Celmara Pocock

Sense Matters: aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef

This paper investigates the use of aesthetic value as a criterion by which the significance of heritage places is assessed. It is argued that current heritage management practice has not engaged with the extensive discourse relating to aesthetics, and therefore confines aesthetics to a particular class and culture, and an inert view of only one of our sensory experiences. Historical records relating to the Great Barrier Reef are used to show how aesthetic appreciation of the area has changed over time.The data suggest that the failure to recognise an aesthetic that is primarily non-visual can lead to changes in landscape and loss of associated value. It also suggests that aesthetic values change rapidly and are influenced by social and technological factors.

Tourism as theatre: performing and consuming indigeneity in an Australian wildlife sanctuary

This article explores the social and cultural production of indigeneity in a wildlife sanctuary on the Australian Gold Coast. We note that the human and animal characters that form the displays of the sanctuary work towards the assemblage of a largely consistent underlying theme. The latter reproduces commensurability between two main figures associated with Australian settler history, namely the countrys pre-colonial indigenous species of animals and plants and the human Aboriginal population. We argue that the theatre produced in the parks highly sanitized visitor contact zone has wider social and political ramifications for Australian society and modern society in general. By ceremonially re-enacting the historical myth of separation between modern civilization and primordial indigeneity, through a tourist enterprise, the sanctuary produces ambivalent meanings about the relation between ‘nativeness’ in nature and society. Our analysis addresses the simultaneous emancipation of contemporary human indigeneity as a revitalized cultural value together with the social distancing of Aboriginal people as one-dimensional caricatures of primordial nature.

Sensing place, consuming space: changing visitor experiences of the Great Barrier Reef

Almost 2 million visitors are drawn to the Great Barrier Reef each year by iconic images of pristine island beaches shaded by coconut palms, dazzling marine life and spectacular aerial vistas of deep blue seas and coral cays. The Reef is set apart from other tropical island destinations by the sheer scale of the region which stretches >2000 km along the northeast coast of Australia. This unique quality is recognized, encapsulated and confirmed by the listing of >348,000 km2 as World Heritage. The Reef is thus inscribed as a single place or destination, and regarded as such by many visitors.

Turtle Riding on the Great Barrier Reef

Turtle riding was once a popular activity among holidaymakers at the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia. In the first half of the twentieth century. it was a significant way for tourists to engage with living marine life. The turtle breeding season offered tourists an opportunity to see female turtles emerge from the sea and come ashore to nest and lay their eggs. They could also witness emerging hatchlings scuttle from shore to sea. This sea-land-sea transformation facilitated unique forms of human-nonhuman animal interaction and was integral to visitor affection for, and affinity with, sea turtles.

Waiting, power and time in ethnographic and community-based research

Waiting is one of the most common phenomena in ethnographic and other community-based research. Nevertheless, it remains under-explored in academic writing about the theoretical and methodological aspects of fieldwork. While waiting time often allows new data or information to emerge, we argue that such times have a significance independent of knowledge outcomes. We review various conceptions of waiting: as a time for self-awareness; the use of enforced waiting to exert power over the disadvantaged; and its obverse, the choice by the more powerful to ‘wait upon’ another’s needs and priorities. We use stories from our own fieldwork experience to suggest that in the particular context of ethnographic or community-based research, the choice to ‘wait upon’ others is a form of researcher reflexivity that can partially redress historical or current power imbalances.

A disconnected journey

Abstract Driving is a dynamic human experience. The act of operating a vehicle, our movement across space and time, and the landscapes we pass afford rich sensory experiences. However, an increasingly controlled environment in the car and on roads is diminishing many sensuous encounters of orientation, sound, smell, touch, and even sight. The growing emphasis on transport infrastructure that prioritises speed, safety, comfort and convenience – dual carriageways, bypasses, ring roads, tunnels and sound barriers – is serving to disconnect us from our journeys as emplaced experiences. These changes are leading to starkly homogeneous journeys devoid of character that result in a loss of experience and place. In this paper we examine the sensory engagement and experiences of car journeys across landscapes, considering both urban and rural environments. Using case studies from different regions of Australia, we examine the bodily experiences of modern motoring. We suggest that there is no longer an immediate engagement with the landscape being traversed. With particular consideration of understanding places in an embodied way, we consider how modernised highways are disconnecting us from developing and maintaining meaning in our understanding of roads as a significant form of heritage, and as an important mechanism through which people experience heritage.

Aborigines, Islanders and Hula Girls in Great Barrier Reef Tourism

ABSTRACT The Great Barrier Reef is one of the worlds premier tourist destinations. It is promoted and marketed to tourists as part of an idealised Pacific island paradise. While the gardens and decor of island resorts mimic those of resorts elsewhere in the Pacific, the way in which Indigenous people are represented is markedly different. This paper presents an analysis of historic tourist ephemera to suggest that Australian Aboriginal people are largely invisible at the Great Barrier Reef, despite their role in establishing the tourism industry. It suggests that ambiguities of Aboriginal presence, in labour and performance, are a product of tourism ideals and colonial race relations.

Tourists riding turtles

Both scientists and holidaymakers once enjoyed riding on the backs of turtles while at the Great Barrier Reef. In spite of the widespread popularity of turtle riding, the practice disappeared into obscurity in the second part of the twentieth century. This paper unveils the historical, social and geographical factors that gave rise to a practice that was peculiar to the holidaymakers of this time and place.