority.
Otherwise, sorry I don't have any recommendations regarding Camel historiography! Sounds interesting though!