Gordon R Waitt

Social impacts of the Sydney Olympics

Abstract This paper, drawing on social exchange theory, examines the changes in enthusiasm between 1998 and 2000 towards Sydney’s Olympics among a socially diverse sample of host city residents. In particular, it studies variables that differentiate respondents’ altering attitude. Results suggest that for the majority the reaction to Sydney’s Olympics intensified from 1998, reaching euphoria in September 2000. Elation was particularly evident among those living in the city’s western suburbs, those with dependent children, those from non-English backgrounds, or who perceived the event’s wider economic benefits as outweighing personal costs. Implications arising from this project are considered for future researchers and organizers of hallmark events.

The Olympic spirit and civic boosterism: The Sydney 2000 Olympics

This paper draws together two dominant themes in urban geography, cities as spectacle and social polarization. Urban spectacle is provided by Sydneys preparations to host the 2000 Olympic Games. Social polarization within Sydney provides a plurality of social contexts within which residents evaluated this preparation stage. These two themes are drawn together by examining the anticipatory emotional affects arising from Sydney becoming designated the host city. Operating at the level of feelings and effect, this paper explores the extent to which Sydneysiders, increasingly polarized by socio-economic status, were united by the prospect of hosting the 2000 Olympics. The results are interpreted within the theoretical arguments of the civic boosterism school, i.e. hallmark events are an instrument of hegemonic power, conceived to generate feelings of enthusiasm for community and national pride in an era noted for its culture of nihilism. Whilst the results of this paper confirm civic boosterism arguments that hallmark events can operate as a form of socialization to generate feelings of pride, community and nationalism, local reaction to hosting The Games was not unanimous. Instead, a far more complex local reaction to hosting the Sydney Olympics was identified, the interpretation of which, at this point, remains unclear.

‘Killing waves’: surfing, space and gender

This article is concerned with the changing relationships between space, gender and surfing bodies. To examine how gender and surf space are mutually constituted, this paper draws on empirical materials from qualitative research carried out with young people who surf the breaks of the Illawarra, New South Wales, Australia. The article is framed within theoretical works relating to Elspeth Probyns spatial imperative of subjectivities and the performance of corporeal femininities and masculinities. The results suggest while diversities, complexities and contradictions are present within the gendered attributes of surfing spaces, the power of dualistic ideas continue to play an important role in framing the relationships between space, gender and surfing bodies.

A Queer Country? A case study of the politics of gay/lesbian belonging in an Australian country town

Abstract The present paper examines the complex politics of gay/lesbian belonging through a case study of Daylesford, Victoria, an Australian country town. It contributes to two research bodies: gay/lesbian rural geographies and the politics of belonging. Daylesford hosts ChillOut, Australias largest rural gay/lesbian festival, which provides a telling context for investigating gay/lesbian belonging in rural Australia. We use qualitative data from the 2006 ChillOut Festival, including interviews with local residents, newspaper commentaries, and visitors’ surveys, to explore how Daylesford has been constructed, imagined, and experienced as a ‘unique’ site of gay/lesbian belonging in rural Australia. We find that ChillOut crucially contributes to its wider reputation as a gay-friendly country town, but also, we argue, to the contested nature of gay/lesbian belonging. This was most powerfully demonstrated by the local councils refusal to fly the gay-identified rainbow flag on the Town Hall during the 2006 Festival and its subsequent banning of the display of all festival flags from that key public building. Because ChillOut was the catalyst for this protocol, the resolution was viewed as homophobic. Indeed, the homophobic and heterosexist rhetoric that ensued in the Letters to the Editor section of the local newspaper revealed some residents’ underlying antagonism towards ChillOut and the local gay/lesbian community. Moreover, appealing to a shared ‘Australian identity’ and associated normative ‘family values’, these letter writers deployed a multi-scalar politics of belonging, where a sense of gay/lesbian belonging to Daylesford at the local scale was contested by the assertion of a ‘more meaningful’ national scale of allegiance fashioned by heteronormativity.

Community and nostalgia in urban revitalisation: a critique of urban village and creative class strategies as remedies for social 'problems'

Abstract We examine how normative constructions of ‘the creative city’ have entered into Australian planning discourses. Although welcoming a place-based approach, critical consideration is given to how the misappropriation of ‘place making’ in creative city revitalisation plans may enhance rather than address processes of social marginalisation. A Foucauldian framework is employed, exploring the notion of the social production of power through discourse. We draw on a case study of Wentworth Street, a key urban space in Port Kembla, the industrialised district of Wollongong, New South Wales. The study focuses on various ideas of a common place-making theme of the ‘urban village’ evoked by planners, the media and a targeted local resident group (here elderly Macedonians) for a street positioned in ‘crisis’ because of declining infrastructure, services and its association with crime, drugs and prostitution. The case study demonstrates that marginalisation and exclusions are products of creative city strategies and wider, more oppressive urban discourses. But we also demonstrate that despite becoming normative in the texts of planning policies, discourses of place and identity always remain multiple, negotiated, and contradictory.

'The guys in there just expect to be laid': Embodied and gendered socio-spatial practices of a 'night out' in Wollongong, Australia

This article investigates intersections of sexuality, sex, femininities, and alcohol. The concept of spatially-situated subjectivity is deployed to examine how women negotiate their femininities and sexualities in and through spaces of a ‘night out’. A mixed methods approach was deployed with young, single, white women in Wollongong, Australia. Drawing on narrative analysis, our research suggests the paradoxical qualities of pub spaces. We argue that where and why women drink is an outcome of negotiations, transgressions and accommodations as they reconcile a sense of self with(in) the gendered and heterosexed socio-spatial practice of particular pubs. In practical terms, corporeal femininities provide effective advice for ameliorating risks of regular intoxication.

Cultural Festivals and Economic Development in Nonmetropolitan Australia

Examining a database of 2,856 festivals in Australia and survey results from 480 festival organizers, we consider how nonmetropolitan cultural festivals provide constraints as well as opportunities for economic planners. Cultural festivals are ubiquitous, impressively diverse, and strongly connected to local communities through employment, volunteerism, and participation. Despite cultural festivals being mostly small-scale, economically modest affairs, geared around community goals, the regional proliferation of cultural festivals produces enormous direct and indirect economic benefits. Amidst debates over cultural and political issues (such as identity, exclusion, and elitism), links between cultural festivals and economic development planning are explored.

‘Talking Shit over a Brew after a Good Session with your Mates’: surfing, space and masculinity

Abstract In this paper we critically engage with the masculinities of a group of young men who surf shortboards by investigating their love of surfing at breaks they have made their own. The aim of our paper is to reveal the fluid qualities of surfing masculinities by examining how surfing subjectivities are bound up with the spatial, discursive and the embodied. Becoming a ‘local’, and a man, at surf-breaks requires this group sharing the pleasures and pain of producing themselves as surfers. We demonstrate how emotions of pride and shame within the bonds of mateship play a crucial role in maintaining the culturally valued form of masculinity. We conclude how thinking spatially is helpful in underscoring the variability found in surfing masculinities at different breaks and conditions.

Household Sustainability: Challenges and Dilemmas in Everyday Life

Contents: Introduction 1. Having a Baby 2. Spaghetti Bolognese 3. Clothes 4. Water 5. Warmth 6. Toilets 7. Laundry 8. Furniture 9. Plastic Bags 10. Driving Cars 11. Flying 12. The Refrigerator 13. Screens 14. Mobile Phones 15. Solar Hot Water 16. The Garden 17. Christmas 18. Retirement 19. Death 20. Conclusion References Index

Leaving nothing but ripples on the water: performing ecotourism natures

This paper investigates nature–society relationships through the socio-spatial practices of ecotourism. Drawing on Whatmores ideas of ‘hybrid geographies’, we examine the embodied experiences of kayakers participating in ecotours in Krabi Province, Thailand. Calling upon relational materiality, particular attention is given to the corporeal mobilities and experiences to explore performing ecotourism natures of the kayaker. Our case study provides a lens through which to explore methods for engaging with the sensuous worlds. Our results suggest that in the performances of enacting ecotourism geographies, kayakers are unable to move beyond the bounds of the natural premised on its separation from the human realm. We conclude by critically reflecting on our methodology.