Journal articles on the topic 'Evidence, Documentary Australia'

A bark shield now in the British Museum can be identified from documentary and pictorial evidence as one collected by Captain Cook during his first voyage to Australia in 1770. Such shields often had special value to their Australian Aboriginal owners and hence might have been exchanged over considerable distances. This particular shield is known to have been collected in Kamay Botany Bay but analysis of the bark of which it is made revealed it to be of red mangrove, a tropical species found today more than 500km distant on the New South Wales north coast. It hence bears valuable testimony to the long-distance exchange networks operating in eastern Australia in the period before the disruption caused by European colonisation.

A risen phoenix examines the issues surrounding the reinstatement of an important post-war house in suburban Perth, Western Australia that was destroyed by fire and examines the preservation of the original architect’s design intent through use and interpretation of the documentary evidence, the physical evidence and an understanding of the personality and design ethos of the original architect by the architect for the reinstatement work.

In the aftermath of World War II, Australia undertook domestic trials of suspected Japanese war criminals between 1945 and 1951. This article focuses on Australia’s war crimes trial of Lieutenant-General Nishimura as held at the Los Negros court in mid-June 1950, and the subsequent petitioning period and confirmation process. The Australian war crimes courts were military courts vested with broad discretionary powers that facilitated the expeditious trials of accused. The procedure of war crimes courts differed from that of field general courts-martial in two main areas: admissible evidence and sentencing range — and this article highlights concomitant problems arising during the trial and subsequent case on review. This article examines the prosecution of the case entirely on documentary evidence; the impact of low admissibility thresholds for evidence; issues regarding the voluntariness and reliability of witness evidence; and the option of capital punishment in the Nishimura trial.

This paper considers how organizational practices facilitate and inhibit the social inclusion of Muslim women in a community sport setting. A case study of social inclusion practices in an Australian community sport organization (CSO) was built through interviews, focus groups, secondary data, and documentary evidence. Drawing on the work of Bailey (2005, 2008) the analysis employed a social inclusion framework comprised of spatial, functional, relational, and power dimensions. Findings indicated that there are a range of practices which facilitate social inclusion. Paradoxically, some of the practices that contributed to social inclusion at the club for Muslim women resulted in social exclusion for non-Muslim women. Examining each practice from multiple perspectives provided by the social inclusion framework allowed a thorough analysis to be made of the significance of each practice to the social inclusion of Muslim women at the club. Implications for social inclusion research and sport management practice are discussed.

Women with disabilities experience violence at greater rates than other women, yet their access to domestic violence services is more limited. This limitation is mirrored in domestic violence sector standards, which often fail to include the specific issues for women with disabilities. This article has a dual focus: to outline a set of internationally transferrable standards for inclusive practice with women with disabilities affected by domestic violence; and report on the results of a documentary analysis of domestic violence service standards, codes of practice, and practice guidelines. It draws on the Building the Evidence (BtE) research and advocacy project in Victoria, Australia in which a matrix tool was developed to identify minimum standards to support the inclusion of women with disabilities in existing domestic violence sector standards. This tool is designed to interrogate domestic violence sector standards for their attention to women with disabilities.

In many countries, such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America, Nursing and Midwifery Professional Bodies undergo a revalidation process demonstrating evidence of continuing professional development (CPD) and clinical practice hours in order to remain an active member on the professional register. In most countries this process involves documenting evidence in paper format. However, in the UK, our closest neighbour, eportfolio submission is now offered as an option for revalidation. Ireland is imminently moving towards introducing documented evidence as a requirement for continued registration as currently, there are no requirements to demonstrate evidence of continuing professional development or clinical practice as part of the annual re-registration process. While there are plans to address this in the near future, there are no details regarding the revalidation requirements or process. Irish undergraduate and postgraduate nursing and midwifery students are beginning to use eportfolios for assessment purposes and are increasingly familiar with the online eportfolio platforms. In this paper, we provide a rationale for the Irish Nursing and Midwifery Board (NMBI) to adopt eportfolios for the submission of documentary evidence for both initial registration and revalidation. We will examine the advantages and the barriers to the introduction of eportfolios in this context. The use of eportfolios would provide the NMBI an opportunity to lead the way in registration and revalidation processes internationally, enabling nurses and midwives in Ireland to embrace the opportunities that the digital age presents.

AbstractThere is circumstantial and documentary evidence that printing from stereotype plates was being undertaken by Joseph Athias in Amsterdam no later than September 1673. The terms of an agreement of that date between Athias and the Widow Schippers and Anna Maria Stam imply that he had two English bibles in plates, one a twelvemo, the other an eighteenmo. The eighteenmo can be equated with an edition with engraved title-page with the imprint 'Cambridge, Roger Daniel, 1648', the last in a sequence of four with the same imprint, each of which carries over from its predecessor a certain amount of setting. The earliest in the sequence appears to have been printed by Joachim Nosche in Amsterdam. That the fourth was impressed at least six times is suggested by the fact that it was printed on six or more discrete papers, thus implying that it was either kept standing or plated. That it was indeed plated at some stage of its life, and that the plates consisted of columns (not pages), is confirmed by the observable differences in alignment of the columns from exemplar to exemplar, particular alignments agreeing with particular papers. Athias's primacy in the history of stereotyping is thus established. From among the many librarians who have assisted me during this investigation I should like to thank in particular Dr Lotte Hellinga, whose advice in the early stages proved especially helpful. Earlier versions of the text were presented to: The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, Adelaide, August 1985; The Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University, September 1985; The Bibliographical Society, London, April 1992.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to utilize the three abstract-concrete levels of ontology of strong structuration theory (strong ST) to examine how, and to what extent, was the development of carbon accounting frameworks at the policy, industry, and organizational levels enabled by external structures as conditions of action, that is, what was the nature of active agency within a field of position-practice relations that led to the development of these frameworks. Design/methodology/approach A case study was undertaken drawing upon interviews that were undertaken between 2008 and 2011 at the industry and organizational levels as well as documentary evidence relating to carbon accounting policy development at the macro, or policy level. Findings The parliamentary committee hearings into the development of the carbon price legislation represented fields of position-practice relationships which highlighted the interplay of the internal structures, capabilities and the roles of both power and trust of the agent(s)-in-focus. A meso-level analysis of the Victorian water industry highlighted how it was able to mediate the exercise of power by the macro level through the early adoption of carbon accounting frameworks. At the ontic or micro level of the individual water business, the development of a greenhouse strategy was also the outcome of position-practice relationships which highlighted the interplay of the internal structures and dispositions of the agent(s)-in-focus. The position-practice relationships at both the industry and organizational level were characterized by both soft power and trust. Research limitations/implications Future research could investigate how the withdrawal of the carbon pricing mechanism in Australia has affected the development of carbon accounting practices whilst overseas research could examine the extent to which carbon accounting frameworks were the outcome of position-practice relationships. Practical implications Given the global significance of carbon accounting, this paper provides an overview as to how the early adoption of voluntary carbon accounting practices resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions within the water industry and therefore limited its liability for the carbon price. Originality/value This paper illustrates how the strong ST ontological concept of position-practices can be utilized at the macro, meso, and ontic levels and how these relationships mediated the impact of the carbon price upon both the water industry and the individual water business.

Purpose Mary Mackillop, the only Australian to have been declared a “saint” by the Roman Catholic Church, co-founded the Institute of the Sisters of St Joseph, a religious congregation established primarily to educate the poor. Prior to this, she taught at a Common School in Portland. While she was there, the headmaster was dismissed. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which the narrative accounts of the dismissal, as provided in the biographies of Mary, are supported by the documentary evidence. Contemporary records of the Board of Education indicate that Mary played a more active role in the dismissal than that suggested by her biographers. Design/methodology/approach Documentary evidence, particularly the records of the Board of Education, has been used to challenge the biographical accounts of Mary Mackillop’s involvement in an incident that occurred while she was a teacher at the Portland Common School. Findings It appears that the biographers, by omitting to consider the evidence available in the records of the Board of Education, have down-played Mary Mackillop’s involvement in the events that led to the dismissal of the head teacher at Portland. Originality/value This paper uses documentary evidence to challenge the account of the Portand incident, as provided in the biographies of Mary Mackillop.

This paper presents empirical evidence to illustrate how one Australian university complies with the nation's federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) regulatory framework. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the extent to which organizational practices deviate from articulated policy and how this gap impacts on the perceived career trajectories of female academics. While the disadvantaged status of female academics has been recognized worldwide, a deeper examination of how employees experience the policies and practices designed to support their advancement is required, especially in light of the increasing corporate-like activities of Australian universities which have deprioritized EEO. A case study of an Australian university is used to explore these phenomena. Documentary evidence of its EEO policies was compared with interviewee narratives of employees, including both female academics and members of general staff involved in policy development. This allowed female employees to be heard, in particular where they sensed contradictions between espoused company policy and their real experiences. Hearing what they have to say is an important contribution, given that Australia's EEO regulatory framework allows organizations to waive reporting on their gender equity “chievements.”This case study highlights employee concerns about the efficacy of the University's policies and practices designed to support women's career trajectories and demonstrates that, particularly in light of the increasing corporatization of the University, some women questioned whether drawing support from such policies would harm their careers. The most signifi cant concern focused on the criteria for promotion, which interviewees perceived to be based on a masculine model of merit, in contrast to the ostensible gender-neutrality of the promotions policies. A related concern was how carer responsibilities impacted on opportunities for advancement, particularly the ability to engage in research work that was prized more highly than teaching activities by promotions committees. These examples illustrate that, while the University may be upholding the law at face-value, the actual experiences of women in the organization suggest that EEO compliance is merely skin-deep.

PurposeThis paper has two purposes. First, it aims to explore how Australian universities used calculative rhetoric and practices through accounting numbers to persuade employees and legitimize their financial recovery plans to alleviate the financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, it aims to analyze how the accounting-based solutions were legitimized through a well-blended pathos, logos and ethos rhetoric.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on a rhetorical theory of diffusion, we employed a qualitative research design within all 37 Australian public universities involving Internet-based documentary analysis.FindingsThis study finds that in an urgent crisis like the fiscal crisis caused by COVID-19, universities again found rescue in accounting tools, in particular budgets, as a rhetorical device to justify their operational and strategic choices such as job-cuts, programs closures and staff pay-cuts. However, in this crisis, the same old accounting-based solutions were even more quickly to be accepted by being delivered in management’s colorful blending of pathos–logos–ethos rhetoric.Research limitations/implicationsWhile this study is constrained to Australian public universities’ financial responses, its findings have implications for university decision-makers and higher education policymakers across the globe when it comes to university management using calculative devices in persuading employees to work their way through financial hardship caused by an extreme health crisis-like COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/valueThis study adds more evidence that the use of budgets as a calculative tool continues to play a key role in organizations in the construction, mobilization and preservation of certain strategic and operational choices during volatilities. Especially, the same way of creating calculative-based solutions can be communicated via the colorful blending of different rhetoric to make it acceptable.

The under-representation of women in sport management has increasingly been recognized by government and nongovernment organizations, and there has been some attempt to redress the imbalance. Research has indicated, however, that the gendering of sport organizations is not simply a numbers’ game. The purpose of this study was to analyze the exercise of exclusionary power as an aspect of gender relations within a six member volunteer Board of Directors of an Australian local, grass-roots sport organization. Data were gathered using semistructured interviews, participant observation and documentary evidence over a 15-month period. This study identified that, although numerical underrepresentation of men or women on this Board was not an issue for either sex, exclusionary power was exercised in a number of overlapping ways which ultimately limited the participation, input, and influence of its female members.

How can institutions contribute to the building of civil society in the twenty- first century? It is clear that the old laissez-faire approach and the more recent neo-conservative reliance on the market have failed to deliver housing for many people. On the other hand the state-based welfare housing model espoused by the Australian Labor Party over the twentieth century has also been beset by problems. Social alienation, and the crisis in affordable housing make the case that individualist approaches to urban living are not working. More communal solutions are needed - solutions attuned to a complex view of civil society outlined by Michael Edwards' tripartite definition. At the same time the onset of global warming now prompts Australians to create more environmentally sustainable ways of living. Addressing the theme of responsibility, this paper focuses on citizenship in its broader environmental, social and active forms. It analyses interviews and documentary evidence concerning the planning and development of Christie Walk, an innovative, medium density eco-city development in Adelaide. The investigation reveals the effects of some Australian institutions on residents' efforts to live socially and environmentally sustainable lives in an urban environment. The paper offers transdisciplinary research and analysis, linking the fields of history, urban housing, community development and environmental theory.

Challenging the embedded mythologies that surround Anzac, especially as the centenary of First World War played out over the 2014 to 2018 commemoration period, can be confronting for tertiary students as well as a difficult space for tutors to navigate. This is especially the case for teacher education students who form the majority cohort taking a first-year course in Australian History as part of their teaching education degree programs at a large New South Wales university outside Sydney. Experiences of student disruptions, confrontations and occasional anger prompted tutors to question whether the topic of Anzac should be covered at all. An alternative was sought, where careful interrogation of teaching practices was undertaken. Three pedagogical approaches were examined; the traditional lecture format, using documentary film to glimpse at deeper historiographical problems within lectures and tutorials that allowed for more intense critical thinking and analysis of historical resources via focused questions. The efficacy of these pedagogical approaches was systematically assessed through surveying students in the Australian History course prior and post teaching about Anzac. This paper examines the background of teaching Anzac in the tertiary space, the use of specific pedagogical approaches and the results of the survey. Students’ main preference for teaching methods about Anzac was through documentaries in both surveys. However, the second most preferred method was the lecture format more generally and this preference increased in the post survey. There was also evidence of less resistance to the contested nature of Anzac mythologies.

Subtropical maritime low-pressure systems are one of the most complex and destructive storm types to impact Australia’s eastern seaboard. This family of storms, commonly referred to as East Coast Cyclones (ECC), is most active during the late autumn and early winter period when baroclinicity increases in the Tasman Sea region. ECC have proven challenging to forecast at both event and seasonal timescales. Storm activity datasets, objectively determined from reanalyses using cyclone detection algorithms, have improved understanding of the drivers of ECC over the era of satellite data coverage. In this study we attempt to extend these datasets back to 1851 using the Twentieth Century Reanalysis version 2c (20CRv2c). However, uncertainty in the 20CRv2c increases back through time due to observational data scarcity, and individual cyclones counts tend to be underestimated during the 19th century. An alternative approach is explored whereby storm activity is estimated from seasonal atmosphere-ocean circulation patterns. Seasonal ECC frequency over the 1955 to 2014 period is significantly correlated to regional sea-level pressure and sea surface temperature (SST) patterns. These patterns are used to downscale the 20CRv2c during early years when individual events are not well simulated. The stormiest periods since 1851 appear to have been 1870 to the early 1890s, and 1950 to the early 1970s. Total storm activity has been below the long-term average for most winters since 1976. Conditions conducive to frequent ECC events tend to occur during periods of relatively warm SST in the southwest Pacific typical of negative Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO-ve). Extratropical cyclogenesis is associated with negative Southern Annular Mode (SAM-ve) and blocking in the southern Tasman Sea. Subtropical cyclogenesis is associated with SAM+ve and blocking in the central Tasman Sea. While the downscaling approach shows some skill at estimating seasonal storm activity from the large-scale circulation, it cannot overcome data scarcity based uncertainties in the 19th century when the 20CRv2c is effectively unconstrained throughout most of the southern hemisphere. Storm frequency estimates during the 19th century are difficult to verify and should be interpreted cautiously and with reference to available documentary evidence.

Reflecting on the process of writing history, Tom Griffiths argues that it is ‘the product of a fascinating struggle between imagination and evidence’. He adds that ‘it is our job to release reality, enable it to be seen, enable voices and silences to be heard’. Many Australian historians have expended considerable effort in seeking to understand the reality of the Great Depression of the 1930s, analysing its political, economic, social and cultural dimensions. There are still, however, ‘voices and silences to be heard’, including those of Brisbane women who suffered financial hardships in this period and who actively responded to those hardships by accessing government relief, generating income and reducing their and their families' expenditure. Attempting to retrieve and evaluate those responses suggests that the ‘voices’ are inevitably accompanied by ‘silences’ — that the pictorial, documentary and oral sources which offer valuable insights into Brisbane women's lives also prompt questions that cannot be answered from those sources. In addition to providing an overview of how Brisbane women ‘made ends meet’ during the Depression, this article emphasises the limits of historical knowledge. Those limits are especially apparent in my attempt to reconstruct — or imagine — the experiences of one of the hundreds of unemployed women who visited the Female Labour Exchange during the 1930s.

Australia's remote-focused ‘workfare’ program (Community Development Program, CDP) has produced overwhelmingly negative impacts, most of which have been borne by its ∼80% Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants. The Australian government has announced that CDP will end in 2023, though a replacement policy/program is not yet decided. Here, I bring three public proposals for replacement policies (wage subsidy, Job Guarantee, Liveable Income Guarantee) into conversation with one another, and compare these to the possibilities offered by a basic income. Drawing on documentary evidence, I discuss potential advantages and disadvantages of these alternatives, asking whether they might improve wellbeing and alleviate the harms experienced under CDP-style workfare.

Background Pharmacists have important roles in consumers’ access to medicines and healthcare. Pharmacy policy advocates have recognised that evidence is important but often insufficient for policy change to support expanded roles of pharmacists, but there has been minimal exploration of why this is the case. Aims and objectives To characterise, classify, and describe the types of knowledge that were considered and used in these two pharmacy policy issues in Australia: codeine up-scheduling and pharmacist-administered vaccinations. Methods Using documentary data and semi-structured interviews, we identified the research-based, practical, and political knowledge used in these policy processes, drawing on Head’s ‘three lenses of evidence-based policy’. We used a ‘programmatic approach’ to analyse how evidence is used in policymaking, where the use and framing of evidence is considered in light of policy actors’ institutional roles and goals. Findings Practical knowledge demonstrating pharmacists’ ability to conduct clinical activities and political knowledge of institutional processes and acceptability were used for both issues; however, research evidence was more identifiable in up-scheduling. Evidence was prioritised and used differently depending on stakeholders’ goals. Discussion and conclusions Our analysis offers insights for the Australian pharmacy sector advocating for policies to benefit individual and public health. Although medicines regulation and pharmacy practice are phenomena that exist globally, institutional and policymaking contexts differ by country. The pharmacy sector needs to consider these contexts to effectively engage policymakers and optimise evidence use in developing and implementing desired policies.

Abstract Objective: A comprehensive nutrition policy containing a broad package of cross-sector and synergistic policy actions is required to attenuate the systemic drivers of poor nutrition. The current study aims to critically analyse trends in the scope of federal nutrition policy actions in Australia between 2007 and 2018 by: (1) describing the changes in nutrition policy actions, benchmarked against an international best-practice policy framework and (2) investigating how and why the scope of these policy actions have changed over time by examining the decision-making processes that led to the establishment of Australia’s Healthy Food Partnership (the Partnership). Design: Qualitative case study involving documentary analysis and key-informant interviews. Australian federal government documents (n 10) were analysed against the NOURISHING framework. Key informants (n 6) were interviewed and asked about the Partnership’s decision-making and establishment processes. Setting: Australia. Participants: Executive Committee (the Partnership’s governing body) and working group members. Results: From 2007 to 2018, the scope of Australian national nutrition policy has fluctuated from evidence-informed recommendations for a comprehensive policy to the mostly discrete policy actions of the Partnership. Themes of ‘pragmatism and compromise’, ‘actor relationships and lobbying’ and ‘political context’ were critical drivers for establishing the Partnership. Conclusion: The narrowing of Australian nutrition policy reflects a response to political expediency and compromise. This political dynamic highlights a dilemma facing nutrition policy advocates: should (and if so, how) a balance be sought between the aspirational but possibly unrealistic goals, and the limited but likely deliverable outcomes during policy-making processes? These findings have relevance for developing a future comprehensive national nutrition policy.

Abstract Legislative changes have altered the way imported edible seafood is inspected in Australia. Greater onus of responsibility has been placed on exporting countries to provide documentary evidence of adherence to internally recognized food safety standards. According to global trade agreements, any additional safety tests applied to freshwater fish imported into Australia must be justified. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a risk scoring method to provide justification for identifying countries as ‘Freshwater fish high risk’ and to examine the seafood they export to Australia for seafood supply chain breaches. Scoring was conducted using six predictor variables, identified in the literature as important contributors to seafood supply chain breaches, to achieve the outcome variable, Country considered ‘Freshwater fish high risk’. Sixty-seven fish fillets (9.55 kg) of the same species were examined from the third highest scoring country (Country 20) and 562 (5.6 kg) whole fish from the sixth highest scoring country (Country 22). Country 20 had supply chain breaches of 28 macroscopic yellow cysts in one fillet. Two hundred and thirteen parasites and other supply chain breaches were identified in fish from Country 22, including retained liver (91 per cent), visible mud (11 per cent), a variety of debris (16 per cent) and, depending on the commodity code, these fish were imported to Australia under full intestine (90 per cent), retained gills (89 per cent), and partial intestine (9 per cent). Three serious physical hazards were recovered from the edible portion of three ‘consumer-ready’ fish and snails of Genus Lymnaea and Indoplanorbis were recovered from gill mud also from ‘consumer-ready’ fish. The study showed variable results from the scoring system and vast differences in seafood supply chain breaches between the third and sixth highest scoring countries.

PurposeThis article explores the case of the Queensland's reformatory for boys through the years 1871–1919 to analyse how the institution negotiated the complex, and at times competing, goals of reforming, educating and punishing its inmate population.Design/methodology/approachThe article relies on documentary evidence, including archival material produced by the institution and newspaper records published between 1865, when the legislation allowing the institution to be created was passed, to 1919, when the institution ceased to be known as a “reformatory”.FindingsThis research demonstrates that, despite considerable changes during the studied period, the overarching goal of reforming criminal and potentially criminal young people continuously relied on achieving a balance between reformative techniques such as religious instruction and work placements, providing a useful education and punishing offenders. It also demonstrates that, despite efforts to achieve this balance, the institution was often described as unsuccessful.Originality/valueDue to the paucity of available archival evidence, there is still relatively little known about how the reformatories of late-19th- and early-20th-century Australia attempted to carry out programmes of moral reformation. This paper contributes to the field through an analysis of an institution which faced unusual challenges as a result of a complex inmate population.

A significant amount of research has been undertaken in response to high levels of student plagiarism in higher education institutions (HEI). New models have emerged over the last decade for strategies and systems for detection, penalties and mitigation, based on deeper understanding of the underlying reasons behind student plagiarism. Most research has been initiated by academics from English speaking countries, particularly from the UK, North America and Australia. When the proposal for the Impact of Policies for Plagiarism in Higher Education across Europe (IPPHEAE ) project was developed during 2009 very little research had been conducted about the policies for academic integrity adopted by HEIs in the majority of countries in Europe. IPPHEAE, funded by the European Commission (2010–2013), included a comparative study of policies and procedures in place in HEIs across 27 European Union (EU) member states for handling aspects of academic integrity, focusing specifically on bachelor and master’s levels. The survey instruments were on online questionnaires, student focus groups, structured interviews and analysis of documentary evidence, designed with a view to capture a range of quantitative and qualitative responses from different perspectives. Almost 5,000 responses were captured for the survey, mainly from online questionnaires, made available in 14 languages. Different questions were asked of students, teaching staff and senior managers, to determine how well institutional procedures were understood, to what extent they were operating as intended and whether there was consistency of outcomes within and between institutions. Interviews with researchers and people associated with national bodies and agencies responsible for higher education (HE) quality or academic integrity explored broader perspectives on issues such as national policies and how responses to plagiarism aligned with policies for quality and standards. This paper presents results from the survey that focus specifically on institutional policies, highlighting examples of good practice and also areas of concern. The findings suggest that different approaches should be adopted according to the maturity of existing policies and systems in all the countries surveyed, to promote more effective assurance of quality, standards and academic integrity.

This article explores the role of authenticity in televisual teaching and learning based on a case study of Who Do You Think You Are?, a documentary series in which celebrities go on a journey to retrace their family tree. Originally broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, this series has been adapted in eighteen countries, including Australia. The Australian version is produced locally and has been airing on the public channel Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) since 2008. According to its producers, Who Do You Think You Are? teaches history and promotes multiculturalism:We like making a broad range of programs about history and telling our own Australian stories and particularly the multicultural basis of our history […] A lot of people know the broad Australian stroke, English, British history but they don’t really know as much about the migratory history […] It’s a way of saying this is our country now, this is where it came from, here’s some stories, which you might not be aware of, and what’s happened to people along the way. (Producer 1) In this article, I examine Who Do You Think You Are? as an educational text and I investigate its pedagogy. Starting with the assumption that it aims to teach, my intention is to explain how it teaches. In particular, I want to demonstrate that authenticity is a key feature of its pedagogy. Applied to the televisual text, the term “authentic” refers to the quality of being true or based on facts. In this sense, authenticity implies actuality, accuracy and reliability. Applied to media personae, “authentic” must be understood in its more modern sense of “genuine”. From this perspective, to be “authentic” requires displaying “one’s inner truths” (McCarthy 242). Based on my textual analysis and reception study, I show that these two forms of authenticity play a crucial role in the pedagogy of Who Do You Think You Are? Signifying Authenticity One of the pedagogical techniques of Who Do You Think You Are? is to persuade viewers that it authentically represents actual events by using some of the codes and conventions of the documentary. According to Michael Renov, the persuasive modality is intrinsic to all documentary forms and it is linked to their truth claim: “the documentary ‘truth claim’ (which says, at the very least: ‘Believe me, I’m of the world’) is the baseline for persuasion for all of nonfiction, from propaganda to rock doc” (30). Who Do You Think You Are? signifies actuality by using some of the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. As Bill Nichols explains, observational documentaries give the impression that they spontaneously and faithfully record actual events as they happen. Nichols compares this mode of documentary to Italian Neorealism: “we look in on life as it is lived. Social actors engage with one another, ignoring the filmmakers” (111). In Who Do You Think You Are? the celebrities and other social actors often engage with one another without acknowledging the camera’s presence. In those observational scenes, various textual features signify actuality: natural sounds, natural light or shaky hand-held camera, for example, are often used to connote the unprepared recording of reality. This is usually reinforced by the congruence between the duration of the scene and the diegetic time (the duration of the action that is represented). Furthermore, Who Do You Think You Are? emphasises authenticity by showing famous Australians as ordinary people in ordinary settings or doing mundane activities. As one of the SBS programmers pointed out during our interview: “It shows personalities or stars that you can never get to as real people and it makes you realise that those people, actually, they’re the same as you and I!” (SBS programmer). Celebrities are “real” in the sense that they exist in the profilmic world; but in this context showing celebrities “as real people” means showing them as ordinary individuals whom the audience can relate to and identify with. Instead of representing “stars” through their usual manufactured public personae, the program offers glimpses into their real lives and authentic selves, thus giving “backstage access to the famous” (Marwick and boyd 144). In this regard, the series aligns with other media texts, including “celebreality” programs and social networking sites like Twitter, whose appeal lies in the construction of more authentic and intimate presentations of celebrities (Marwick and boyd; Ellcessor; Thomas). This rhetoric of authenticity is enhanced by the celebrity’s genealogical journey, which is depicted both as a quest for historical knowledge and for self-knowledge. Indeed, as its title suggests, the program links ancestry to personal identity. In every episode, the genealogical investigation reveals similarities between the celebrity and their ancestors, thus uncovering personality traits that seem to have been transmitted from generation to generation. Thus, the series does more than simply showing celebrities as ordinary people “stripped of PR artifice and management” (Marwick and boyd 149): by unveiling those transgenerational traits, it discloses innermost aspects of the celebrities’ authentic selves—a backstage beyond the backstage. Who Do You Think You Are? communicates authenticity in these different ways in order to invite viewers’ trust. As Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro observe, this is characteristic of most documentaries: Whereas fiction films may allude to actual events, documentaries usually claim that those events did take place in such and such a way, and that the images and sounds on the screen are accurate and reliable […] Most documentaries—if not all of them—have something to say about the world and, in one way or another, they want to be trusted by their audience. (Spence and Navarro 13) Similarly, Nichols writes that as documentary viewers, “we uphold our belief in the authenticity of the historical world represented on screen […] we assume that documentary sounds and images have the authenticity of evidence” (36). This is supported by Thomas Austin’s reception study of documentary films in the United Kingdom, which shows that most viewers expect documentaries to give them “access to the real.” According to Austin, these generic expectations about authenticity contribute to the pedagogic authority of documentaries. Therefore, the implied audience (Barker and Austin) of Who Do You Think You Are? must trust that it authentically represents actual events and individuals and they must perceive it as an accurate and reliable source of knowledge about the historical world in order to “attain a meaningful encounter” (48) with it. The implied audience in no way predicts actual audiences’ responses (which I will examine in the remainder of this article) but it is an important aspect of the program’s pedagogy: for the text to be read as a “history lesson” (Nichols 39) viewers must be persuaded by the program’s rhetoric of authenticity. Perceiving Authenticity My reception study confirms that in order to learn, viewers must be persuaded by this rhetoric of authenticity, which promises “information and knowledge, insight and awareness” (Nichols 40). This is illustrated by the responses of five viewers who participated in a screening and focus group discussion. Arya, Marnie, Junior, Lec and Krista all say that they have learnt from Who Do You Think You Are? either at home or from the episode that was screened before our discussion. They all agree that the program teaches about history, multiculturalism and other aspects that were not predicted by the producers (such as human nature, relationships and social issues). More importantly, these viewers learn from the program because they trust that it authentically represents actual events and because they perceive the personae as “natural”, “relaxed” and “being themselves” and their emotions as “genuine”: Krista: It felt genuine to me.Lec: Me also […]Marnie: I felt like he seemed more natural, even with the interpreter there, talking with his aunty. He seemed more himself, he was more emotional […]Arya: I don’t think that they’re acting. To go outside of this session, I mean, I’ve seen the show before and I think it is really genuine. As Austin notes, what matters from the viewers’ perspective is not “the critically scrutinised indexical guarantee of documentary, but rather a less well defined and nebulous sense of qualities such as the 'humanity', 'honesty', 'sincerity'.” This does not mean that viewers naively believe that the text gives a transparent, unmediated access to the truth (Austin). Trust (or in Austin’s words “willing abandonment”) can be combined with scepticism (Buckingham; Ang; Liebes and Katz). Marnie, for example, oscillates between these two modalities of response: Marnie: If something seems quite artificial, it stands out, you start thinking about well, why did they do that? But while they’re just sitting down, having a conversation, there’s not anything really that you have to think about. Obviously all those transition shots, sitting on the rock, opening a letter in the square, they also have, you know, the violins playing and everything. Everything builds to feel a bit more contrived, whereas when they’re having the conversation, I wasn’t aware of the music. Maybe I was listening to what they were saying more. But I think you sort of engage a bit more in listening to what they’re saying when they’re having a conversation. Whereas the filling, you’re not really thinking about his emotions so much as…why is he wearing that shirt? Interestingly, the scenes that Marnie perceives as authentic and that she engages with are the “conversations” scenes, which use the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. The scenes that she views with scepticism are the more dramatised sequences, which do not use the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. Marnie is the only viewer in my focus groups who clearly oscillates between trust and scepticism. She is also the most ambivalent about what she has learnt and about the quality of the knowledge that she gains from Who Do You Think You Are? Authenticity and Emotional Responses Because they believe that the personae and emotions in the program are genuine, these viewers are emotionally engaged. As the producers explain, learning from Who Do You Think You Are? is not a purely cognitive process but is fundamentally an emotional and empathetic experience: There are lots of programs on television where you can learn about history. I think what’s so powerful about this show is because it has a very strong emotional arc […] You can learn a lot of dates, and you can pass a test, just on knowing the year that the Blue Mountains were first crossed or the Magna Carta was signed. But what Who Do You Think You Are? does is that it takes you on a journey where you get to really feel the experiences of those people who were fighting the battle or climbing the mast. (Producer 2) The producers invite viewer empathy in two ways: they design the program so that viewers are encouraged to share the emotions of people who lived in the past; and they design it so that viewers are encouraged to share the emotions of the celebrities who participate in the program. This is illustrated by the participants’ responses to one scene in which the actor Don Hany sees an old photograph of his pregnant mother: Lec: I was touched! I was like “aw!”Ms Goldblum: I didn’t buy it.Krista: You didn’t feel like that, Lec?Lec: Not at all! Like, yeah, I got a bit touched.Junior: Yeah. And those looked like genuine tears, they weren’t crocodile tears.Ms Goldblum: I didn’t think so. There was a [sniffing], pause, pose, camera moment.Junior: I had a little moment…Krista: Aw!Interviewer: You had a moment?Junior: Yeah, there was a little moment there.Ms Goldblum: Got a little teary?Junior: When he’s looking at the photos, yeah. Because I think everyone’s done that, gone back and looked through old photos, you know what that feeling is. As this discussion suggests, authenticity is a crucial aspect of the program’s pedagogy, not only because the viewers must trust it in order to learn from it, but also because it facilitates empathy and emotional engagement. Distrust and Cynicism In contrast, the viewers who do not learn from Who Do You Think You Are? perceive the program as contrived and the celebrity’s emotions as inauthentic: Wolfgang: I don’t think they taught me much that I didn’t already know in regards to history.Naomi: Yeah, me neither […] I kind of look at these shows and think it’s a bit contrived […]Wolfgang: I hate all that. They’re constructing a show purely for money, that’s all bullshit. That annoys me […]Ms Goldblum: But for me the show is just about, I don’t know, they try to find something to be sentimental and it’s not. Like, they try to force it […] I didn’t buy it […] Because they are aware of the constructed nature of the program and because they perceive it as contrived, these viewers do not engage emotionally with the content: Naomi: When I see someone on this show looking at photos, I find it really difficult to stop thinking he’s got a camera on his face.Wolfgang: Yeah.Naomi: He’s looking at photos, and that’s a beautiful moment, but there’s a camera right there, looking at him, and I can’t help but think that when I see those things […] There are other people in the room that we don’t see and there’s a camera that’s pointing at him […] This intellectual distance is sometimes expressed through mockery and laughter (Buckingham). Because they distrust the program and make fun of it, Wolfgang and Ms Goldblum (who were not in the same focus group) are both described as “cynics”: Ms Goldblum: He gets all teary and I think oh he’s an actor he’s just putting that shit on, trying to make it look interesting. Whereas if it were just a normal person, I’d find it more believable. But I think the whole premise of the show is they take famous people, like actors and all those people in the spotlight, I think because they put on good shows. I would be more interested in someone who wasn’t famous. I’d find it more genuine.Junior: You are such a cynic! […]Wolfgang: And look, maybe I’m a big cynic about this, and that’s why I haven’t watched it. But it’s this emotionally padded, scripted, prompted kind of thing, which makes it more palatable for people to watch. Unlike most participants, who identify the program as “educational” and “documentary”, Wolfgang classifies it as pure entertainment. His cynicism and scepticism can be linked to his generic labelling of the program as “reality TV”: Wolfgang: I don’t watch commercial TV, I can’t stand it. And it’s for that reason. It’s all contrived. It’s all based on selling something as opposed to looking into this guy’s family and history and perhaps learning something from it. Like, it’s entertainment, it’s not educational […] It’s a reality TV sort of thing, I just got no interest in it really. As Annette Hill shows in her reception study of the reality game program Big Brother, most viewers are cynical about the authenticity of reality television. Despite the generic label of “reality”, most interpret reality programs as inauthentic. Indeed, as John Corner points out, reality television is characterised by display and performance, even though it adopts some of the codes and conventions of the documentary. Hill’s research also reveals that viewers often look for moments of authenticity within the unreal context of reality television: “the ‘game’ is to find the ‘truth’ in the spectacle/performance environment” (337). Interestingly, this describes Naomi and Wolfgang’s attitude towards Who Do You Think You Are?: Naomi: The conversation with his mum seemed a bit more relaxed, maybe. Or a bit more...I don’t know, I kind of look at these shows and think it’s a bit contrived. Whereas that seemed a bit more natural […]Wolfgang: Often he’s just sitting there and I suppose those are filling shots. But I found that when he was chatting to his aunty and seeing the photos that he hadn’t seen before, when he was a child, he was tearing up […] That’s probably the one time I didn’t notice, like, didn’t think about the cameras because I found it quite powerful, when he was tearing up, that was a kind of an emotional moment. According to Austin, viewers’ discourses about authenticity in relation to documentaries and reality television serve as markers of cultural distinction: Often underpinning expressions of the appeal of 'the real', the use of a discourse of authenticity frequently revealed taste markers and a set of cultural distinctions deployed by these cinemagoers, notably between the veracity and 'honesty' of Etre et Avoir [a French documentary] and the contrasting 'fakery' and 'inauthenticity' of reality television. Describing documentaries as authentic and educational and reality television as fake entertainment can be a way for some (middle-class) viewers to assert their socio-cultural status. By performing as the sceptical and cynical viewer and criticising lower cultural forms, research participants distinguish themselves from the imagined mass of unsophisticated and uneducated (working class?) viewers (Buckingham; Austin). Conclusion Some scholars suggest that viewers learn when they compare what they watch on television to their own experiences or when they identify with television characters or personae (Noble and Noble; Tulloch and Lupton; Tulloch and Moran; Buckingham and Bragg). My study contributes to this field of inquiry by showing that viewers learn when they perceive televisual content as authentic and as a reliable source of knowledge. More importantly, the results reveal how some televisual texts signify authenticity to invite trust and learning. This study raises questions about the role of trust and authenticity in televisual learning and it would be fruitful to pursue further research to determine whether these findings apply to genres that are not factual. Examining the production, textual features and reception of fictional programs to understand how they convey authenticity and how this sense of truthfulness influences viewers’ learning would be useful to draw more general conclusions about televisual pedagogy, and perhaps more broadly about the role of trust and authenticity in education. References Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London: Methuen, 1985. Austin, Thomas. "Seeing, Feeling, Knowing: A Case Study of Audience Perspectives on Screen Documentary." Participations 2.1 (2005). 20 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.participations.org/volume%202/issue%201/2_01_austin.htm›. Barker, Martin, and Thomas Austin. From Antz to Titanic: Reinventing Film Analysis. London: Pluto Press, 2000. Big Brother. Exec. Prod. John de Mol. Channel 4. 2000. Buckingham, David. Children Talking Television: The Making of Television Literacy. London: The Falmer Press, 1993. Buckingham, David, and Sara Bragg. Young People, Media and Personal Relationships. London: The Independent Television Commission, 2003. Corner, John. "Performing the Real: Documentary Diversions." Television & New Media 3.3 (2002): 255—69. "Don Hany." Who Do You Think You Are? Series 5, Episode 3. SBS. 16 Apr. 2013. Ellcessor, Elizabeth. "Tweeting @feliciaday: Online Social Media, Convergence, and Subcultural Stardom." Cinema Journal 51.2 (2012): 46-66. Hill, Annette. "Big Brother: The Real Audience." Television & New Media 3.3 (2002): 323-40. Liebes, Tamar, and Elihu Katz. The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of Dallas. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. Marwick, Alice, and danah boyd. "To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17.2 (2011): 139-58. McCarthy, E. Doyle. “Emotional Performances as Dramas of Authenticity.” Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Eds. Phillip Vannini & J. Patrick Williams. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009. 241-55. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001. Noble, Grant, and Elizabeth Noble. "A Study of Teenagers' Uses and Gratifications of the Happy Days Shows." Media Information Australia 11 (1979): 17-24. Producer 1. Personal Interview. 29 Sept. 2013. Producer 2. Personal Interview. 10 Oct. 2013. Renov, Michael. Theorizing Documentary. New York: Routledge, 1993. SBS Programmer. Personal Interview. 22 Nov. 2013. Spence, Louise, and Vinicius Navarro. Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2011. Thomas, Sarah. "Celebrity in the ‘Twitterverse’: History, Authenticity and the Multiplicity of Stardom Situating the ‘Newness’ of Twitter." Celebrity Studies 5.3 (2014): 242-55. Tulloch, John, and Deborah Lupton. Television, Aids and Risk: A Cultural Studies Approach to Health Communication. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. Tulloch, John, and Albert Moran. A Country Practice: "Quality Soap". Sydney: Currency Press, 1986. Who Do You Think You Are? Exec. Prod. Alex Graham. BBC. 2004. Who Do You Think You Are? Exec. Prod. Celia Tait. SBS. 2008.

This article analyses how the Australian current affairs programme, Four Corners, which follows a style modelled on the BBC programme Panorama, has represented Australian military history in two of its programmes, Gallipoli: The Fatal Shore and No Prisoners on Australian deserters at the fall of Singapore. Chris Masters was the reporter on both programmes. These historical documentaries claim to investigate Australian Anzac mythology. Four Corners is noted for its rigorous pursuit of issues in current affairs. Programmes construct argument that the journalists steadfastly pursue in order to ‘expose the truth’. Rather than neutrally representing both sides of a debate, the programmes tend to take the side that the journalists perceive to be in the public interest. Examining how Four Corners has applied its own style of investigative journalism to the Anzac mythology is explored by outlining whether the programmes follow Ken Burn’s ideas of documentary-makers as ‘tribal story-teller’ crafting stories that uphold national identity or Bill Nichols’ view that documentary is an argument that is representative of reality rather than reflects reality. Examining the history of Gallipoli and the fall of Singapore in the Four Corners programmes tends suggest that the journalists working on the programmes preferred to reaffirm the assumptions of the Anzac legend, but attack or ignore historians and evidence that questions it. The programmes appear to be a mixture of Burns’s and Nichols’ ideas of documentary making.

Introduction The aim of this paper is to examine whether recent catastrophic tsunamis have driven a cultural shift in the awareness of Australians to the danger associated with this natural hazard and whether the media have contributed to the emergence of “tsunami” as a new Australian catastrophe. Prior to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster (2004 IOT), tsunamis as a type of hazard capable of generating widespread catastrophe were not well known by the general public and had barely registered within the wider scientific community. As a university based lecturer who specialises in natural disasters, I always started my public talks or student lectures with an attempt at a detailed description of what a tsunami is. With little high quality visual and media imagery to use, this was not easy. The Australian geologist Ted Bryant was right when he named his 2001 book Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. That changed on 26 December 2004 when the third largest earthquake ever recorded occurred northwest of Sumatra, Indonesia, triggering the most catastrophic tsunami ever experienced. The 2004 IOT claimed at least 220,000 lives—probably more—injured tens of thousands, destroyed widespread coastal infrastructure and left millions homeless. Beyond the catastrophic impacts, this tsunami was conspicuous because, for the first time, such a devastating tsunami was widely captured on video and other forms of moving and still imagery. This occurred for two reasons. Firstly, the tsunami took place during daylight hours in good weather conditions—factors conducive to capturing high quality visual images. Secondly, many people—both local residents and westerners who were on beachside holidays and at the coast at multiple locations impacted by the tsunami—were able to capture images of the tsunami on their cameras, videos, and smart phones. The extensive media coverage—including horrifying television, video, and still imagery that raced around the globe in the hours and days after the tsunami, filling our television screens, homes, and lives regardless of where we lived—had a dramatic effect. This single event drove a quantum shift in the wider cultural awareness of this type of catastrophe and acted as a catalyst for improved individual and societal understanding of the nature and effects of disaster landscapes. Since this event, there have been several notable tsunamis, including the March 2011 Japan catastrophe. Once again, this event occurred during daylight hours and was widely captured by multiple forms of media. These events have resulted in a cascade of media coverage across television, radio, movie, and documentary channels, in the print media, online, and in the popular press and on social media—very little of which was available prior to 2004. Much of this has been documentary and informative in style, but there have also been numerous television dramas and movies. For example, an episode of the popular American television series CSI Miami entitled Crime Wave (Season 3, Episode 7) featured a tsunami, triggered by a volcanic eruption in the Atlantic and impacting Miami, as the backdrop to a standard crime-filled episode ("CSI," IMDb; Wikipedia). In 2010, Warner Bros Studios released the supernatural drama fantasy film Hereafter directed by Clint Eastwood. In the movie, a television journalist survives a near-death experience during the 2004 IOT in what might be the most dramatic, and probably accurate, cinematic portrayal of a tsunami ("Hereafter," IMDb; Wikipedia). Thus, these creative and entertaining forms of media, influenced by the catastrophic nature of tsunamis, are impetuses for creativity that also contribute to a transformation of cultural knowledge of catastrophe. The transformative potential of creative media, together with national and intergovernmental disaster risk reduction activity such as community education, awareness campaigns, community evacuation planning and drills, may be indirectly inferred from rapid and positive community behavioural responses. By this I mean many people in coastal communities who experience strong earthquakes are starting a process of self-evacuation, even if regional tsunami warning centres have not issued an alert or warning. For example, when people in coastal locations in Samoa felt a large earthquake on 29 September 2009, many self-evacuated to higher ground or sought information and instruction from relevant authorities because they expected a tsunami to occur. When interviewed, survivors stated that the memory of television and media coverage of the 2004 IOT acted as a catalyst for their affirmative behavioural response (Dominey-Howes and Thaman 1). Thus, individual and community cultural understandings of the nature and effects of tsunami catastrophes are incredibly important for shaping resilience and reducing vulnerability. However, this cultural shift is not playing out evenly.Are Australia and Its People at Risk from Tsunamis?Prior to the 2004 IOT, there was little discussion about, research in to, or awareness about tsunamis and Australia. Ted Bryant from the University of Wollongong had controversially proposed that Australia had been affected by tsunamis much bigger than the 2004 IOT six to eight times during the last 10,000 years and that it was only a matter of when, not if, such an event repeated itself (Bryant, "Second Edition"). Whilst his claims had received some media attention, his ideas did not achieve widespread scientific, cultural, or community acceptance. Not-with-standing this, Australia has been affected by more than 60 small tsunamis since European colonisation (Dominey-Howes 239). Indeed, the 2004 IOT and 2006 Java tsunami caused significant flooding of parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia (Prendergast and Brown 69). However, the affected areas were sparsely populated and experienced very little in the way of damage or loss. Thus they did not cross any sort of critical threshold of “catastrophe” and failed to achieve meaningful community consciousness—they were not agents of cultural transformation.Regardless of the risk faced by Australia’s coastline, Australians travel to, and holiday in, places that experience tsunamis. In fact, 26 Australians were killed during the 2004 IOT (DFAT) and five were killed by the September 2009 South Pacific tsunami (Caldwell et al. 26). What Role Do the Media Play in Preparing for and Responding to Catastrophe?Regardless of the type of hazard/disaster/catastrophe, the key functions the media play include (but are not limited to): pre-event community education, awareness raising, and planning and preparations; during-event preparation and action, including status updates, evacuation warnings and notices, and recommendations for affirmative behaviours; and post-event responses and recovery actions to follow, including where to gain aid and support. Further, the media also play a role in providing a forum for debate and post-event analysis and reflection, as a mechanism to hold decision makers to account. From time to time, the media also provide a platform for examining who, if anyone, might be to blame for losses sustained during catastrophes and can act as a powerful conduit for driving socio-cultural, behavioural, and policy change. Many of these functions are elegantly described and a series of best practices outlined by The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency in a tsunami specific publication freely available online (CDEMA 1). What Has Been the Media Coverage in Australia about Tsunamis and Their Effects on Australians?A manifest contents analysis of media material covering tsunamis over the last decade using the framework of Cox et al. reveals that coverage falls into distinctive and repetitive forms or themes. After tsunamis, I have collected articles (more than 130 to date) published in key Australian national broadsheets (e.g., The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald) and tabloid (e.g., The Telegraph) newspapers and have watched on television and monitored on social media, such as YouTube and Facebook, the types of coverage given to tsunamis either affecting Australia, or Australians domestically and overseas. In all cases, I continued to monitor and collect these stories and accounts for a fixed period of four weeks after each event, commencing on the day of the tsunami. The themes raised in the coverage include: the nature of the event. For example, where, when, why did it occur, how big was it, and what were the effects; what emergency response and recovery actions are being undertaken by the emergency services and how these are being provided; exploration of how the event was made worse or better by poor/good planning and prior knowledge, action or inaction, confusion and misunderstanding; the attribution of blame and responsibility; the good news story—often the discovery and rescue of an “iconic victim/survivor”—usually a child days to weeks later; and follow-up reporting weeks to months later and on anniversaries. This coverage generally focuses on how things are improving and is often juxtaposed with the ongoing suffering of victims. I select the word “victims” purposefully for the media frequently prefer this over the more affirmative “survivor.”The media seldom carry reports of “behind the scenes” disaster preparatory work such as community education programs, the development and installation of warning and monitoring systems, and ongoing training and policy work by response agencies and governments since such stories tend to be less glamorous in terms of the disaster gore factor and less newsworthy (Cox et al. 469; Miles and Morse 365; Ploughman 308).With regard to Australians specifically, the manifest contents analysis reveals that coverage can be described as follows. First, it focuses on those Australians killed and injured. Such coverage provides elements of a biography of the victims, telling their stories, personalising these individuals so we build empathy for their suffering and the suffering of their families. The Australian victims are not unknown strangers—they are named and pictures of their smiling faces are printed or broadcast. Second, the media describe and catalogue the loss and ongoing suffering of the victims (survivors). Third, the media use phrases to describe Australians such as “innocent victims in the wrong place at the wrong time.” This narrative establishes the sense that these “innocents” have been somehow wronged and transgressed and that suffering should not be experienced by them. The fourth theme addresses the difficulties Australians have in accessing Consular support and in acquiring replacement passports in order to return home. It usually goes on to describe how they have difficulty in gaining access to accommodation, clothing, food, and water and any necessary medicines and the challenges associated with booking travel home and the complexities of communicating with family and friends. The last theme focuses on how Australians were often (usually?) not given relevant safety information by “responsible people” or “those in the know” in the place where they were at the time of the tsunami. This establishes a sense that Australians were left out and not considered by the relevant authorities. This narrative pays little attention to the wide scale impact upon and suffering of resident local populations who lack the capacity to escape the landscape of catastrophe.How Does Australian Media Coverage of (Tsunami) Catastrophe Compare with Elsewhere?A review of the available literature suggests media coverage of catastrophes involving domestic citizens is similar globally. For example, Olofsson (557) in an analysis of newspaper articles in Sweden about the 2004 IOT showed that the tsunami was framed as a Swedish disaster heavily focused on Sweden, Swedish victims, and Thailand, and that there was a division between “us” (Swedes) and “them” (others or non-Swedes). Olofsson (557) described two types of “us” and “them.” At the international level Sweden, i.e. “us,” was glorified and contrasted with “inferior” countries such as Thailand, “them.” Olofsson (557) concluded that mediated frames of catastrophe are influenced by stereotypes and nationalistic values.Such nationalistic approaches preface one type of suffering in catastrophe over others and delegitimises the experiences of some survivors. Thus, catastrophes are not evenly experienced. Importantly, Olofsson although not explicitly using the term, explains that the underlying reason for this construction of “them” and “us” is a form of imperialism and colonialism. Sharp refers to “historically rooted power hierarchies between countries and regions of the world” (304)—this is especially so of western news media reporting on catastrophes within and affecting “other” (non-western) countries. Sharp goes much further in relation to western representations and imaginations of the “war on terror” (arguably a global catastrophe) by explicitly noting the near universal western-centric dominance of this representation and the construction of the “west” as good and all “non-west” as not (299). Like it or not, the western media, including elements of the mainstream Australian media, adhere to this imperialistic representation. Studies of tsunami and other catastrophes drawing upon different types of media (still images, video, film, camera, and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like) and from different national settings have explored the multiple functions of media. These functions include: providing information, questioning the authorities, and offering a chance for transformative learning. Further, they alleviate pain and suffering, providing new virtual communities of shared experience and hearing that facilitate resilience and recovery from catastrophe. Lastly, they contribute to a cultural transformation of catastrophe—both positive and negative (Hjorth and Kyoung-hwa "The Mourning"; "Good Grief"; McCargo and Hyon-Suk 236; Brown and Minty 9; Lau et al. 675; Morgan and de Goyet 33; Piotrowski and Armstrong 341; Sood et al. 27).Has Extensive Media Coverage Resulted in an Improved Awareness of the Catastrophic Potential of Tsunami for Australians?In playing devil’s advocate, my simple response is NO! This because I have been interviewing Australians about their perceptions and knowledge of tsunamis as a catastrophe, after events have occurred. These events have triggered alerts and warnings by the Australian Tsunami Warning System (ATWS) for selected coastal regions of Australia. Consequently, I have visited coastal suburbs and interviewed people about tsunamis generally and those events specifically. Formal interviews (surveys) and informal conversations have revolved around what people perceived about the hazard, the likely consequences, what they knew about the warning, where they got their information from, how they behaved and why, and so forth. I have undertaken this work after the 2007 Solomon Islands, 2009 New Zealand, 2009 South Pacific, the February 2010 Chile, and March 2011 Japan tsunamis. I have now spoken to more than 800 people. Detailed research results will be presented elsewhere, but of relevance here, I have discovered that, to begin with, Australians have a reasonable and shared cultural knowledge of the potential catastrophic effects that tsunamis can have. They use terms such as “devastating; death; damage; loss; frightening; economic impact; societal loss; horrific; overwhelming and catastrophic.” Secondly, when I ask Australians about their sources of information about tsunamis, they describe the television (80%); Internet (85%); radio (25%); newspaper (35%); and social media including YouTube (65%). This tells me that the media are critical to underpinning knowledge of catastrophe and are a powerful transformative medium for the acquisition of knowledge. Thirdly, when asked about where people get information about live warning messages and alerts, Australians stated the “television (95%); Internet (70%); family and friends (65%).” Fourthly and significantly, when individuals were asked what they thought being caught in a tsunami would be like, responses included “fun (50%); awesome (75%); like in a movie (40%).” Fifthly, when people were asked about what they would do (i.e., their “stated behaviour”) during a real tsunami arriving at the coast, responses included “go down to the beach to swim/surf the tsunami (40%); go to the sea to watch (85%); video the tsunami and sell to the news media people (40%).”An independent and powerful representation of the disjunct between Australians’ knowledge of the catastrophic potential of tsunamis and their “negative” behavioral response can be found in viewing live television news coverage broadcast from Sydney beaches on the morning of Sunday 28 February 2010. The Chilean tsunami had taken more than 14 hours to travel from Chile to the eastern seaboard of Australia and the ATWS had issued an accurate warning and had correctly forecast the arrival time of the tsunami (approximately 08.30 am). The television and radio media had dutifully broadcast the warning issued by the State Emergency Services. The message was simple: “Stay out of the water, evacuate the beaches and move to higher ground.” As the tsunami arrived, those news broadcasts showed volunteer State Emergency Service personnel and Surf Life Saving Australia lifeguards “begging” with literally hundreds (probably thousands up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia) of members of the public to stop swimming in the incoming tsunami and to evacuate the beaches. On that occasion, Australians were lucky and the tsunami was inconsequential. What do these responses mean? Clearly Australians recognise and can describe the consequences of a tsunami. However, they are not associating the catastrophic nature of tsunami with their own lives or experience. They are avoiding or disallowing the reality; they normalise and dramaticise the event. Thus in Australia, to date, a cultural transformation about the catastrophic nature of tsunami has not occurred for reasons that are not entirely clear but are the subject of ongoing study.The Emergence of Tsunami as a “New Australian Catastrophe”?As a natural disaster expert with nearly two decades experience, in my mind tsunami has emerged as a “new Australian catastrophe.” I believe this has occurred for a number of reasons. Firstly, the 2004 IOT was devastating and did impact northwestern Australia, raising the flag on this hitherto, unknown threat. Australia is now known to be vulnerable to the tsunami catastrophe. The media have played a critical role here. Secondly, in the 2004 IOT and other tsunamis since, Australians have died and their deaths have been widely reported in the Australian media. Thirdly, the emergence of various forms of social media has facilitated an explosion in information and material that can be consumed, digested, reimagined, and normalised by Australians hungry for the gore of catastrophe—it feeds our desire for catastrophic death and destruction. Fourthly, catastrophe has been creatively imagined and retold for a story-hungry viewing public. Whether through regular television shows easily consumed from a comfy chair at home, or whilst eating popcorn at a cinema, tsunami catastrophe is being fed to us in a way that reaffirms its naturalness. Juxtaposed against this idea though is that, despite all the graphic imagery of tsunami catastrophe, especially images of dead children in other countries, Australian media do not and culturally cannot, display images of dead Australian children. Such images are widely considered too gruesome but are well known to drive changes in cultural behaviour because of the iconic significance of the child within our society. As such, a cultural shift has not yet occurred and so the potential of catastrophe remains waiting to strike. Fifthly and significantly, given the fact that large numbers of Australians have not died during recent tsunamis means that again, the catastrophic potential of tsunamis is not yet realised and has not resulted in cultural changes to more affirmative behaviour. Lastly, Australians are probably more aware of “regular or common” catastrophes such as floods and bush fires that are normal to the Australian climate system and which are endlessly experienced individually and culturally and covered by the media in all forms. The Australian summer of 2012–13 has again been dominated by floods and fires. If this idea is accepted, the media construct a uniquely Australian imaginary of catastrophe and cultural discourse of disaster. The familiarity with these common climate catastrophes makes us “culturally blind” to the catastrophe that is tsunami.The consequences of a major tsunami affecting Australia some point in the future are likely to be of a scale not yet comprehensible. References Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "ABC Net Splash." 20 Mar. 2013 ‹http://splash.abc.net.au/media?id=31077›. Brown, Philip, and Jessica Minty. “Media Coverage and Charitable Giving after the 2004 Tsunami.” Southern Economic Journal 75 (2008): 9–25. Bryant, Edward. Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. First Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. ———. Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. Second Edition, Sydney: Springer-Praxis, 2008. Caldwell, Anna, Natalie Gregg, Fiona Hudson, Patrick Lion, Janelle Miles, Bart Sinclair, and John Wright. “Samoa Tsunami Claims Five Aussies as Death Toll Rises.” The Courier Mail 1 Oct. 2009. 20 Mar. 2013 ‹http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/samoa-tsunami-claims-five-aussies-as-death-toll-rises/story-e6freon6-1225781357413›. CDEMA. "The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. Tsunami SMART Media Web Site." 18 Dec. 2012. 20 Mar. 2013 ‹http://weready.org/tsunami/index.php?Itemid=40&id=40&option=com_content&view=article›. Cox, Robin, Bonita Long, and Megan Jones. “Sequestering of Suffering – Critical Discourse Analysis of Natural Disaster Media Coverage.” Journal of Health Psychology 13 (2008): 469–80. “CSI: Miami (Season 3, Episode 7).” International Movie Database (IMDb). ‹http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0534784/›. 9 Jan. 2013. "CSI: Miami (Season 3)." Wikipedia. ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI:_Miami_(season_3)#Episodes›. 21 Mar. 2013. DFAT. "Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Annual Report 2004–2005." 8 Jan. 2013 ‹http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/annual_reports/04_05/downloads/2_Outcome2.pdf›. Dominey-Howes, Dale. “Geological and Historical Records of Australian Tsunami.” Marine Geology 239 (2007): 99–123. Dominey-Howes, Dale, and Randy Thaman. “UNESCO-IOC International Tsunami Survey Team Samoa Interim Report of Field Survey 14–21 October 2009.” No. 2. Australian Tsunami Research Centre. University of New South Wales, Sydney. "Hereafter." International Movie Database (IMDb). ‹http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212419/›. 9 Jan. 2013."Hereafter." Wikipedia. ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereafter (film)›. 21 Mar. 2013. Hjorth, Larissa, and Yonnie Kyoung-hwa. “The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan.” Television and News Media 12 (2011): 552–59. ———, and Yonnie Kyoung-hwa. “Good Grief: The Role of Mobile Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan.” Digital Creativity 22 (2011): 187–99. Lau, Joseph, Mason Lau, and Jean Kim. “Impacts of Media Coverage on the Community Stress Level in Hong Kong after the Tsunami on 26 December 2004.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60 (2006): 675–82. McCargo, Duncan, and Lee Hyon-Suk. “Japan’s Political Tsunami: What’s Media Got to Do with It?” International Journal of Press-Politics 15 (2010): 236–45. Miles, Brian, and Stephanie Morse. “The Role of News Media in Natural Disaster Risk and Recovery.” Ecological Economics 63 (2007): 365–73. Morgan, Olive, and Charles de Goyet. “Dispelling Disaster Myths about Dead Bodies and Disease: The Role of Scientific Evidence and the Media.” Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica-Pan American Journal of Public Health 18 (2005): 33–6. Olofsson, Anna. “The Indian Ocean Tsunami in Swedish Newspapers: Nationalism after Catastrophe.” Disaster Prevention and Management 20 (2011): 557–69. Piotrowski, Chris, and Terry Armstrong. “Mass Media Preferences in Disaster: A Study of Hurricane Danny.” Social Behavior and Personality 26 (1998): 341–45. Ploughman, Penelope. “The American Print News Media Construction of Five Natural Disasters.” Disasters 19 (1995): 308–26. Prendergast, Amy, and Nick Brown. “Far Field Impact and Coastal Sedimentation Associated with the 2006 Java Tsunami in West Australia: Post-Tsunami Survey at Steep Point, West Australia.” Natural Hazards 60 (2012): 69–79. Sharp, Joanne. “A Subaltern Critical Geopolitics of The War on Terror: Postcolonial Security in Tanzania.” Geoforum 42 (2011): 297–305. Sood, Rahul, Stockdale, Geoffrey, and Everett Rogers. “How the News Media Operate in Natural Disasters.” Journal of Communication 37 (1987): 27–41.

“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them [...] life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” (Garcia Marquez 165) Introduction The refugee experience is, at heart, one of rebirth. Just as becoming a new, distinctive being—biological birth—necessarily involves the physical separation of mother and infant, so becoming a refugee entails separation from a "mother country." This mother country may or may not be a recognised nation state; the point is that the refugee transitions from physical connectedness to separation, from insider to outsider, from endemic to alien. Like babies, refugees may have little control over the timing and conditions of their expulsion. Successful resettlement requires not one rebirth but multiple rebirths—resettlement is a lifelong process (Layton)—which in turn require hope, imagination, and energy. In rebirthing themselves over and over again, people who have fled or been forced from their homelands become both mother and child. They do not go through this rebirthing alone. A range of agencies and individuals may be there to assist, including immigration officials, settlement services, schools and teachers, employment agencies and employers, English as a Second Language (ESL) resources and instructors, health-care providers, counsellors, diasporic networks, neighbours, church groups, and other community organisations. The nature, intensity, and duration of these “midwives’” interventions—and when they occur and in what combinations—vary hugely from place to place and from person to person, but there is clear evidence that post-migration experiences have a significant impact on settlement outcomes (Fozdar and Hartley). This paper draws on qualitative research I did in 2012 in a regional town in New South Wales to illuminate some of the ways in which settlement aides ease, or impede, refugees’ rebirth as fully recognised and participating Australians. I begin by considering what it means to be resilient before tracing some of the dimensions of the resettlement process. In doing so, I draw on data from interviews and focus groups with former refugees, service providers, and other residents of the town I shall call Easthaven. First, though, a word about Easthaven. As is the case in many rural and regional parts of Australia, Easthaven’s population is strongly dominated by Anglo Celtic and Saxon ancestries: 2011 Census data show that more than 80 per cent of residents were born in Australia (compared with a national figure of 69.8 per cent) and about 90 per cent speak only English at home (76.8 per cent). Almost twice as many people identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as the national figure of 2.5 per cent (Australian Bureau of Statistics). For several years Easthaven has been an official “Refugee Welcome Zone”, welcoming hundreds of refugees from diverse countries in Africa and the Middle East as well as from Myanmar. This reflects the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s drive to settle a fifth of Australia’s 13,750 humanitarian entrants a year directly in regional areas. In Easthaven’s schools—which is where I focused my research—almost all of the ESL students are from refugee backgrounds. Defining Resilience Much of the research on human resilience is grounded in psychology, with a capacity to “bounce back” from adverse experiences cited in many definitions of resilience (e.g. American Psychological Association). Bouncing back implies a relatively quick process, and a return to a state or form similar to that which existed before the encounter with adversity. Yet resilience often requires sustained effort and significant changes in identity. As Jerome Rugaruza, a former UNHCR refugee, says of his journey from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Australia: All the steps begin in the burning village: you run with nothing to eat, no clothes. You just go. Then you get to the refugee camp […] You have a little bread and you thank god you are safe. Then after a few years in the camp, you think about a future for your children. You arrive in Australia and then you learn a new language, you learn to drive. There are so many steps and not everyone can do it. (Milsom) Not everyone can do it, but a large majority do. Research by Graeme Hugo, for example, shows that although humanitarian settlers in Australia face substantial barriers to employment and initially have much higher unemployment rates than other immigrants, for most nationality groups this difference has disappeared by the second generation: “This is consistent with the sacrifice (or investment) of the first generation and the efforts extended to attain higher levels of education and English proficiency, thereby reducing the barriers over time.” (Hugo 35). Ingrid Poulson writes that “resilience is not just about bouncing. Bouncing […] is only a reaction. Resilience is about rising—you rise above it, you rise to the occasion, you rise to the challenge. Rising is an active choice” (47; my emphasis) I see resilience as involving mental and physical grit, coupled with creativity, aspiration and, crucially, agency. Dimensions of Resettlement To return to the story of 41-year-old Jerome Rugaruza, as related in a recent newspaper article: He [Mr Rugaruza] describes the experience of being a newly arrived refugee as being like that of a newborn baby. “You need special care; you have to learn to speak [English], eat the different food, create relationships, connections”. (Milsom) This is a key dimension of resettlement: the adult becomes like an infant again, shifting from someone who knows how things work and how to get by to someone who is likely to be, for a while, dependent on others for even the most basic things—communication, food, shelter, clothing, and social contact. The “special care” that most refugee arrivals need initially (and sometimes for a long time) often results in their being seen as deficient—in knowledge, skills, dispositions, and capacities as well as material goods (Keddie; Uptin, Wright and Harwood). As Fozdar and Hartley note: “The tendency to use a deficit model in refugee resettlement devalues people and reinforces the view of the mainstream population that refugees are a liability” (27). Yet unlike newborns, humanitarian settlers come to their new countries with rich social networks and extensive histories of experience and learning—resources that are in fact vital to their rebirth. Sisay (all names are pseudonyms), a year 11 student of Ethiopian heritage who was born in Kenya, told me with feeling: I had a life back in Africa [her emphasis]. It was good. Well, I would go back there if there’s no problems, which—is a fact. And I came here for a better life—yeah, I have a better life, there’s good health care, free school, and good environment and all that. But what’s that without friends? A fellow student, Celine, who came to Australia five years ago from Burundi via Uganda, told me in a focus group: Some teachers are really good but I think some other teachers could be a little bit more encouraging and understanding of what we’ve gone through, because [they] just look at you like “You’re year 11 now, you should know this” […] It’s really discouraging when [the teachers say] in front of the class, “Oh, you shouldn’t do this subject because you haven’t done this this this this” […] It’s like they’re on purpose to tell you “you don’t have what it takes; just give up and do something else.” As Uptin, Wright and Harwood note, “schools not only have the power to position who is included in schooling (in culture and pedagogy) but also have the power to determine whether there is room and appreciation for diversity” (126). Both Sisay and Celine were disheartened by the fact they felt some of their teachers, and many of their peers, had little interest in or understanding of their lives before they came to Australia. The teachers’ low expectations of refugee-background students (Keddie, Uptin, Wright and Harwood) contrasted with the students’ and their families’ high expectations of themselves (Brown, Miller and Mitchell; Harris and Marlowe). When I asked Sisay about her post-school ambitions, she said: “I have a good idea of my future […] write a documentary. And I’m working on it.” Celine’s response was: “I know I’m gonna do medicine, be a doctor.” A third girl, Lily, who came to Australia from Myanmar three years ago, told me she wanted to be an accountant and had studied accounting at the local TAFE last year. Joseph, a father of three who resettled from South Sudan seven years ago, stressed how important getting a job was to successful settlement: [But] you have to get a certificate first to get a job. Even the job of cleaning—when I came here I was told that somebody has to go to have training in cleaning, to use the different chemicals to clean the ground and all that. But that is just sweeping and cleaning with water—you don’t need the [higher-level] skills. Simple jobs like this, we are not able to get them. In regional Australia, employment opportunities tend to be limited (Fozdar and Hartley); the unemployment rate in Easthaven is twice the national average. Opportunities to study are also more limited than in urban centres, and would-be students are not always eligible for financial assistance to gain or upgrade qualifications. Even when people do have appropriate qualifications, work experience, and language proficiency, the colour of their skin may still mean they miss out on a job. Tilbury and Colic-Peisker have documented the various ways in which employers deflect responsibility for racial discrimination, including the “common” strategy (658) of arguing that while the employer or organisation is not prejudiced, they have to discriminate because of their clients’ needs or expectations. I heard this strategy deployed in an interview with a local businesswoman, Catriona: We were advertising for a new technician. And one of the African refugees came to us and he’d had a lot of IT experience. And this is awful, but we felt we couldn't give him the job, because we send our technicians into people's houses, and we knew that if a black African guy rocked up at someone’s house to try and fix their computer, they would not always be welcomed in all—look, it would not be something that [Easthaven] was ready for yet. Colic-Peisker and Tilbury (Refugees and Employment) note that while Australia has strict anti-discrimination legislation, this legislation may be of little use to the people who, because of the way they look and sound (skin colour, dress, accent), are most likely to face prejudice and discrimination. The researchers found that perceived discrimination in the labour market affected humanitarian settlers’ sense of satisfaction with their new lives far more than, for example, racist remarks, which were generally shrugged off; the students I interviewed spoke of racism as “expected,” but “quite rare.” Most of the people Colic-Peisker and Tilbury surveyed reported finding Australians “friendly and accepting” (33). Even if there is no active discrimination on the basis of skin colour in employment, education, or housing, or overt racism in social situations, visible difference can still affect a person’s sense of belonging, as Joseph recounts: I think of myself as Australian, but my colour doesn’t [laughs] […] Unfortunately many, many Australians are expecting that Australia is a country of Europeans … There is no need for somebody to ask “Where do you come from?” and “Do you find Australia here safe?” and “Do you enjoy it?” Those kind of questions doesn’t encourage that we are together. This highlights another dimension of resettlement: the journey from feeling “at home” to feeling “foreign” to, eventually, feeling at home again in the host country (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury, Refugees and Employment). In the case of visibly different settlers, however, this last stage may never be completed. Whether the questions asked of Joseph are well intentioned or not, their effect may be the same: they position him as a “forever foreigner” (Park). A further dimension of resettlement—one already touched on—is the degree to which humanitarian settlers actively manage their “rebirth,” and are allowed and encouraged to do so. A key factor will be their mastery of English, and Easthaven’s ESL teachers are thus pivotal in the resettlement process. There is little doubt that many of these teachers have gone to great lengths to help this cohort of students, not only in terms of language acquisition but also social inclusion. However, in some cases what is initially supportive can, with time, begin to undermine refugees’ maturity into independent citizens. Sharon, an ESL teacher at one of the schools, told me how she and her colleagues would give their refugee-background students lifts to social events: But then maybe three years down the track they have a car and their dad can drive, but they still won’t take them […] We arrive to pick them up and they’re not ready, or there’s five fantastic cars in the driveway, and you pick up the student and they say “My dad’s car’s much bigger and better than yours” [laughs]. So there’s an expectation that we’ll do stuff for them, but we’ve created that [my emphasis]. Other support services may have more complex interests in keeping refugee settlers dependent. The more clients an agency has, the more services it provides, and the longer clients stay on its books, the more lucrative the contract for the agency. Thus financial and employment imperatives promote competition rather than collaboration between service providers (Fozdar and Hartley; Sidhu and Taylor) and may encourage assumptions about what sorts of services different individuals and groups want and need. Colic-Peisker and Tilbury (“‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement”) have developed a typology of resettlement styles—“achievers,” “consumers,” “endurers,” and “victims”—but stress that a person’s style, while influenced by personality and pre-migration factors, is also shaped by the institutions and individuals they come into contact with: “The structure of settlement and welfare services may produce a victim mentality, leaving members of refugee communities inert and unable to see themselves as agents of change” (76). The prevailing narrative of “the traumatised refugee” is a key aspect of this dynamic (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury, “‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement”; Fozdar and Hartley; Keddie). Service providers may make assumptions about what humanitarian settlers have gone through before arriving in Australia, how they have been affected by their experiences, and what must be done to “fix” them. Norah, a long-time caseworker, told me: I think you get some [providers] who go, “How could you have gone through something like that and not suffered? There must be—you must have to talk about this stuff” […] Where some [refugees] just come with the [attitude] “We’re all born into a situation; that was my situation, but I’m here now and now my focus is this.” She cited failure to consider cultural sensitivities around mental illness and to recognise that stress and anxiety during early resettlement are normal (Tilbury) as other problems in the sector: [Newly arrived refugees] go through the “happy to be here” [phase] and now “hang on, I’ve thumped to the bottom and I’m missing my own foods and smells and cultures and experiences”. I think sometimes we’re just too quick to try and slot people into a box. One factor that appears to be vital in fostering and sustaining resilience is social connection. Norah said her clients were “very good on the mobile phone” and had links “everywhere,” including to family and friends in their countries of birth, transition countries, and other parts of Australia. A 2011 report for DIAC, Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals, found that humanitarian entrants to Australia were significantly more likely to be members of cultural and/or religious groups than other categories of immigrants (Australian Survey Research). I found many examples of efforts to build both bonding and bridging capital (Putnam) in Easthaven, and I offer two examples below. Several people told me about a dinner-dance that had been held a few weeks before one of my visits. The event was organised by an African women’s group, which had been formed—with funding assistance—several years before. The dinner-dance was advertised in the local newspaper and attracted strong interest from a broad cross-section of Easthaveners. To Debbie, a counsellor, the response signified a “real turnaround” in community relations and was a big boon to the women’s sense of belonging. Erica, a teacher, told me about a cultural exchange day she had organised between her bush school—where almost all of the children are Anglo Australian—and ESL students from one of the town schools: At the start of the day, my kids were looking at [the refugee-background students] and they were scared, they were saying to me, "I feel scared." And we shoved them all into this tiny little room […] and they had no choice but to sit practically on top of each other. And by the end of the day, they were hugging each other and braiding their hair and jumping and playing together. Like Uptin, Wright and Harwood, I found that the refugee-background students placed great importance on the social aspects of school. Sisay, the girl I introduced earlier in this paper, said: “It’s just all about friendship and someone to be there for you […] We try to be friends with them [the non-refugee students] sometimes but sometimes it just seems they don’t want it.” Conclusion A 2012 report on refugee settlement services in NSW concludes that the state “is not meeting its responsibility to humanitarian entrants as well as it could” (Audit Office of New South Wales 2); moreover, humanitarian settlers in NSW are doing less well on indicators such as housing and health than humanitarian settlers in other states (3). Evaluating the effectiveness of formal refugee-centred programs was not part of my research and is beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, I have sought to reveal some of the ways in which the attitudes, assumptions, and everyday practices of service providers and members of the broader community impact on refugees' settlement experience. What I heard repeatedly in the interviews I conducted was that it was emotional and practical support (Matthews; Tilbury), and being asked as well as told (about their hopes, needs, desires), that helped Easthaven’s refugee settlers bear themselves into fulfilling new lives. References Audit Office of New South Wales. Settling Humanitarian Entrants in New South Wales—Executive Summary. May 2012. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/245/02_Humanitarian_Entrants_2012_Executive_Summary.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y>. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2011 Census QuickStats. Mar. 2013. 11 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0>. Australian Survey Research. Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals—Report of Findings. Apr. 2011. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/settlement-outcomes-new-arrivals.pdf>. Brown, Jill, Jenny Miller, and Jane Mitchell. “Interrupted Schooling and the Acquisition of Literacy: Experiences of Sudanese Refugees in Victorian Secondary Schools.” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 29.2 (2006): 150-62. Colic-Peisker, Val, and Farida Tilbury. “‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement: The Influence of Supporting Services and Refugees’ Own Resources on Resettlement Style.” International Migration 41.5 (2004): 61-91. ———. Refugees and Employment: The Effect of Visible Difference on Discrimination—Final Report. Perth: Centre for Social and Community Research, Murdoch University, 2007. Fozdar, Farida, and Lisa Hartley. “Refugee Resettlement in Australia: What We Know and Need To Know.” Refugee Survey Quarterly 4 Jun. 2013. 12 Aug. 2013 ‹http://rsq.oxfordjournals.org/search?fulltext=fozdar&submit=yes&x=0&y=0>. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera. London: Penguin Books, 1989. Harris, Vandra, and Jay Marlowe. “Hard Yards and High Hopes: The Educational Challenges of African Refugee University Students in Australia.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 23.2 (2011): 186-96. Hugo, Graeme. A Significant Contribution: The Economic, Social and Civic Contributions of First and Second Generation Humanitarian Entrants—Summary of Findings. Canberra: Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011. Keddie, Amanda. “Pursuing Justice for Refugee Students: Addressing Issues of Cultural (Mis)recognition.” International Journal of Inclusive Education 16.12 (2012): 1295-1310. Layton, Robyn. "Building Capacity to Ensure the Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups." Creating Our Future conference, Adelaide, 28 Jul. 2012. Milsom, Rosemarie. “From Hard Luck Life to the Lucky Country.” Sydney Morning Herald 20 Jun. 2013. 12 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/national/from-hard-luck-life-to-the-lucky-country-20130619-2oixl.html>. Park, Gilbert C. “’Are We Real Americans?’: Cultural Production of Forever Foreigners at a Diversity Event.” Education and Urban Society 43.4 (2011): 451-67. Poulson, Ingrid. Rise. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2008. Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Sidhu, Ravinder K., and Sandra Taylor. “The Trials and Tribulations of Partnerships in Refugee Settlement Services in Australia.” Journal of Education Policy 24.6 (2009): 655-72. Tilbury, Farida. “‘I Feel I Am a Bird without Wings’: Discourses of Sadness and Loss among East Africans in Western Australia.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 14.4 (2007): 433-58. ———, and Val Colic-Peisker. “Deflecting Responsibility in Employer Talk about Race Discrimination.” Discourse & Society 17.5 (2006): 651-76. Uptin, Jonnell, Jan Wright, and Valerie Harwood. “It Felt Like I Was a Black Dot on White Paper: Examining Young Former Refugees’ Experience of Entering Australian High Schools.” The Australian Educational Researcher 40.1 (2013): 125-37.

“People live here, they die here so they must leave traces.” (Read 140) “Whatever colonialism was and is, it has made this place unsettling and unsettled.” (Gibson, Badland 2) Introduction What does it mean for [a] country to be haunted? In much theoretical work in film and Cultural Studies since the 1990s, the Australian continent, more often than not, bears traces of long suppressed traumas which inevitably resurface to haunt the present (Gelder and Jacobs; Gibson; Read; Collins and Davis). Felicity Collins and Therese Davis illuminate the ways Australian cinema acts as a public sphere, or “vernacular modernity,” for rethinking settler/indigenous relations. Their term “backtracking” serves as a mode of “collective mourning” in numerous films of the last decade which render unspoken colonial violence meaningful in contemporary Australia, and account for the “aftershocks” of the Mabo decision that overturned the founding fiction of terra nullius (7). Ray Lawrence’s 2006 film Jindabyne is another after-Mabo film in this sense; its focus on conflict within settler/indigenous relations in a small local town in the alpine region explores a traumatised ecology and drowned country. More than this, in our paper’s investigation of country and its attendant politics, Jindabyne country is the space of excessive haunting and resurfacing - engaging in the hard work of what Gibson (Transformations) has termed “historical backfill”, imaginative speculations “that make manifest an urge to account for the disconnected fragments” of country. Based on an adaptation by Beatrix Christian of the Raymond Carver story, So Much Water, So Close to Home, Jindabyne centres on the ethical dilemma produced when a group of fishermen find the floating, murdered body of a beautiful indigenous woman on a weekend trip, but decide to stay on and continue fishing. In Jindabyne, “'country' […] is made to do much discursive work” (Gorman-Murray). In this paper, we use the word as a metonym for the nation, where macro-political issues are played out and fought over. But we also use ‘country’ to signal the ‘wilderness’ alpine areas that appear in Jindabyne, where country is “a notion encompassing nature and human obligation that white Australia has learned slowly from indigenous Australia” (Gibson, Badland 178). This meaning enables a slippage between ‘land’ and ‘country’. Our discussion of country draws heavily on concepts from Ross Gibson’s theorisation of badlands. Gibson claims that originally, ‘badland’ was a term used by Europeans in North America when they came across “a tract of country that would not succumb to colonial ambition” (Badland 14). Using Collins and Davis’s “vernacular modernity” as a starting point, a film such as Jindabyne invites us to work through the productive possibilities of postcolonial haunting; to move from backtracking (going over old ground) to imaginative backfill (where holes and gaps in the ground are refilled in unconventional and creative returns to the past). Jindabyne (as place and filmic space) signifies “the special place that the Australian Alps occupy for so many Australians”, and the film engages in the discursive work of promoting “shared understanding” and the possibility of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal being “in country” (Baird, Egloff and Lebehan 35). We argue specifically that Jindabyne is a product of “aftermath culture” (Gibson Transformations); a culture living within the ongoing effects of the past, where various levels of filmic haunting make manifest multiple levels of habitation, in turn the product of numerous historical and physical aftermaths. Colonial history, environmental change, expanding wire towers and overflowing dams all lend meaning in the film to personal dilemmas, communal conflict and horrific recent crimes. The discovery of a murdered indigenous woman in water high in the mountains lays bare the fragility of a relocated community founded in the drowning of the town of old Jindabyne which created Lake Jindabyne. Beatrix Christian (in Trbic 61), the film’s writer, explains “everybody in the story is haunted by something. […] There is this group of haunted people, and then you have the serial killer who emerges in his season to create havoc.” “What’s in this compulsion to know the negative space?” asks Gibson (Badland 14). It’s the desire to better know and more deeply understand where we live. And haunting gives us cause to investigate further. Drowned, Murderous Country Jindabyne rewrites “the iconic wilderness of Australia’s High Country” (McHugh online) and replaces it with “a vast, historical crime scene” (Gibson, Badland 2). Along with nearby Adaminaby, the township of Old Jindabyne was drowned and its inhabitants relocated to the new town in the 1960s as part of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme. When Jindabyne was made in 2006 the scheme no longer represented an uncontested example of Western technological progress ‘taming’ the vast mountainous country. Early on in the film a teacher shows a short documentary about the town’s history in which Old Jindabyne locals lament the houses that will soon be sacrificed to the Snowy River’s torrents. These sentiments sit in opposition to Manning Clark’s grand vision of the scheme as “an inspiration to all who dream dreams about Australia” (McHugh online). With a 100,000-strong workforce, mostly migrated from war-ravaged Europe, the post-war Snowy project took 25 years and was completed in 1974. Such was this engineering feat that 121 workmen “died for the dream, of turning the rivers back through the mountains, to irrigate the dry inland” (McHugh online). Jindabyne re-presents this romantic narrative of progress as nothing less than an environmental crime. The high-tension wires scar the ‘pristine’ high country and the lake haunts every aspect of the characters’ interactions, hinting at the high country’s intractability that will “not succumb to colonial ambition” (Gibson, Badland 14). Describing his critical excavation of places haunted, out-of-balance or simply badlands, Gibson explains: Rummaging in Australia's aftermath cultures, I try to re-dress the disintegration in our story-systems, in our traditional knowledge caches, our landscapes and ecologies […] recuperate scenes and collections […] torn by landgrabbing, let's say, or by accidents, or exploitation that ignores rituals of preservation and restoration (Transformations). Tourism is now the predominant focus of Lake Jindabyne and the surrounding areas but in the film, as in history, the area does not “succumb to the temptations of pictorialism” (McFarlane 10), that is, it cannot be framed solely by the picture postcard qualities that resort towns often engender and promote. Jindabyne’s sense of menace signals the transformation of the landscape that has taken place – from ‘untouched’ to country town, and from drowned old town to the relocated, damned and electrified new one. Soon after the opening of the film, a moment of fishing offers a reminder that a town once existed beneath the waters of the eerily still Lake Jindabyne. Hooking a rusty old alarm clock out of the lake, Stuart explains to Tom, his suitably puzzled young son: underneath the water is the town where all the old men sit in rocking chairs and there’s houses and shops. […] There was a night […] I heard this noise — boing, boing, boing. And it was a bell coming from under the water. ‘Cause the old church is still down there and sometimes when the water’s really low, you can see the tip of the spire. Jindabyne’s lake thus functions as “a revelation of horrors past” (Gibson Badland 2). It’s not the first time this man-made lake is filmically positioned as a place where “violence begins to seem natural” (Gibson, Badland 13). Cate Shortland’s Somersault (2004) also uses Lake Jindabyne and its surrounds to create a bleak and menacing ambience that heightens young Heidi’s sense of alienation (Simpson, ‘Reconfiguring rusticity’). In Somersault, the male-dominated Jindabyne is far from welcoming for the emotionally vulnerable out-of-towner, who is threatened by her friend’s father beside the Lake, then menaced again by boys she meets at a local pub. These scenes undermine the alpine region’s touristic image, inundated in the summer with tourists coming to fish and water ski, and likewise, with snow skiers in the winter. Even away from the Lake, there is no fleeing its spectre. “The high-tension wires marching down the hillside from the hydro-station” hum to such an extent that in one scene, “reminiscent of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)”, a member of the fishing party is spooked (Ryan 52). This violence wrought upon the landscape contextualises the murder of the young indigenous woman, Susan, by Greg, an electrician who after murdering Susan, seems to hover in the background of several scenes of the film. Close to the opening of Jindabyne, through binoculars from his rocky ridge, Greg spots Susan’s lone car coursing along the plain; he chases her in his vehicle, and forces her to stop. Before (we are lead to assume) he drags her from the vehicle and murders her, he rants madly through her window, “It all comes down from the power station, the electricity!” That the murder/murderer is connected with the hydro-electric project is emphasised by the location scout in the film’s pre-production: We had one location in the scene where Greg dumps the body in some water and Ray [Lawrence] had his heart set on filming that next to some huge pipelines on a dam near Talbingo but Snowy Hydro didn’t […] like that negative content […] in association with their facility and […] said ‘no’ they wouldn’t let us do it.” (Jindabyne DVD extras) “Tales of murder and itinerancy in wild country are as old as the story of Cain in the killing fields of Eden” (Badlands 14). In Jindabyne we never really get to meet Greg but he is a familiar figure in Australian film and culture. Like many before him, he is the lone Road Warrior, a ubiquitous white male presence roaming the de-populated country where the road constantly produces acts of (accidental and intentional) violence (Simpson, ‘Antipodean Automobility’). And after a litany of murders in recent films such as Wolf Creek (Greg McLean, 2005) and Gone (Ringan Ledwidge, 2007) the “violence begins to seem natural” (Gibson Transformations 13) in the isolating landscape. The murderer in Jindabyne, unlike those who have migrated here as adults (the Irish Stuart and his American wife, Claire), is autochthonous in a landscape familiar with a trauma that cannot remain hidden or submerged. Contested High Country The unsinkability of Susan’s body, now an ‘indigenous murdered body’, holds further metaphorical value for resurfacing as a necessary component of aftermath culture. Such movement is not always intelligible within non-indigenous relations to country, though the men’s initial response to the body frames its drifting in terms of ascension: they question whether they have “broken her journey by tying her up”. The film reconfigures terra nullius as the ultimate badland, one that can never truly suppress continuing forms of physical, spiritual, historical and cultural engagement with country, and the alpine areas of Jindabyne and the Snowy River in particular. Lennon (14) points to “the legacy of biased recording and analysis” that “constitutes a threat to the cultural significance of Aboriginal heritage in alpine areas” (15). This significance is central to the film, prompting Lawrence to state that “mountains in any country have a spiritual quality about them […] in Aboriginal culture the highest point in the landscape is the most significant and this is the highest point of our country” (in Cordaiy 40). So whilst the Jindabyne area is contested country, it is the surfacing, upward mobility and unsinkable quality of Aboriginal memory that Brewster argues “is unsettling the past in post-invasion Australia” (in Lambert, Balayi 7). As the agent of backfill, the indigenous body (Susan) unsettles Jindabyne country by offering both evidence of immediate violence and reigniting the memory of it, before the film can find even the smallest possibility of its characters being ‘in country’. Claire illustrates her understanding of this in a conversation with her young son, as she attempts to contact the dead girls’ family. “When a bad thing happens,” she says, “we all have to do a good thing, no matter how small, alright? Otherwise the bad things, they just pile up and up and up.” Her persistent yet clumsy enactment of the cross-cultural go-between illuminates the ways “the small town community move through the terms of recent debate: shame and denial, repressed grief and paternalism” (Ryan 53). It is the movement of backfill within the aftermath: The movement of a foreign non-Aboriginal woman into Aboriginal space intertextually re-animates the processes of ‘settlement’, resolution and environmental assimilation for its still ‘unsettled’ white protagonists. […] Claire attempts an apology to the woman’s family and the Aboriginal community – in an Australia before Kevin Rudd where official apologies for the travesties of Australian/colonial history had not been forthcoming […] her movement towards reconciliation here is reflective of the ‘moral failure’ of a disconnection from Aboriginal history. (Lambert, Diasporas) The shift from dead white girl in Carver’s story to young Aboriginal woman speaks of a political focus on the ‘significance’ of the alpine region at a given moment in time. The corpse functions “as the trigger for crisis and panic in an Australia after native title, the stolen generation and the war-on-terror” (Lambert, Diasporas). The process of reconnecting with country and history must confront its ghosts if the community is to move forward. Gibson (Transformations) argues that “if we continue to close our imaginations to the aberrations and insufficiencies in our historical records. […] It’s likely we won’t dwell in the joy till we get real about the darkness.” In the post-colonial, multicultural but still divided geographies and cultures of Jindabyne, “genocidal displacement” comes face to face with the “irreconciled relation” to land “that refuses to remain half-seen […] a measure of non-indigenous failure to move from being on the land to being in country” (Ryan 52), evidenced by water harvesting in the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and the more recent crises in water and land management. Aftermath Country Haunted by historical, cultural and environmental change, Jindabyne constitutes a post-traumatic screen space. In aftermath culture, bodies and landscapes offer the “traces” (Gibson, Transformations) of “the social consequences” of a “heritage of catastrophe” that people “suffer, witness, or even perpetrate” so that “the legacy of trauma is bequeathed” (Walker i). The youth of Jindabyne are charged with traumatic heritage. The young Susan’s body predictably bears the semiotic weight of colonial atrocity and non-indigenous environmental development. Evidence of witnesses, perpetrators and sufferers is still being revealed after the corpse is taken to the town morgue, where Claire (in a culturally improper viewing) is horrified by Susan’s marks from being secured in the water by Stuart and the other men. Other young characters are likewise haunted by a past that is environmental and tragically personal. Claire and Stuart’s young son, Tom (left by his mother for a period in early infancy and the witness of his parents strained marital relations), has an intense fear of drowning. This personal/historical fear is played with by his seven year old friend, Caylin-Calandria, who expresses her own grief from the death of her young mother environmentally - by escaping into the surrounding nature at night, by dabbling in the dark arts and sacrificing small animals. The two characters “have a lot to believe in and a lot of things to express – belief in zombies and ghosts, ritual death, drowning” (Cordaiy 42). As Boris Trbic (64) observes of the film’s characters, “communal and familial harmony is closely related to their intense perceptions of the natural world and their often distorted understanding of the ways their partners, friends and children cope with the grieving process.” Hence the legacy of trauma in Jindabyne is not limited to the young but pervades a community that must deal with unresolved ecologies no longer concealed by watery artifice. Backfilling works through unsettled aspects of country by moving, however unsteadily, toward healing and reconciliation. Within the aftermath of colonialism, 9/11 and the final years of the Howard era, Jindabyne uses race and place to foreground the “fallout” of an indigenous “condemnation to invisibility” and the “long years of neglect by the state” (Ryan 52). Claire’s unrelenting need to apologise to the indigenous family and Stuart’s final admission of impropriety are key gestures in the film’s “microcosm of reconciliation” (53), when “the notion of reconciliation, if it had occupied any substantial space in the public imagination, was largely gone” (Rundell 44). Likewise, the invisibility of Aboriginal significance has specificity in the Jindabyne area – indigeneity is absent from narratives recounting the Snowy Mountains Scheme which “recruited some 60,000 Europeans,” providing “a basis for Australia’s postwar multicultural society” (Lennon 15); both ‘schemes’ evidencing some of the “unrecognised implications” of colonialism for indigenous people (Curthoys 36). The fading of Aboriginal issues from public view and political discourse in the Howard era was serviced by the then governmental focus on “practical reconciliation” (Rundell 44), and post 9/11 by “the broad brushstrokes of western coalition and domestic political compliance” (Lambert, CMC 252), with its renewed focus on border control, and increased suspicion of non-Western, non-Anglo-European difference. Aftermath culture grapples with the country’s complicated multicultural and globalised self-understanding in and beyond Howard’s Australia and Jindabyne is one of a series of texts, along with “refugee plays” and Australian 9/11 novels, “that mobilised themselves against the Howard government” (Rundell 43-44). Although the film may well be seen as a “profoundly embarrassing” display of left-liberal “emotional politics” (44-45), it is precisely these politics that foreground aftermath: local neglect and invisibility, terror without and within, suspect American leadership and shaky Australian-American relations, the return of history through marked bodies and landscapes. Aftermath country is simultaneously local and global – both the disappearance and the ‘problem’ of Aboriginality post-Mabo and post-9/11 are backfilled by the traces and fragments of a hidden country that rises to the surface. Conclusion What can be made of this place now? What can we know about its piecemeal ecology, its choppy geomorphics and scarified townscapes? […] What can we make of the documents that have been generated in response to this country? (Gibson, Transformations). Amidst the apologies and potentialities of settler-indigenous recognition, the murdering electrician Gregory is left to roam the haunted alpine wilderness in Jindabyne. His allegorical presence in the landscape means there is work to be done before this badland can truly become something more. Gibson (Badland 178) suggests country gets “called bad […] partly because the law needs the outlaw for reassuring citizens that the unruly and the unknown can be named and contained even if they cannot be annihilated.” In Jindabyne the movement from backtracking to backfilling (as a speculative and fragmental approach to the bodies and landscapes of aftermath culture) undermines the institutional framing of country that still seeks to conceal shared historical, environmental and global trauma. The haunting of Jindabyne country undoes the ‘official’ production of outlaw/negative space and its discursively good double by realising the complexity of resurfacing – electricity is everywhere and the land is “uncanny” not in the least because “the town of Jindabyne itself is the living double of the drowned original” (Ryan 53). The imaginative backfill of Jindabyne reorients a confused, purgatorial Australia toward the “small light of home” (53) – the hope of one day being “in country,” and as Gibson (Badland 3) suggests, the “remembering,” that is “something good we can do in response to the bad in our lands.” References Baird, Warwick, Brian Egloff and Rachel Lenehan. “Sharing the mountains: joint management of Australia’s alpine region with Aboriginal people.” historic environment 17.2 (2003): 32-36. Collins, Felicity and Therese Davis. Australian Cinema after Mabo. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. Cordaiy, Hunter. “Man, Woman and Death: Ray Lawrence on Jindabyne.” Metro 149 (2006): 38-42. Curthoys, Anne. “An Uneasy Conversation: The Multicultural and the Indigenous.” Race Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand. Ed. John Docker and Gerhard Fischer. Sydney, UNSW P, 2000. 21-36. Gelder, Ken and Jane M. Jacobs. Uncanny Australia: Sacredness an Identity in a Postcolonial Nation. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 1998. Gibson, Ross. Seven Versions of an Australian Badland. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2002. Gibson, Ross. “Places, Past, Disappearance.” Transformations 13 (2006). Aug. 11 2008 transformations.cqu.edu.au/journal/issue_13/article_01.shtml. Gorman-Murray, Andrew. “Country.” M/C Journal 11.5 (this issue). Kitson, Michael. “Carver Country: Adapting Raymond Carver in Australia.” Metro150 (2006): 54-60. Lambert, Anthony. “Movement within a Filmic terra nullius: Woman, Land and Identity in Australian Cinema.” Balayi, Culture, Law and Colonialism 1.2 (2001): 7-17. Lambert, Anthony. “White Aborigines: Women, Mimicry, Mobility and Space.” Diasporas of Australian Cinema. Eds. Catherine Simpson, Renata Murawska, and Anthony Lambert. UK: Intellectbooks, 2009. Forthcoming. Lambert, Anthony. “Mediating Crime, Mediating Culture.” Crime, Media, Culture 4.2 (2008): 237-255. Lennon, Jane. “The cultural significance of Australian alpine areas.” Historic environment 17.2 (2003): 14-17. McFarlane, Brian. “Locations and Relocations: Jindabyne & MacBeth.” Metro Magazine 150 (Spring 2006): 10-15. McHugh, Siobhan. The Snowy: The People Behind the Power. William Heinemann Australia, 1999. http://www.mchugh.org/books/snowy.html. Read, Peter. Haunted Earth. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003. Rundle, Guy. “Goodbye to all that: The end of Australian left-liberalism and the revival of a radical politics.” Arena Magazine 88 (2007): 40-46. Ryan, Matthew. “On the treatment of non-indigenous belonging.” Arena Magazine 84 (2006): 52-53. Simpson, Catherine. “Reconfiguring Rusticity: feminizing Australian Cinema’s country towns’. Studies in Australasian Cinemas 2.1 (2008): forthcoming. Simpson, Catherine. “Antipodean Automobility & Crash: Treachery, Trespass and Transformation of the Open Road.” Australian Humanities Review 39-40 (2006). http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-September-2006/simpson.html. Trbic, Boris. “Ray Lawrence’s Jindabyne: So Much Pain, So Close to Home.” Screen Education 44 (2006): 58–64. Walker, Janet. Trauma Cinema: Documenting Incest and the Holocaust. Berkley, Los Angeles and London: U of California P, 2005.

In recent years a number of dramas focussing on Indigenous Australians and Australian history have appeared on the ABC, one of Australia's two public television channels. These dramas have different foci but all represent some aspects of Australian Indigenous history and how it interacts with 'mainstream' representations of Australian history. The four programs I will look at are Cleverman (Goalpost Pictures, 2016-ongoing), Glitch (Matchbox Films, 2015-ongoing), The Secret River (Ruby Entertainment, 2015) and Redfern Now (Blackfella Films, 2012), each of which engages with the past in a unique way.Clearly, different creators, working with different plots and in different genres will have different ways of representing the past. Redfern Now and Cleverman are both produced by Indigenous creators whereas the creators of The Secret River and Glitch are white Australians. Redfern Now and The Secret River are in a realist mode, whereas Glitch and Cleverman are speculative fiction. My argument proceeds on two axes: first, speculative genres allow for more creative ways of representing the past. They give more freedom for the creators to present affective representations of the historical past. Speculative genres also allow for more interesting intellectual examinations of what we consider to be history and its uncertainties. My second axis argues, because it is hard to avoid when looking at this group of texts, that Indigenous creators represent the past in different ways than non-Indigenous creators. Indigenous creators present a more elliptical vision. Non-Indigenous creators tend to address historical stories in more overt ways. It is apparent that even when dealing with the same histories and the same facts, the understanding of the past held by different groups is presented differently because it has different affective meanings.These television programs were all made in the 2010s but the roots of their interpretations go much further back, not only to the history they represent but also to the arguments about history that have raged in Australian intellectual and popular culture. Throughout most of the twentieth century, indigenous history was not discussed in Australia, until this was disturbed by WEH Stanner's reference in the Boyer lectures of 1968 to "our great Australian silence" (Clark 73). There was, through the 1970s and 80s, increased discussion of Indigenous history, and then in the 1990s there was a period of social and cultural argument known locally as the 'History Wars'. This long-running public disagreement took place in both academic and public arenas, and involved historians, other academics, politicians, journalists and social commentators on each side. One side argued that the arrival of white people in Australia led to frontier wars, massacre, attempted genocide and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous people (Reynolds). The other posited that when white people arrived they killed a few Aborigines but mostly Aboriginal people were killed by disease or failure to 'defend' their culture (Windschuttle). The first viewpoint was revisionist from the 1960s onwards and the second represented an attempt at counter-revision – to move the understanding of history back to what it was prior to the revision. The argument took place not only among historians, but was taken up by politicians with Paul Keating, prime minister 1993-1996, holding the first view and John Howard, prime minister 1996-2007, aggressively pursuing the second. The revisionist viewpoint was championed by historians such as Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan and academics and Aboriginal activists such as Tony Birch and Aileen Moreton Robinson; whereas the counter-revisionists had Keith Windschuttle and Geoffrey Blainey. By and large the revisionist viewpoint has become dominant and the historical work of the counter-revisionists is highly disputed and not accepted.This argument was prominent in Australian cultural discourse throughout the 1990s and has never entirely disappeared. The TV shows I am examining were not made in the 1990s, nor were they made in the 2000s - it took nearly twenty years for responses to the argument to make the jump from politicians' speeches and opinion pieces to television drama. John Ellis argues that the role of television in popular discourse is "working through," meaning contentious issues are first raised in news reports, then they move to current affairs, then talk shows and documentaries, then sketch comedy, then drama (Ellis). Australian Indigenous history was extensively discussed in the news, current affairs and talk shows in the 1990s, documentaries appeared somewhat later, notably First Australians in 2008, but sketch comedy and drama did not happen until in 2014, when Black Comedy's programme first aired, offering sketches engaging often and fiercely with indigenous history.The existence of this public discourse in the political and academic realms was reflected in film before television. Felicity Collins argues that the "Blak Wave" of Indigenous film came to exist in the context of, and as a response to, the history wars (Collins 232). This wave of film making by Indigenous film makers included the works of Rachel Perkins, Warwick Thornton and Ivan Sen – whose films chronicled the lives of Indigenous Australians. There was also what Collins calls "back-tracking films" such as Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and The Tracker (2010) made by white creators that presented arguments from the history wars for general audiences. Collins argues that both the "blak wave" and the "back track" created an alternative cultural sphere where past injustices are acknowledged. She says: "the films of the Blak Wave… cut across the history wars by turning an Indigenous gaze on the colonial past and its afterlife in the present" (Collins 232). This group of films sees Indigenous gazes relate the past and present whereas the white gaze represents specific history. In this article I examine a similar group of representations in television programs.History is not an innocent discourse. In western culture 'history' describes a certain way of looking at the past that was codified in the 19th century (Lloyd 375). It is however not the only way to look at the past, theorist Mark Day has described it as a type of relation with the past and argues that other understandings of the past such as popular memory and mythology are also available (Day). The codification of history in the 19th century involved an increased reliance on documentary evidence, a claim to objectivity, a focus on causation and, often though not always, a focus on national, political history. This sort of history became the academic understanding of history – which claims to be, if not objective, at least capable of disinterest; which bases its arguments on facts and which can establish its facts through reference to documentary records (Froeyman 219). Aileen Moreton-Robinson would call this "white patriarchal knowledge" that seeks to place the indigenous within its own type of knowledge production ("The White Man's Burden" 414). The western version of history tends to focus on causation and to present the past as a coherent narrative leading to the current point in time. This is not an undisputed conception of history in the western academy but it is common and often dominant.Post-colonialist analyses of history argue that western writing about non-western subjects is biased and forces non-westerners into categories used to oppress them (Anderson 44). These categories exist ahistorically and deny non-westerners the ability to act because if history cannot be perceived then it is difficult to see the future. That is to say, because non-western subjects in the past are not seen as historical actors, as people whose actions effected the future, then, in the present, they are unable to access to powerful arguments from history. Historians' usual methodology casts Indigenous people as the 'subjects' of history which is about them, not by them or for them (Tuhiwai Smith 7, 30-32, 144-5). Aboriginal people are characterised as prehistoric, ancient, timeless and dying (Birch 150). This way of thinking about Indigenous Australia removes all agency from Aboriginal actors and restoring agency has been a goal of Aboriginal activists and historians. Aileen Moreton Robinson discusses how Aboriginal resistance is embodied through "oral history (and) social memory," engaging with how Aboriginal actors represent themselves and are represented in relation to the past and historical settings is an important act ("Introduction" 127).Redfern Now and Cleverman were produced through the ABC's Indigenous Department and made by Indigenous filmmakers, whereas Glitch and The Secret River are from the ABC drama department and were made by white Australians. The different programs also have different generic backgrounds. Redfern Now and The Secret River are different forms of realist texts; social realism and historical realism. Cleverman and Glitch, however, are speculative fiction texts that can be argued to be in the mode of magical realism, they "denaturalise the real and naturalise the marvellous" they are also closely tied ideas of retelling colonial stories and "resignify(ing) colonial territories and pasts" (Siskind 834-5).Redfern Now was produced by Blackfella Films for the ABC. It was, with much fanfare, released as the first drama made for television, by Aboriginal people and about Aboriginal people (Blundell). The central concerns of the program are issues in the present, its plots and settings are entirely contemporary. In this way it circumvents the idea and standard representation of Indigenous Australians as ancient and timeless. It places the characters in the program very much in the present.However, one episode "Stand Up" does obliquely engage with historical concerns. In this episode a young boy, Joel Shields, gets a scholarship to an expensive private school. When he attends his first school assembly he does not sing the national anthem with the other students. This leads to a dispute with the school that forms the episode's plot. As punishment for not singing Joel is set an assignment to research the anthem, which he does and he finds the song off-putting – with the words 'boundless plains to share' particularly disconcerting. His father supports him saying "it's not our song" and compares Joel singing it to a "whitefella doing a corrobboree". The national anthem stands metaphorically for the white hegemony in Australia.The school itself is also a metaphor for hegemony. The camerawork lingers on the architecture which is intended to imply historical strength and imperviousness to challenge or change. The school stands for all the force of history white Australia can bring to bear, but in Australia, all architecture of this type is a lie, or at least an exaggeration – the school cannot be more than 200 years old and is probably much more recent.Many of the things the program says about history are conveyed in half sentences or single glances. Arguably this is because of its aesthetic mode – social realism – that prides itself on its mimicry of everyday life and in everyday life people are unlikely to set out arguments in organised dot-point form. At one point the English teacher quotes Orwell, "those who control the past control the future", which seems overt but it is stated off-screen as Joel walks into the room. This seeming aside is a statement about history and directly recalls central arguments of the history wars, which make strong political arguments about the effects of the past, and perceptions of the past, on the present and future. Despite its subtlety, this story takes place within the context of the history wars: it is about who controls the past. The subtlety of the discussion of history allows the film makers the freedom to comment on the content and effects of history and the history wars without appearing didactic. They discuss the how history has effected the present history without having to make explicit historical causes.The other recent television drama in the realist tradition is The Secret River. This was an adaptation of a novel by Kate Grenville. It deals with Aboriginal history from the perspective of white people, in this way it differs from Redfern Now which discusses the issues from the perspective of Aboriginal people. The plot concerns a man transported to Australia as a convict in the early 19th century. The man is later freed and, with his family, attempts to move to the Hawksbury river region. The land they try to settle is, of course, already in use by Aboriginal people. The show sets up the definitional conflict between the idea of settler and invader and suggests the difference between the two is a matter of perspective. Of the shows I am examining, it is the most direct in its representation of historical massacre and brutality. It represents what Felicity Collins described as a back-tracking text recapitulating the colonial past in the light of recovered knowledge. However, from an Indigenous perspective it is another settler tale implying Aboriginal people were wiped out at the time of colonisation (Godwin).The Secret River is told entirely from the perspective of the invaders. Even as it portrays their actions as wrong, it also suggests they were unavoidable or inevitable. Therefore it does what many western histories of Indigenous people do – it classifies and categorises. It sets limits on interpretation. It is also limited by its genre, as a straightforward historical drama and an adaptation, it can only tell its story in a certain way. The television series, like the book before it, prides itself on its 'accurate' rendition of an historical story. However, because it comes from such a very narrow perspective it falls into the trap of categorising histories that might have usefully been allowed to develop further.The program is based on a novel that attracted controversy of its own. It became part of ongoing historiographical debate about the relationship between fiction and history. The book's author Kate Grenville claimed to have written a kind of affectively accurate history that actual history can never convey because the emotions of the past are hidden from the present. The book was critiqued by historians including Inge Clendinnen, who argued that many of the claims made about its historical accuracy were largely overblown (Clendinnen). The book is not the same as the TV program, but the same limitations identified by Clendinnen are present in the television text. However, I would not agree with Clendinnen that formal history is any better. I argue that the limitation of both these mimetic genres can be escaped in speculative fiction.In Glitch, Yurana, a small town in rural Victoria becomes, for no apparent reason, the site of seven people rising from the dead. Each person is from a different historical period. None are Indigenous. They are not zombies but simply people who used to be dead. One of the first characters to appear in the series is an Aboriginal teenager, Beau, we see from his point of view the characters crawling from their graves. He becomes friendly with one of the risen characters, Patrick Fitzgerald, who had been the town's first mayor. At first Fitzgerald's story seems to be one of working class man made good in colonial Australia - a standard story of Australian myth and historiography. However, it emerges that Fitzgerald was in love with an Aboriginal woman called Kalinda and Beau is his descendant. Fitzgerald, once he becomes aware of how he has been remembered by history, decides to revise the history of the town – he wants to reclaim his property from his white descendants and give it to his Indigenous descendants. Over the course of the six episodes Fitzgerald moves from being represented as a violent, racist boor who had inexplicably become the town's mayor, to being a romantic whose racism was mostly a matter of vocabulary. Beau is important to the plot and he is a sympathetic character but he is not central and he is a child. Indigenous people in the past have no voice in this story – when flashbacks are shown they are silent, and in the present their voices are present but not privileged or central to the plot.The program demonstrates a profoundly metaphorical relationship with the past – the past has literally come to life bringing with it surprising buried histories. The program represents some dominant themes in Australian historiography – other formerly dead characters include a convict-turned-bush-ranger, a soldier who was at Gallipoli, two Italian migrants and a girl who died as a result of sexual violence – but it does not engage directly with Indigenous history. Indigenous people's stories are told only in relation to the stories of white people. The text's magical realism allows a less prescriptive relationship with the past than in The Secret River but it is still restricted in its point of view and allows only limited agency to Aboriginal actors.The text's magical realism allows for a thought-provoking representation of relationships with the past. The town of Yurana is represented as a place deeply committed to the representation and glorification of its past. Its main street contains statues of its white founders and war memorials, one of its main social institutions is the RSL, its library preserves relics of the past and its publican is a war history buff. All these indicate that the past is central to the town's identity. The risen dead however dispute and revise almost every aspect of this past. Even the history that is unmentioned in the town's apparent official discourse, such as the WWII internment camp and the history of crimes, is disputed by the different stories of the past that the risen dead have to tell. This indicates the uncertainty of the past, even when it seems literally set in stone it can still be revised. Nonetheless the history of Indigenous people is only revised in ways that re-engage with white history.Cleverman is a magical realist text profoundly based in allegory. The story concerns the emergence into a near future society of a group of people known as the "Hairies." It is never made clear where they came from or why but it seems they appeared recently and are unable to return. They are an allegory for refugees. Hairypeople are part of many Indigenous Australian stories, the show's creator, Ryan Griffen, stated that "there are different hairy stories throughout Australia and they differ in each country. You have some who are a tall, some are short, some are aggressive, some are friendly. We got to sort of pick which ones will fit for us and create the Hairies for our show" (Bizzaca).The Hairies are forced to live in an area called the Zone, which, prior to the arrival of the Hairy people, was a place where Aboriginal people lived. This place might be seen as a metaphor for Redfern but it is also an allegory for Australia's history of displacing Aboriginal people and moving and restricting them to missions and reserves. The Zone is becoming increasingly securitised and is also operating as a metaphor for Australia's immigration detention centres. The prison the Hairy characters, Djukura and Bunduu, are confined to is yet another metaphor, this time for both the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison and the securitisation of immigration detention. These multiple allegorical movements place Australia's present refugee policies and historical treatment of Aboriginal people within the same lens. They also place the present, the past and the future within the same narrative space.Most of the cast is Aboriginal and much of the character interaction is between Aboriginal people and Hairies, with both groups played by Indigenous actors. The disadvantages suffered by Indigenous people are part of the story and clearly presented as affecting the behaviour of characters but within the story Aboriginal people are more advantaged than Hairies, as they have systems, relationships and structures that Hairy people lack. The fact that so much of the interaction in the story is between Indigenous people and Hairies is important: it can be seen to be an interaction between Aboriginal people and Aboriginal mythology or between Indigenous past and present. It demonstrates Aboriginal identities being created in relation to other Aboriginal identities and not in relation to white people, where in this narrative, Aboriginal people have an identity other than that allowed for in colonialist terms.Cleverman does not really engage with the history of white invasion. The character who speaks most about this part of Aboriginal history and whose stated understanding of himself is based on that identity is Waruu. But Waruu is also a villain whose self-identity is also presented as jealous and dishonest. However, despite only passing mentions of westernised history the show is deeply concerned with a relationship with the past. The program engages with Aboriginal traditions about the past that have nothing to do with white history. It presents a much longer view of history than that of white Australia. It engages with the Aboriginal tradition of the Cleverman - demonstrated in the character of Uncle Jimmy who passes a nulla nulla (knob-headed hardwood club), as a symbol of the past, to his nephew Koen and tells him he is the new Cleverman. Cleverman demonstrates a discussion of Australian history with the potential to ignore white people. It doesn't ignore them, it doesn't ignore the invasion but it presents the possibility that it could be ignored.There is a danger in this sort of representation of the past that Aboriginal people could be relegated to the type of ahistorical, metahistorical myths that comprise colonialist history's representation of Indigenous people (Birch). But Cleverman's magical realist, near future setting tends to undermine this. It grounds representation in history through text and metaphor and then expands the definition.The four programs have different relationships with the past but all of them engage with it. The programs are both restrained and freed by the genres they operate in. It is much easier to escape the bounds of formal history in the genre of magical realism and both Glitch and Cleverman do this but have significantly different ways of dealing with history. "Stand up" and The Secret River both operate within more formally realist structures. The Secret River gives us an emotional reading of the past and a very affective one. However, it cuts off avenues of interpretation by presenting a seemingly inevitable tragedy. Through use of metaphor and silence "Stand up" presents a much more productive relationship with the past – seeing it as an ongoing argument rather than a settled one. Glitch engages with the past as a topic that is not settled and that can therefore be changed whereas Cleverman expands our definition of past and understanding of the past through allegory.It is possible to draw further connections. Those stories created by Indigenous people do not engage with the specifics of traditional dominant Australian historiography. However, they work with the assumption that everyone already knows this historiography. They do not re-present the pain of the past, instead they deal with it in oblique terms with allegory. Whereas the programs made by non-Indigenous Australians are much more overt in their representation of the sins of the past, they overtly engage with the History Wars in specific historical arenas in which those wars were fought. The non-Indigenous shows align themselves with the revisionist view of history but they do so in a very different way than the Indigenous shows.ReferencesAnderson, Ian. "Introduction: The Aboriginal Critique of Colonial Knowing." Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Ed. Michele Grossman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003.Birch, Tony. "'Nothing Has Changed': The Making and Unmaking of Koori Culture." Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Ed. Michele Grossman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003.Bizzaca, Chris. "The World of Cleverman." Screen Australia 2016.Blundell, Graeme. "Redfern Now Delves into the Lives of Ordinary People." The Australian 26 Oct. 2013: News Review.Clark, Anna. History's Children: History Wars in the Classroom. Sydney: New South, 2008.Clendinnen, Inga. “The History Question: Who Owns the Past?” The Quarterly Essay. Melbourne: Black Inc., 2006.Collins, Felicity. "After Dispossession: Blackfella Films and the Politics of Radical Hope." The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. Eds. Yannis Tzioumakis and Claire Molloy. New York: Routledge, 2016.Day, Mark. "Our Relations with the Past." Philosophia 36.4 (2008): 417-27.Ellis, John. Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000.Froeyman, Anton. "The Ideal of Objectivity and the Public Role of the Historian: Some Lessons from the Historikerstreit and the History Wars." Rethinking History 20.2 (2016): 217-34.Godwin, Carisssa Lee. "Shedding the 'Victim Narrative' for Tales of Magic, Myth and Superhero Pride." The Conversation 2016.Lloyd, Christopher. "Historiographic Schools." A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography Ed. Tucker, Aviezer. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. "Introduction: Resistance, Recovery and Revitalisation." Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Ed. Michele Grossman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003.———. "The White Man's Burden." Australian Feminist Studies 26.70 (2011): 413-31.Reynolds, Henry. The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia. 2nd ed. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1995.Siskind, Mariano. "Magical Realism." The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature. Vol. 2. Ed. Ato Quayson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 833-68.Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed. London: Zed Books, 2012.Windschuttle, Keith. The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Paddington, NSW: Macleay Press, 2002.

Many films of the Australian New Wave (or Australian film renaissance) of the 1970s and 1980s can be defined as gothic, especially following Jonathan Rayner’s suggestion that “Instead of a genre, Australian Gothic represents a mode, a stance and an atmosphere, after the fashion of American Film Noir, with the appellation suggesting the inclusion of horrific and fantastic materials comparable to those of Gothic literature” (25). The American comparison is revealing. The 400 or so film productions of the Australian New Wave emerged, not in a vacuum, but in an increasingly connected and inter-mixed international space (Godden). Putatively discrete national cinemas weave in and out of each other on many levels. One such level concerns the reception critics give to films. This article will drill down to the level of the reception of two examples of Australian gothic film-making by two well-known American critics. Rayner’s comparison of Australian gothic with American film noir is useful; however, it begs the question of how American critics such as Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris influentially shaped the reception of Australian gothic in America and in other locations (such as Australia itself) where their reviews found an audience either at the time or afterwards. The significance of the present article rests on the fact that, as William McClain observes, following in Rick Altman’s footsteps, “critics form one of the key material institutions that support generic formations” (54). This article nurtures the suggestion that knowing how Australian gothic cinema was shaped, in its infancy, in the increasingly important American market (a market of both commerce and ideas) might usefully inform revisionist studies of Australian cinema as a national mode. A more nuanced, globally informed representation of the origins and development of Australian gothic cinema emerges at this juncture, particularly given that American film reviewing in the 1970s and 1980s more closely resembled what might today be called film criticism or even film theory. The length of individual reviews back then, the more specialized vocabulary used, and above all the tendency for critics to assume more knowledge of film history than could safely be assumed in 2014—all this shows up the contrast with today. As Christos Tsiolkas notes, “in our age… film reviewing has been reduced to a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down” (56)! The 1970s and 1980s is largely pre-Internet, and critical voices such as Kael and Sarris dominated in print. The American reviews of Australian gothic films demonstrate how a different consciousness suffuses Kael’s and Sarris’s engagements with “Antipodean” (broadly Australian and New Zealand) cinema. Rayner’s locally specific definition of Australian gothic is distorted in their interpretations of examples of the genre. It will be argued that this is symptomatic of a particular blindspot, related to the politics and art of place, in the American reception of Wake in Fright (initially called Outback in America), directed by the Canadian Ted Kotcheff (1971) and The Year of Living Dangerously, directed by Peter Weir (1982). Space and argument considerations force this article to focus on the reviews of these films, engaging less in analysis of the films themselves. Suffice to say that they all fit broadly within Rayner’s definition of Australian gothic cinema. As Rayner states, three thematic concerns which permeate all the films related to the Gothic sensibility provide links across the distinctions of era, environment and character. They are: a questioning of established authority; a disillusionment with the social reality that that authority maintains; and the protagonist’s search for a valid and tenable identity once the true nature of the human environment has been revealed. (25) “The true nature of the human environment….” Here is the element upon which the American reviews of the Australian gothic founder. Explicitly in many films of this mode, and implicitly in nearly all of them, is the “human environment” of the Australian landscape, which operates less as a backdrop and more as a participating element, even a character, in the drama, saturating the mise-en-scène. In “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films,” Eva Rueschmann quotes Ross Gibson’s thesis from South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia that By featuring the land so emphatically… [Australian] films stake out something more significant than decorative pictorialism. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are all engaging with the dominant mythology of white Australia. They are all partaking of the landscape tradition which, for two hundred years, has been used by white Australians to promote a sense of the significance of European society in the “Antipodes”. (Rueschmann) The “emphatic” nature of the land in films like Wake in Fright, Mad Max 2 and Picnic at Hanging Rock actively contributes to the “atmosphere” of Australian gothic cinema (Rayner 25). This atmosphere floats across Australian film and literature. Many of the films mentioned in this article are adaptations from books, and Rayner himself stresses the similarity between Australian gothic and gothic literature (25). Significantly, the atmosphere of Australian gothic also floats across the fuzzy boundary between the gothic and road movies or road literature. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is obviously a road movie as well as a gothic text; so is Wake in Fright in its way; even Picnic at Hanging Rock contains elements of the road movie in all that travelling to and from the rock. Roads, then, are significant for Australian gothic cinema, for the road traverses the Australian (gothic) landscape and, in the opportunity it provides for moving through it at speed, tantalizes with the (unfulfillable) promise of an escape from its gothic horror. Australian roads are familiar, part of White European culture referencing the geometric precision of Roman roads. The Australian outback, by contrast, is unfamiliar, uncanny. Veined with roads, the outback invites the taming by “the landscape tradition” that it simultaneously rejects (Rueschmann). In the opening 360° pan of Wake in Fright the land frightens with its immensity and intensity, even as the camera displays the land’s “conquering” agent: not a road, but the road’s surrogate—a railway line. Thus, the land introduces the uncanny into Australian gothic cinema. In Freudian terms, the uncanny is that unsettling combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar. R. Gray calls it “the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar” (Gray). The “frightening” land is the very condition of the “comforting” road; no roads without a space for roads, and places for them to go. In her introduction to The Penguin Book of the Road, Delia Falconer similarly sutures the land to the uncanny, linking both of these with the first peoples of the Australian land: "Of course there is another 'poetry of the earth' whispering from the edges of our roads that gives so many of our road stories an extra charge, and that is the history of Aboriginal presence in this land. Thousands of years of paths and tribal boundaries also account for the uncanny sense of being haunted that dogs our travellers on their journeys (xvii). White Australia, as the local saying goes, has a black past, played out across the land. The film The Proposition instances this, with its gothic portrayal of the uncanny encroachments of the Australian “wilderness” into the domain of “civilization”. Furthermore, “our” overweening literal and metaphoric investment in the traditional quarter-acre block, not to mention in our roads, shows that “we” haven’t reconciled either with the land of Australia or with its original inhabitants: the Aboriginal peoples. Little wonder that Kael and Sarris couldn’t do so, as White Americans writing some forty years ago, and at such a huge geographic remove from Australia. As will be seen, the failure of these American film critics to comprehend the Australian landscape comes out—as both a “critical reaction” and a “reactive compensation”—in two, interwoven strands of their interpretations of Australian New Wave gothic cinema. A repulsion from, and an attraction to, the unrecognized uncanny is evidenced. The first strand is constituted in the markedly anthropological aspect to the film reviews: anthropological elements of the text itself are either disproportionately magnified or longed for. Here, “anthropological” includes the sociological and the historical. Secondly, Kael and Sarris use the films they review from Australian gothic cinema as sites upon which to trial answers to the old and persistent question of how the very categories of art and politics relate. Initially sucked out of the reviews (strand one), politics and art thus rush back in (strand two). In other words, the American failure to engage deeply with the land triggers an initial reading of films like Wake in Fright less as films per se and more as primary texts or one-to-one documentations of Australia. Australia presents for anthropological, even scientific atomization, rather than as a place in active, creative and complex relationship with its rendering in mise-en-scène. Simultaneously though, the absence of the land nags—eats away at the edges of critical thinking—and re-emerges (like a Freudian return of the repressed) in an attempt by the American critics to exploit their film subjects as an opportunity for working out how politics and art (here cinema) relate. The “un-seen” land creates a mis-reading amongst the American critics (strand one), only to force a compensatory, if somewhat blindsided, re-reading (strand two). For after all, in this critical “over-looking” of the land, and thus of the (ongoing) Aboriginal existence in and with the land, it is politics and art that is most at stake. How peoples (indigenous, settler or hybrid peoples) are connected to and through the land has perhaps always been Australia’s principal political and artistic question. How do the American reviews speak to this question? Sarris did not review Wake in Fright. Kael reviewed it, primarily, as a text at the intersection of fiction and documentary, ultimately privileging the latter. Throughout, her critical coordinates are American and, to a degree, literary. Noting the “stale whiff of Conrad” she also cites Outback’s “additional interest” in its similarity with “recent American movies [about] American racism and capitalist exploitation and the Vietnam war” (415). But her most pointed intervention comes in the assertion that there is “enough narrative to hold the social material together,” as if this were all narrative were good for: scaffolding for sociology (416). Art and culture are left out. Even as Kael mentions the “treatment of the Aborigines,” she misses the Aboriginal cultural moment of the opening shot of the land; this terrain, she writes, is “without a trace of culture” (416). Then, after critiquing what she sees as the unconvincing lesson of the schoolteacher’s moral demise, comes this: “But a more serious problem is that (despite the banal photography) the semi-documentary aspects of the film are so much more vivid and authentic and original than the factitious Conradian hero that we want to see more of that material—we want to learn more” (416-417). Further on, in this final paragraph, Kael notes that, while “there have been other Australian films, so it’s not all new” the director and scriptwriter “have seen the life in a more objective way, almost as if they were cultural anthropologists…. Maybe Kotcheff didn’t dare to expand this vision at the expense of the plot line, but he got onto something bigger than the plot” (417). Kael’s “error”, as it were, is to over-look how the land itself stretches the space of the film, beyond plot, to occupy the same space as her so-called “something bigger”, which itself is filled out by the uncanniness of the land as the intersections of both indigenous and settler (road-based) cultures and their representations in art (417). The “banal photography” might be better read as the film’s inhabitation of these artistic/cultural intersections (416). Kael’s Wake in Fright piece illustrates the first strand of the American reviews of Australian gothic cinema. Missing the land’s uncanniness effectively distributes throughout the review an elision of culture and art, and a reactive engagement with the broadly anthropological elements of Kotcheff’s film. Reviews of The Year of Living Dangerously by Kael and Sarris also illustrate the first strand of the American-Australian reviewing nexus, with the addition, also by each critic, of the second strand: the attempt to reconnect and revitalize the categories of politics and art. As with Wake in Fright, Kael introduces an anthropological gambit into Weir’s film, privileging its documentary elements over its qualities as fiction (strand one). “To a degree,” she writes, “Weir is the victim of his own skill at creating the illusion of authentic Third World misery, rioting, and chaos” (454). By comparison with “earlier, studio-set films” (like Casablanca [452]), where such “backgrounds (with their picturesque natives) were perfectly acceptable as backdrops…. Here… it’s a little obscene” (454). Kael continues: “Documentaries, TV coverage, print journalism, and modern history itself have changed audiences’ responses, and when fake dilemmas about ‘involvement’ are cooked up for the hero they’re an embarrassment” (454-455). Film is pushed to cater to anthropology besides art. Mirroring Kael’s strand-one response, Sarris puts a lot of pressure on Weir’s film to “perform” anthropologically—as well as, even instead of, artistically. The “movie”, he complains “could have been enjoyed thoroughly as a rousingly old-fashioned Hollywood big-star entertainment were it not for the disturbing vistas of somnolent poverty on view in the Philippines, the location in which Indonesian poverty in 1965 was simulated” (59). Indeed, the intrusive reality of poverty elicits from Sarris something very similar to Kael’s charge of the “obscenity of the backdrop” (454): We cannot go back to Manderley in our movie romances. That much is certain. We must go forward into the real world, but in the process, we should be careful not to dwarf our heroes and heroines with the cosmic futility of it all. They must be capable of acting on the stage of history, and by acting, make a difference in our moral perception of life on this planet. (59) Sarris places an extreme, even outrageous, strand-one demand on Weir’s film to re-purpose its fiction (what Kael calls “romantic melodrama” [454]) to elicit the categories of history and anthropology—that last phrase, “life on this planet”, sounds like David Attenborough speaking! More so, anthropological atomization is matched swiftly to a strand-two demand, for this passage also anticipates the rapprochement of politics and art, whereby art rises to the level of politics, requiring movie “heroes and heroines” to make a “moral difference” on a historical if not on a “cosmic” level (59). It is precisely in this, however, that Weir’s film falls down for Sarris. “The peculiar hollowness that the more perceptive reviewers have noted in The Year of Living Dangerously arises from the discrepancy between the thrilling charisma of the stars and the antiheroic irrelevance of the characters they play to the world around them” (59). Sarris’s spatialized phrase here (“peculiar hollowness”) recalls Kael’s observation that Wake in Fright contains “something bigger than the plot” (417). In each case, the description is doubling, dis-locating—uncanny. Echoing the title of Eva Rueschmann’s article, both films, like the Australian landscape itself, are “out of place” in their interpretation by these American critics. What, really, does Sarris’s “peculiar hollowness” originate in (59)? In what “discrepancy” (59)? There is a small but, in the context of this article, telling error in Sarris’s review of Weir’s film. Kael, correctly, notes that “the Indonesian settings had to be faked (in the Philippines and Australia)” (inserted emphasis) (452). Sarris mentions only the Philippines. From little things big things grow. Similar to how Kael overlooks the uncanny in Wake in Fright’s mise-en-scène, Sarris “sees” a “peculiar hollowness” where the land would otherwise be. Otherwise, that is, in the perspective of a cinema (Kotcheff’s, Weir’s) that comprehends “the true nature of the [Australian, gothic] human environment” (Rayner 25). Of course, it is not primarily a matter of how much footage Weir shot in Australia. It is the nature of the cinematography that matters most. For his part, Sarris damns it as “pretentiously picturesque” (59). Kael, meanwhile, gets closer perhaps to the ethics of the uncanny cinematography of The Year of Living Dangerously in her description of “intimations, fragments, hints and portents… on a very wide screen” (451). Even so, it will be remembered, she does call the “backgrounds… obscene” (454). Kael and Sarris see less than they “see”. Again like Sarris, Kael goes looking in Weir’s film for a strand-two rapprochement of politics and art, as evidenced by the line “The movie displays left-wing attitudes, but it shows no particular interest in politics” (453). It does though, only Kael is blind to it because she is blind to the land and, equally, to the political circumstances of the people of the land. Kael likely never realized the “discrepancy” in her critique of The Year of Living Dangerously’s Billy Kwan as “the same sort of in-on-the-mysteries-of-the-cosmos character that the aborigine actor Gulpilil played in Weir’s 1977 The Last Wave” (455). All this, she concludes, “might be boiled down to the mysticism of L.A.: ‘Go with the flow’” (455)! Grouping characters and places together like this, under the banner of L.A. mysticism, brutally erases the variations across different, uncanny, gothic, post-colonial landscapes. It is precisely here that politics and art do meet, in Weir’s film (and Kotcheff’s): in the artistic representation of the land as an index of the political relations of indigenous, settler and hybrid communities. (And not down the rabbit hole of the “specifics” of politics that Kael claims to want [453]). The American critics considered in this article are not in “bad faith” or a-political. Sarris produced a perceptive, left-leaning study entitled Politics and Cinema, and many of Kael’s reviews, along with essays like “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West,” contain sophisticated, liberalist analyses of the political circumstances of Native Americans. The crucial point is that, as “critics form[ing] one of the key material institutions that support generic formations,” Sarris and Kael impacted majorly on the development of Australian gothic cinema, in the American context—impacted especially, one could say, on the (mis-)understanding of the land-based, uncanny politics of this mode in its Australian setting (McClain 54). Kael’s and Sarris’s reviews of My Brilliant Career, along with Judith Maslin’s review, contain traits similar to those considered in depth in the reviews studied above. Future research might usefully study this significant impact more closely, weaving in an awareness of the developing dynamics of global film productions and co-productions since the 1970s, and thereby focusing on Australian gothic as international cinema. Was, for example, the political impact of later films like The Proposition influenced, even marginally, by the (mis-)readings of Sarris and Kael? In conclusion here, it suffices to note that, even as the American reviewers reduced Australian cinema art to “blank” documentary or “neutral” anthropology, nevertheless they evidenced, in their strand-two responses, the power of the land (as presented in the cinematography and mise-en-scène) to call out—across an increasingly globalized domain of cinematic reception—for the fundamental importance of the connection between politics and art. Forging this connection, in which all lands and the peoples of all lands are implicated, should be, perhaps, the primary and ongoing concern of national and global cinemas of the uncanny, gothic mode, or perhaps even any mode. References Casablanca. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Warner Bros, 1942. Falconer, Delia. “Introduction.” The Penguin Book of the Road. Ed. Delia Falconer. Melbourne: Viking-Penguin Books, 2008. xi-xxvi. Gibson, Ross. South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992. Godden, Matt. “An Essay on Australian New Wave Cinema.” 9 Jan. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.golgotha.com.au/2013/01/09/an-essay-on-australian-new-wave-cinema/›. Gray, R. “Freud, ‘The Uncanny.’” 15 Nov. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html›. Kael, Pauline. “Australians.” Review of My Brilliant Career. 15 Sep. 1980. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 54-62. Kael, Pauline. “Literary Echoes—Muffled.” Review of Outback [Wake in Fright]. 4 March 1972. Deeper into Movies. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press-Little, Brown and Company, 1973. 413-419. Kael, Pauline. “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West.” Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. London: Arrow Books, 1987. 38-46. Kael, Pauline. “Torrid Zone.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. 21 Feb. 1983. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 451-456. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Dir. George Miller. Warner Bros, 1981. Maslin, Janet. “Film: Australian ‘Brilliant Career’ by Gillian Armstrong.” Review of My Brilliant Career. New York Times (6 Oct. 1979.): np. McClain, William. “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in American Film Criticism.” Journal of Film and Video 62.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 52-66. My Brilliant Career. Dir. Gillian Armstrong. Peace Arch, 1979. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Dir. Peter Weir. Picnic Productions, 1975. Rayner, Jonathan. Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Rueschmann, Eva. “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films.” Post Script (22 Dec. 2005). 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Out+of+place%3A+reading+%28post%29+colonial+landscapes+as+Gothic+space+in...-a0172169169›. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (4 Feb. 1980): np. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus: Journalistic Ethics in Java.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. Village Voice 28 (1 Feb. 1983): 59. Sarris, Andrew. “Liberation, Australian Style.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (15 Oct. 1979): np. Sarris, Andrew. Politics and Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. The Last Wave. Dir. Peter Weir. Ayer Productions, 1977. The Proposition. Dir. John Hillcoat. First Look Pictures, 2005. The Year of Living Dangerously. Dir. Peter Weir. MGM, 1982. Tsiolkas, Christos. “Citizen Kael.” Review of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow. The Monthly (Feb. 2012): 54-56. Wake in Fright. Dir. Ted Kotcheff. United Artists, 1971.

PurposeThe university research environment, the broader context where academics produce research, is changing rapidly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study looks at the role of the research environment and organisational learning mechanisms with respect to the capacity of accounting academics to achieve research outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe theoretical concepts of research environment and organisational learning mechanisms are used as a basis for analysing documentary and qualitative interview evidence. Interviews were conducted with accounting academics and higher degrees research accounting students based at Australian universities.FindingsA key finding is that COVID-19 restrictions are affecting the capacity of accounting academics to conduct research. The restrictions are affecting meaningful interactions and engagement amongst accounting academics which are essential in maintaining and developing networks, research dialogue and debate, and research culture. Significant and deliberate efforts and innovation are required in attempts to replicate traditional face-to-face engagement and interaction benefits in online settings.Originality/valueThe study explains how and why the research environment and organisational learning mechanisms are changing as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions. In doing so, it highlights the implications on the capacity of accounting academics to achieve research outcomes.

Special Care Notice This paper discusses trauma and violence inflicted upon the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania through the process of colonisation. Content within this paper may be distressing to some readers. Introduction The decimation of the First Peoples of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) was systematic and swift. First Contact was an emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually confronting series of encounters for the Indigenous inhabitants. There were, according to some early records, a few examples of peaceful interactions (Morris 84). Yet, the inevitable competition over resources, and the intensity with which colonists pursued their “claims” for food, land, and water, quickly transformed amicable relationships into hostile rivalries. Jennifer Gall has written that, as “European settlement expanded in the late 1820s, violent exchanges between settlers and Aboriginal people were frequent, brutal and unchecked” (58). Indeed, the near-annihilation of the original custodians of the land was, if viewed through the lens of time, a process that could be described as one that was especially efficient. As John Morris notes: in 1803, when the first settlers arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, the Aborigines had already inhabited the island for some 25,000 years and the population has been estimated at 4,000. Seventy-three years later, Truganinni, [often cited as] the last Tasmanian of full Aboriginal descent, was dead. (84) Against a backdrop of extreme violence, often referred to as the Black War (Clements 1), there were some, admittedly dubious, efforts to contain the bloodshed. One such effort, in the late 1820s, was the production, and subsequent distribution, of a set of Proclamation Boards. Approximately 100 Proclamation Boards (the Board) were introduced by the Lieutenant Governor of the day, George Arthur (after whom Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula is named). The purpose of these Boards was to communicate, via a four-strip pictogram, to the Indigenous peoples of the island colony that all people—black and white—were considered equal under the law. “British Justice would protect” everyone (Morris 84). This is reflected in the narrative of the Boards. The first image presents Indigenous peoples and colonists living peacefully together. The second, and central, image shows “a conciliatory handshake between the British governor and an Aboriginal ‘chief’, highly reminiscent of images found in North America on treaty medals and anti-slavery tokens” (Darian-Smith and Edmonds 4). The third and fourth images depict the repercussions for committing murder, with an Indigenous man hanged for spearing a colonist and a European man also hanged for shooting an Aborigine. Both men executed under “gubernatorial supervision” (Turnbull 53). Image 1: Governor Davey's [sic - actually Governor Arthur's] Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 [sic - actually c. 1828-30]. Image Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (Call Number: SAFE / R 247). The Board is an interesting re-imagining of one of the traditional methods of communication for Indigenous peoples; the leaving of images on the bark of trees. Such trees, often referred to as scarred trees, are rare in modern-day Tasmania as “the expansion of settlements, and the impact of bush fires and other environmental factors” resulted in many of these trees being destroyed (Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania online). Similarly, only a few of the Boards, inspired by these trees, survive today. The Proclamation Board was, in the 1860s, re-imagined as the output of a different Governor: Lieutenant Governor Davey (after whom Port Davey, on the south-west coast of Tasmania is named). This re-imagining of the Board’s creator was so effective that the Board, today, is popularly known as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines. This paper outlines several other re-imaginings of this Board. In addition, this paper offers another, new, re-imagining of the Board, positing that this is an early “pamphlet” on crime, justice and punishment which actually presents as a pre-cursor to the modern Australian true crime tale. In doing so this work connects the Proclamation Board to the larger genre of crime fiction. One Proclamation Board: Two Governors Labelled Van Diemen’s Land and settled as a colony of New South Wales in 1803, this island state would secede from the administration of mainland Australia in 1825. Another change would follow in 1856 when Van Diemen’s Land was, in another process of re-imagining, officially re-named Tasmania. This change in nomenclature was an initiative to, symbolically at least, separate the contemporary state from a criminal and violent past (Newman online). Tasmania’s violent history was, perhaps, inevitable. The island was claimed by Philip Gidley King, the Governor of New South Wales, in the name of His Majesty, not for the purpose of building a community, but to “prevent the French from gaining a footing on the east side of that island” and also to procure “timber and other natural products, as well as to raise grain and to promote the seal industry” (Clark 36). Another rationale for this land claim was to “divide the convicts” (Clark 36) which re-fashioned the island into a gaol. It was this penal element of the British colonisation of Australia that saw the worst of the British Empire forced upon the Aboriginal peoples. As historian Clive Turnbull explains: the brutish state of England was reproduced in the English colonies, and that in many ways its brutishness was increased, for now there came to Australia not the humanitarians or the indifferent, but the men who had vested interests in the systems of restraint; among those who suffered restraint were not only a vast number who were merely unfortunate and poverty-stricken—the victims of a ‘depression’—but brutalised persons, child-slaughterers and even potential cannibals. (Turnbull 25) As noted above the Black War of Tasmania saw unprecedented aggression against the rightful occupants of the land. Yet, the Aboriginal peoples were “promised the white man’s justice, the people [were] exhorted to live in amity with them, the wrongs which they suffer [were] deplored” (Turnbull 23). The administrators purported an egalitarian society, one of integration and peace but Van Diemen’s Land was colonised as a prison and as a place of profit. So, “like many apologists whose material benefit is bound up with the systems which they defend” (Turnbull 23), assertions of care for the health and welfare of the Aboriginal peoples were made but were not supported by sufficient policies, or sufficient will, and the Black War continued. Colonel Thomas Davey (1758-1823) was the second person to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land; a term of office that began in 1813 and concluded in 1817. The fourth Lieutenant Governor of the island was Colonel Sir George Arthur (1784-1854); his term of office, significantly longer than Davey’s, being from 1824 to 1836. The two men were very different but are connected through this intriguing artefact, the Proclamation Board. One of the efforts made to assert the principle of equality under the law in Van Diemen’s Land was an outcome of work undertaken by Surveyor General George Frankland (1800-1838). Frankland wrote to Arthur in early 1829 and suggested the Proclamation Board (Morris 84), sometimes referred to as a Picture Board or the Tasmanian Hieroglyphics, as a tool to support Arthur’s various Proclamations. The Proclamation, signed on 15 April 1828 and promulgated in the The Hobart Town Courier on 19 April 1828 (Arthur 1), was one of several notices attempting to reduce the increasing levels of violence between Indigenous peoples and colonists. The date on Frankland’s correspondence clearly situates the Proclamation Board within Arthur’s tenure as Lieutenant Governor. The Board was, however, in the 1860s, re-imagined as the output of Davey. The Clerk of the Tasmanian House of Assembly, Hugh M. Hull, asserted that the Board was the work of Davey and not Arthur. Hull’s rationale for this, despite archival evidence connecting the Board to Frankland and, by extension, to Arthur, is predominantly anecdotal. In a letter to the editor of The Hobart Mercury, published 26 November 1874, Hull wrote: this curiosity was shown by me to the late Mrs Bateman, neé Pitt, a lady who arrived here in 1804, and with whom I went to school in 1822. She at once recognised it as one of a number prepared in 1816, under Governor Davey’s orders; and said she had seen one hanging on a gum tree at Cottage Green—now Battery Point. (3) Hull went on to assert that “if any old gentleman will look at the picture and remember the style of military and civil dress of 1810-15, he will find that Mrs Bateman was right” (3). Interestingly, Hull relies upon the recollections of a deceased school friend and the dress codes depicted by the artist to date the Proclamation Board as a product of 1816, in lieu of documentary evidence dating the Board as a product of 1828-1830. Curiously, the citation of dress can serve to undermine Hull’s argument. An early 1840s watercolour by Thomas Bock, of Mathinna, an Aboriginal child of Flinders Island adopted by Lieutenant Governor John Franklin (Felton online), features the young girl wearing a brightly coloured, high-waisted dress. This dress is very similar to the dresses worn by the children on the Proclamation Board (the difference being that Mathinna wears a red dress with a contrasting waistband, the children on the Board wear plain yellow dresses) (Bock). Acknowledging the simplicity of children's clothing during the colonial era, it could still be argued that it would have been unlikely the Governor of the day would have placed a child, enjoying at that time a life of privilege, in a situation where she sat for a portrait wearing an old-fashioned garment. So effective was Hull’s re-imagining of the Board’s creator that the Board was, for many years, popularly known as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines with even the date modified, to 1816, to fit Davey’s term of office. Further, it is worth noting that catalogue records acknowledge the error of attribution and list both Davey and Arthur as men connected to the creation of the Proclamation Board. A Surviving Board: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales One of the surviving Proclamation Boards is held by the Mitchell Library. The Boards, oil on Huon pine, were painted by “convict artists incarcerated in the island penal colony” (Carroll 73). The work was mass produced (by the standards of mass production of the day) by pouncing, “a technique [of the Italian Renaissance] of pricking the contours of a drawing with a pin. Charcoal was then dusted on to the drawing” (Carroll 75-76). The images, once outlined, were painted in oil. Of approximately 100 Boards made, several survive today. There are seven known Boards within public collections (Gall 58): five in Australia (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney; Museum Victoria, Melbourne; National Library of Australia, Canberra; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; and Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston); and two overseas (The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, University of Cambridge). The catalogue record, for the Board held by the Mitchell Library, offers the following details:Paintings: 1 oil painting on Huon pine board, rectangular in shape with rounded corners and hole at top centre for suspension ; 35.7 x 22.6 x 1 cm. 4 scenes are depicted:Aborigines and white settlers in European dress mingling harmoniouslyAboriginal men and women, and an Aboriginal child approach Governor Arthur to shake hands while peaceful soldiers look onA hostile Aboriginal man spears a male white settler and is hanged by the military as Governor Arthur looks onA hostile white settler shoots an Aboriginal man and is hanged by the military as Governor Arthur looks on. (SAFE / R 247) The Mitchell Library Board was purchased from J.W. Beattie in May 1919 for £30 (Morris 86), which is approximately $2,200 today. Importantly, the title of the record notes both the popular attribution of the Board and the man who actually instigated the Board’s production: “Governor Davey’s [sic – actually Governor Arthur] Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 [sic – actually c. 1828-30].” The date of the Board is still a cause of some speculation. The earlier date, 1828, marks the declaration of martial law (Turnbull 94) and 1830 marks the Black Line (Edmonds 215); the attempt to form a human line of white men to force many Tasmanian Aboriginals, four of the nine nations, onto the Tasman Peninsula (Ryan 3). Frankland’s suggestion for the Board was put forward on 4 February 1829, with Arthur’s official Conciliator to the Aborigines, G.A. Robinson, recording his first sighting of a Board on 24 December 1829 (Morris 84-85). Thus, the conception of the Board may have been in 1828 but the Proclamation project was not fully realised until 1830. Indeed, a news item on the Proclamation Board did appear in the popular press, but not until 5 March 1830: We are informed that the Government have given directions for the painting of a large number of pictures to be placed in the bush for the contemplation of the Aboriginal Inhabitants. […] However […] the causes of their hostility must be more deeply probed, or their taste as connoisseurs in paintings more clearly established, ere we can look for any beneficial result from this measure. (Colonial Times 2) The remark made in relation to becoming a connoisseur of painting, though intended to be derogatory, makes some sense. There was an assumption that the Indigenous peoples could easily translate a European-styled execution by hanging, as a visual metaphor for all forms of punishment. It has long been understood that Indigenous “social organisation and religious and ceremonial life were often as complex as those of the white invaders” (McCulloch 261). However, the Proclamation Board was, in every sense, Eurocentric and made no attempt to acknowledge the complexities of Aboriginal culture. It was, quite simply, never going to be an effective tool of communication, nor achieve its socio-legal aims. The Board Re-imagined: Popular Media The re-imagining of the Proclamation Board as a construct of Governor Davey, instead of Governor Arthur, is just one of many re-imaginings of this curious object. There are, of course, the various imaginings of the purpose of the Board. On the surface these images are a tool for reconciliation but as “the story of these paintings unfolds […] it becomes clear that the proclamations were in effect envoys sent back to Britain to exhibit the ingenious attempts being applied to civilise Australia” (Carroll 76). In this way the Board was re-imagined by the Administration that funded the exercise, even before the project was completed, from a mechanism to assist in the bringing about of peace into an object that would impress colonial superiors. Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll has recently written about the Boards in the context of their “transnational circulation” and how “objects become subjects and speak of their past through the ventriloquism of contemporary art history” (75). Carroll argues the Board is an item that couples “military strategy with a fine arts propaganda campaign” (Carroll 78). Critically the Boards never achieved their advertised purpose for, as Carroll explains, there were “elaborate rituals Aboriginal Australians had for the dead” and, therefore, “the display of a dead, hanging body is unthinkable. […] being exposed to the sight of a hanged man must have been experienced as an unimaginable act of disrespect” (92). The Proclamation Board would, in sharp contrast to feelings of unimaginable disrespect, inspire feelings of pride across the colonial population. An example of this pride being revealed in the selection of the Board as an object worthy of reproduction, as a lithograph, for an Intercolonial Exhibition, held in Melbourne in 1866 (Morris 84). The lithograph, which identifies the Board as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines and dated 1816, was listed as item 572, of 738 items submitted by Tasmania, for the event (The Commissioners 69-85). This type of reproduction, or re-imagining, of the Board would not be an isolated event. Penelope Edmonds has described the Board as producing a “visual vernacular” through a range of derivatives including lantern slides, lithographs, and postcards. These types of tourist ephemera are in addition to efforts to produce unique re-workings of the Board as seen in Violet Mace’s Proclamation glazed earthernware, which includes a jug (1928) and a pottery cup (1934) (Edmonds online). The Board Re-imagined: A True Crime Tale The Proclamation Board offers numerous narratives. There is the story that the Board was designed and deployed to communicate. There is the story behind the Board. There is also the story of the credit for the initiative which was transferred from Governor Arthur to Governor Davey and subsequently returned to Arthur. There are, too, the provenance stories of individual Boards. There is another story the Proclamation Board offers. The story of true crime in colonial Australia. The Board, as noted, presents through a four-strip pictogram an idea that all are equal under the rule of law (Arthur 1). Advocating for a society of equals was a duplicitous practice, for while Aborigines were hanged for allegedly murdering settlers, “there is no record of whites being charged, let alone punished, for murdering Aborigines” (Morris 84). It would not be until 1838 that white men would be punished for the murder of Aboriginal people (on the mainland) in the wake of the Myall Creek Massacre, in northern New South Wales. There were other examples of attempts to bring about a greater equity under the rule of law but, as Amanda Nettelbeck explains, there was wide-spread resistance to the investigation and charging of colonists for crimes against the Indigenous population with cases regularly not going to trial, or, if making a courtroom, resulting in an acquittal (355-59). That such cases rested on “legally inadmissible Aboriginal testimony” (Reece in Nettelbeck 358) propped up a justice system that was, inherently, unjust in the nineteenth century. It is important to note that commentators at the time did allude to the crime narrative of the Board: when in the most civilized country in the world it has been found ineffective as example to hang murderers in chains, it is not to be expected a savage race will be influenced by the milder exhibition of effigy and caricature. (Colonial Times 2) It is argued here that the Board was much more than an offering of effigy and caricature. The Proclamation Board presents, in striking detail, the formula for the modern true crime tale: a peace disturbed by the act of murder; and the ensuing search for, and delivery of, justice. Reinforcing this point, are the ideas of justice seen within crime fiction, a genre that focuses on the restoration of order out of chaos (James 174), are made visible here as aspirational. The true crime tale does not, consistently, offer the reassurances found within crime fiction. In the real world, particularly one as violent as colonial Australia, we are forced to acknowledge that, below the surface of the official rhetoric on justice and crime, the guilty often go free and the innocent are sometimes hanged. Another point of note is that, if the latter date offered here, of 1830, is taken as the official date of the production of these Boards, then the significance of the Proclamation Board as a true crime tale is even more pronounced through a connection to crime fiction (both genres sharing a common literary heritage). The year 1830 marks the release of Australia’s first novel, Quintus Servinton written by convicted forger Henry Savery, a crime novel (produced in three volumes) published by Henry Melville of Hobart Town. Thus, this paper suggests, 1830 can be posited as a year that witnessed the production of two significant cultural artefacts, the Proclamation Board and the nation’s first full-length literary work, as also being the year that established the, now indomitable, traditions of true crime and crime fiction in Australia. Conclusion During the late 1820s in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) a set of approximately 100 Proclamation Boards were produced by the Lieutenant Governor of the day, George Arthur. The official purpose of these items was to communicate, to the Indigenous peoples of the island colony, that all—black and white—were equal under the law. Murderers, be they Aboriginal or colonist, would be punished. The Board is a re-imagining of one of the traditional methods of communication for Indigenous peoples; the leaving of drawings on the bark of trees. The Board was, in the 1860s, in time for an Intercolonial Exhibition, re-imagined as the output of Lieutenant Governor Davey. This re-imagining of the Board was so effective that surviving artefacts, today, are popularly known as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines with the date modified, to 1816, to fit the new narrative. The Proclamation Board was also reimagined, by its creators and consumers, in a variety of ways: as peace offering; military propaganda; exhibition object; tourism ephemera; and contemporary art. This paper has also, briefly, offered another re-imagining of the Board, positing that this early “pamphlet” on justice and punishment actually presents a pre-cursor to the modern Australian true crime tale. The Proclamation Board tells many stories but, at the core of this curious object, is a crime story: the story of mass murder. Acknowledgements The author acknowledges the Palawa peoples: the traditional custodians of the lands known today as Tasmania. The author acknowledges, too, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation upon whose lands this paper was researched and written. The author extends thanks to Richard Neville, Margot Riley, Kirsten Thorpe, and Justine Wilson of the State Library of New South Wales for sharing their knowledge and offering their support. The author is also grateful to the reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and for making valuable suggestions. ReferencesAboriginal Heritage Tasmania. “Scarred Trees.” Aboriginal Cultural Heritage, 2012. 12 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.aboriginalheritage.tas.gov.au/aboriginal-cultural-heritage/archaeological-site-types/scarred-trees›.Arthur, George. “Proclamation.” The Hobart Town Courier 19 Apr. 1828: 1.———. Governor Davey’s [sic – actually Governor Arthur’s] Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 [sic – actually c. 1828-30]. Graphic Materials. Sydney: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, c. 1828-30.Bock, Thomas. Mathinna. Watercolour and Gouache on Paper. 23 x 19 cm (oval), c. 1840.Carroll, Khadija von Zinnenburg. Art in the Time of Colony: Empires and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-2000. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2014.Clark, Manning. History of Australia. Abridged by Michael Cathcart. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1997 [1993]. Clements, Nicholas. The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania. St Lucia, Qld.: U of Queensland P, 2014.Colonial Times. “Hobart Town.” Colonial Times 5 Mar. 1830: 2.The Commissioners. Intercolonial Exhibition Official Catalogue. 2nd ed. Melbourne: Blundell & Ford, 1866.Darian-Smith, Kate, and Penelope Edmonds. “Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers.” Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers: Conflict, Performance and Commemoration in Australia and the Pacific Rim. Eds. Kate Darian-Smith and Penelope Edmonds. New York: Routledge, 2015. 1–14. Edmonds, Penelope. “‘Failing in Every Endeavour to Conciliate’: Governor Arthur’s Proclamation Boards to the Aborigines, Australian Conciliation Narratives and Their Transnational Connections.” Journal of Australian Studies 35.2 (2011): 201–18.———. “The Proclamation Cup: Tasmanian Potter Violet Mace and Colonial Quotations.” reCollections 5.2 (2010). 20 May 2015 ‹http://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/vol_5_no_2/papers/the_proclamation_cup_›.Felton, Heather. “Mathinna.” Companion to Tasmanian History. Hobart: Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania, 2006. 29 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/M/Mathinna.htm›.Gall, Jennifer. Library of Dreams: Treasures from the National Library of Australia. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2011.Hull, Hugh M. “Tasmanian Hieroglyphics.” The Hobart Mercury 26 Nov. 1874: 3.James, P.D. Talking about Detective Fiction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.Mace, Violet. Violet Mace’s Proclamation Jug. Glazed Earthernware. Launceston: Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, 1928.———. Violet Mace’s Proclamation Cup. Glazed Earthernware. Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 1934.McCulloch, Samuel Clyde. “Sir George Gipps and Eastern Australia’s Policy toward the Aborigine, 1838-46.” The Journal of Modern History 33.3 (1961): 261–69.Morris, John. “Notes on a Message to the Tasmanian Aborigines in 1829, popularly called ‘Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816’.” Australiana 10.3 (1988): 84–7.Nettelbeck, Amanda. “‘Equals of the White Man’: Prosecution of Settlers for Violence against Aboriginal Subjects of the Crown, Colonial Western Australia.” Law and History Review 31.2 (2013): 355–90.Newman, Terry. “Tasmania, the Name.” Companion to Tasmanian History, 2006. 16 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/T/Tasmania%20name.htm›.Reece, Robert H.W., in Amanda Nettelbeck. “‘Equals of the White Man’: Prosecution of Settlers for Violence against Aboriginal Subjects of the Crown, Colonial Western Australia.” Law and History Review 31.2 (2013): 355–90.Ryan, Lyndall. “The Black Line in Van Diemen’s Land: Success or Failure?” Journal of Australian Studies 37.1 (2013): 3–18.Savery, Henry. 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Introduction: Our current obsession with the lives of others “Biography—that is to say, our creative and non-fictional output devoted to recording and interpreting real lives—has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance in recent years,” writes Nigel Hamilton in Biography: A Brief History (1). Ian Donaldson agrees that biography is back in fashion: “Once neglected within the academy and relegated to the dustier recesses of public bookstores, biography has made a notable return over recent years, emerging, somewhat surprisingly, as a new cultural phenomenon, and a new academic adventure” (23). For over a decade now, commentators having been making similar observations about our obsession with the intimacies of individual people’s lives. In a lecture in 1994, Justin Kaplan asserted the West was “a culture of biography” (qtd. in Salwak 1) and more recent research findings by John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge affirm that “the undiminished human curiosity about other peoples lives is clearly reflected in the popularity of autobiographies and biographies” (218). At least in relation to television, this assertion seems valid. In Australia, as in the USA and the UK, reality and other biographically based television shows have taken over from drama in both the numbers of shows produced and the viewers these shows attract, and these forms are also popular in Canada (see, for instance, Morreale on The Osbournes). In 2007, the program Biography celebrated its twentieth anniversary season to become one of the longest running documentary series on American television; so successful that in 1999 it was spun off into its own eponymous channel (Rak; Dempsey). Premiered in May 1996, Australian Story—which aims to utilise a “personal approach” to biographical storytelling—has won a significant viewership, critical acclaim and professional recognition (ABC). It can also be posited that the real home movies viewers submit to such programs as Australia’s Favourite Home Videos, and “chat” or “confessional” television are further reflections of a general mania for biographical detail (see Douglas), no matter how fragmented, sensationalized, or even inane and cruel. A recent example of the latter, the USA-produced The Moment of Truth, has contestants answering personal questions under polygraph examination and then again in front of an audience including close relatives and friends—the more “truthful” their answers (and often, the more humiliated and/or distressed contestants are willing to be), the more money they can win. Away from television, but offering further evidence of this interest are the growing readerships for personally oriented weblogs and networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Grossman), individual profiles and interviews in periodical publications, and the recently widely revived newspaper obituary column (Starck). Adult and community education organisations run short courses on researching and writing auto/biographical forms and, across Western countries, the family history/genealogy sections of many local, state, and national libraries have been upgraded to meet the increasing demand for these services. Academically, journals and e-mail discussion lists have been established on the topics of biography and autobiography, and North American, British, and Australian universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in life writing. The commonly aired wisdom is that published life writing in its many text-based forms (biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and collections of personal letters) is enjoying unprecedented popularity. It is our purpose to examine this proposition. Methodological problems There are a number of problems involved in investigating genre popularity, growth, and decline in publishing. Firstly, it is not easy to gain access to detailed statistics, which are usually only available within the industry. Secondly, it is difficult to ascertain how publishing statistics are gathered and what they report (Eliot). There is the question of whether bestselling booklists reflect actual book sales or are manipulated marketing tools (Miller), although the move from surveys of booksellers to electronic reporting at point of sale in new publishing lists such as BookScan will hopefully obviate this problem. Thirdly, some publishing lists categorise by subject and form, some by subject only, and some do not categorise at all. This means that in any analysis of these statistics, a decision has to be made whether to use the publishing list’s system or impose a different mode. If the publishing list is taken at face value, the question arises of whether to use categorisation by form or by subject. Fourthly, there is the bedeviling issue of terminology. Traditionally, there reigned a simple dualism in the terminology applied to forms of telling the true story of an actual life: biography and autobiography. Publishing lists that categorise their books, such as BookScan, have retained it. But with postmodern recognition of the presence of the biographer in a biography and of the presence of other subjects in an autobiography, the dichotomy proves false. There is the further problem of how to categorise memoirs, diaries, and letters. In the academic arena, the term “life writing” has emerged to describe the field as a whole. Within the genre of life writing, there are, however, still recognised sub-genres. Academic definitions vary, but generally a biography is understood to be a scholarly study of a subject who is not the writer; an autobiography is the story of a entire life written by its subject; while a memoir is a segment or particular focus of that life told, again, by its own subject. These terms are, however, often used interchangeably even by significant institutions such the USA Library of Congress, which utilises the term “biography” for all. Different commentators also use differing definitions. Hamilton uses the term “biography” to include all forms of life writing. Donaldson discusses how the term has been co-opted to include biographies of place such as Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) and of things such as Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Biography (2005). This reflects, of course, a writing/publishing world in which non-fiction stories of places, creatures, and even foodstuffs are called biographies, presumably in the belief that this will make them more saleable. The situation is further complicated by the emergence of hybrid publishing forms such as, for instance, the “memoir-with-recipes” or “food memoir” (Brien, Rutherford and Williamson). Are such books to be classified as autobiography or put in the “cookery/food & drink” category? We mention in passing the further confusion caused by novels with a subtitle of The Biography such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fifth methodological problem that needs to be mentioned is the increasing globalisation of the publishing industry, which raises questions about the validity of the majority of studies available (including those cited herein) which are nationally based. Whether book sales reflect what is actually read (and by whom), raises of course another set of questions altogether. Methodology In our exploration, we were fundamentally concerned with two questions. Is life writing as popular as claimed? And, if it is, is this a new phenomenon? To answer these questions, we examined a range of available sources. We began with the non-fiction bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly (a respected American trade magazine aimed at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents that claims to be international in scope) from their inception in 1912 to the present time. We hoped that this data could provide a longitudinal perspective. The term bestseller was coined by Publishers Weekly when it began publishing its lists in 1912; although the first list of popular American books actually appeared in The Bookman (New York) in 1895, based itself on lists appearing in London’s The Bookman since 1891 (Bassett and Walter 206). The Publishers Weekly lists are the best source of longitudinal information as the currently widely cited New York Times listings did not appear till 1942, with the Wall Street Journal a late entry into the field in 1994. We then examined a number of sources of more recent statistics. We looked at the bestseller lists from the USA-based Amazon.com online bookseller; recent research on bestsellers in Britain; and lists from Nielsen BookScan Australia, which claims to tally some 85% or more of books sold in Australia, wherever they are published. In addition to the reservations expressed above, caveats must be aired in relation to these sources. While Publishers Weekly claims to be an international publication, it largely reflects the North American publishing scene and especially that of the USA. Although available internationally, Amazon.com also has its own national sites—such as Amazon.co.uk—not considered here. It also caters to a “specific computer-literate, credit-able clientele” (Gutjahr: 219) and has an unashamedly commercial focus, within which all the information generated must be considered. In our analysis of the material studied, we will use “life writing” as a genre term. When it comes to analysis of the lists, we have broken down the genre of life writing into biography and autobiography, incorporating memoir, letters, and diaries under autobiography. This is consistent with the use of the terminology in BookScan. Although we have broken down the genre in this way, it is the overall picture with regard to life writing that is our concern. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of whether, within life writing, further distinctions should be drawn. Publishers Weekly: 1912 to 2006 1912 saw the first list of the 10 bestselling non-fiction titles in Publishers Weekly. It featured two life writing texts, being headed by an autobiography, The Promised Land by Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin, and concluding with Albert Bigelow Paine’s six-volume biography, Mark Twain. The Publishers Weekly lists do not categorise non-fiction titles by either form or subject, so the classifications below are our own with memoir classified as autobiography. In a decade-by-decade tally of these listings, there were 3 biographies and 20 autobiographies in the lists between 1912 and 1919; 24 biographies and 21 autobiographies in the 1920s; 13 biographies and 40 autobiographies in the 1930s; 8 biographies and 46 biographies in the 1940s; 4 biographies and 14 autobiographies in the 1950s; 11 biographies and 13 autobiographies in the 1960s; 6 biographies and 11 autobiographies in the 1970s; 3 biographies and 19 autobiographies in the 1980s; 5 biographies and 17 autobiographies in the 1990s; and 2 biographies and 7 autobiographies from 2000 up until the end of 2006. See Appendix 1 for the relevant titles and authors. Breaking down the most recent figures for 1990–2006, we find a not radically different range of figures and trends across years in the contemporary environment. The validity of looking only at the top ten books sold in any year is, of course, questionable, as are all the issues regarding sources discussed above. But one thing is certain in terms of our inquiry. There is no upwards curve obvious here. If anything, the decade break-down suggests that sales are trending downwards. This is in keeping with the findings of Michael Korda, in his history of twentieth-century bestsellers. He suggests a consistent longitudinal picture across all genres: In every decade, from 1900 to the end of the twentieth century, people have been reliably attracted to the same kind of books […] Certain kinds of popular fiction always do well, as do diet books […] self-help books, celebrity memoirs, sensationalist scientific or religious speculation, stories about pets, medical advice (particularly on the subjects of sex, longevity, and child rearing), folksy wisdom and/or humour, and the American Civil War (xvii). Amazon.com since 2000 The USA-based Amazon.com online bookselling site provides listings of its own top 50 bestsellers since 2000, although only the top 14 bestsellers are recorded for 2001. As fiction and non-fiction are not separated out on these lists and no genre categories are specified, we have again made our own decisions about what books fall into the category of life writing. Generally, we erred on the side of inclusion. (See Appendix 2.) However, when it came to books dealing with political events, we excluded books dealing with specific aspects of political practice/policy. This meant excluding books on, for instance, George Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror,’ of which there were a number of bestsellers listed. In summary, these listings reveal that of the top 364 books sold by Amazon from 2000 to 2007, 46 (or some 12.6%) were, according to our judgment, either biographical or autobiographical texts. This is not far from the 10% of the 1912 Publishers Weekly listing, although, as above, the proportion of bestsellers that can be classified as life writing varied dramatically from year to year, with no discernible pattern of peaks and troughs. This proportion tallied to 4% auto/biographies in 2000, 14% in 2001, 10% in 2002, 18% in 2003 and 2004, 4% in 2005, 14% in 2006 and 20% in 2007. This could suggest a rising trend, although it does not offer any consistent trend data to suggest sales figures may either continue to grow, or fall again, in 2008 or afterwards. Looking at the particular texts in these lists (see Appendix 2) also suggests that there is no general trend in the popularity of life writing in relation to other genres. For instance, in these listings in Amazon.com, life writing texts only rarely figure in the top 10 books sold in any year. So rarely indeed, that from 2001 there were only five in this category. In 2001, John Adams by David McCullough was the best selling book of the year; in 2003, Hillary Clinton’s autobiographical Living History was 7th; in 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton reached number 1; in 2006, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman was 9th; and in 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8th. Apart from McCulloch’s biography of Adams, all the above are autobiographical texts, while the focus on leading political figures is notable. Britain: Feather and Woodbridge With regard to the British situation, we did not have actual lists and relied on recent analysis. John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge find considerably higher levels for life writing in Britain than above with, from 1998 to 2005, 28% of British published non-fiction comprising autobiography, while 8% of hardback and 5% of paperback non-fiction was biography (2007). Furthermore, although Feather and Woodbridge agree with commentators that life writing is currently popular, they do not agree that this is a growth state, finding the popularity of life writing “essentially unchanged” since their previous study, which covered 1979 to the early 1990s (Feather and Reid). Australia: Nielsen BookScan 2006 and 2007 In the Australian publishing industry, where producing books remains an ‘expensive, risky endeavour which is increasingly market driven’ (Galligan 36) and ‘an inherently complex activity’ (Carter and Galligan 4), the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that the total numbers of books sold in Australia has remained relatively static over the past decade (130.6 million in the financial year 1995–96 and 128.8 million in 2003–04) (ABS). During this time, however, sales volumes of non-fiction publications have grown markedly, with a trend towards “non-fiction, mass market and predictable” books (Corporall 41) resulting in general non-fiction sales in 2003–2004 outselling general fiction by factors as high as ten depending on the format—hard- or paperback, and trade or mass market paperback (ABS 2005). However, while non-fiction has increased in popularity in Australia, the same does not seem to hold true for life writing. Here, in utilising data for the top 5,000 selling non-fiction books in both 2006 and 2007, we are relying on Nielsen BookScan’s categorisation of texts as either biography or autobiography. In 2006, no works of life writing made the top 10 books sold in Australia. In looking at the top 100 books sold for 2006, in some cases the subjects of these works vary markedly from those extracted from the Amazon.com listings. In Australia in 2006, life writing makes its first appearance at number 14 with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s My Story. This is followed by another My Story at 25, this time by retired Australian army chief, Peter Cosgrove. Jonestown: The Power and Myth of Alan Jones comes in at 34 for the Australian broadcaster’s biographer Chris Masters; the biography, The Innocent Man by John Grisham at 38 and Li Cunxin’s autobiographical Mao’s Last Dancer at 45. Australian Susan Duncan’s memoir of coping with personal loss, Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life makes 50; bestselling USA travel writer Bill Bryson’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid 69; Mandela: The Authorised Portrait by Rosalind Coward, 79; and Joanne Lees’s memoir of dealing with her kidnapping, the murder of her partner and the justice system in Australia’s Northern Territory, No Turning Back, 89. These books reveal a market preference for autobiographical writing, and an almost even split between Australian and overseas subjects in 2006. 2007 similarly saw no life writing in the top 10. The books in the top 100 sales reveal a downward trend, with fewer titles making this band overall. In 2007, Terri Irwin’s memoir of life with her famous husband, wildlife warrior Steve Irwin, My Steve, came in at number 26; musician Andrew Johns’s memoir of mental illness, The Two of Me, at 37; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography Infidel at 39; John Grogan’s biography/memoir, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, at 42; Sally Collings’s biography of the inspirational young survivor Sophie Delezio, Sophie’s Journey, at 51; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s hybrid food, self-help and travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything at 82. Mao’s Last Dancer, published the year before, remained in the top 100 in 2007 at 87. When moving to a consideration of the top 5,000 books sold in Australia in 2006, BookScan reveals only 62 books categorised as life writing in the top 1,000, and only 222 in the top 5,000 (with 34 titles between 1,000 and 1,999, 45 between 2,000 and 2,999, 48 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 33 between 4,000 and 5,000). 2007 shows a similar total of 235 life writing texts in the top 5,000 bestselling books (75 titles in the first 1,000, 27 between 1,000 and 1,999, 51 between 2,000 and 2,999, 39 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 43 between 4,000 and 5,000). In both years, 2006 and 2007, life writing thus not only constituted only some 4% of the bestselling 5,000 titles in Australia, it also showed only minimal change between these years and, therefore, no significant growth. Conclusions Our investigation using various instruments that claim to reflect levels of book sales reveals that Western readers’ willingness to purchase published life writing has not changed significantly over the past century. We find no evidence of either a short, or longer, term growth or boom in sales in such books. Instead, it appears that what has been widely heralded as a new golden age of life writing may well be more the result of an expanded understanding of what is included in the genre than an increased interest in it by either book readers or publishers. What recent years do appear to have seen, however, is a significantly increased interest by public commentators, critics, and academics in this genre of writing. We have also discovered that the issue of our current obsession with the lives of others tends to be discussed in academic as well as popular fora as if what applies to one sub-genre or production form applies to another: if biography is popular, then autobiography will also be, and vice versa. If reality television programming is attracting viewers, then readers will be flocking to life writing as well. Our investigation reveals that such propositions are questionable, and that there is significant research to be completed in mapping such audiences against each other. This work has also highlighted the difficulty of separating out the categories of written texts in publishing studies, firstly in terms of determining what falls within the category of life writing as distinct from other forms of non-fiction (the hybrid problem) and, secondly, in terms of separating out the categories within life writing. Although we have continued to use the terms biography and autobiography as sub-genres, we are aware that they are less useful as descriptors than they are often assumed to be. In order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture, publishing categories may need to be agreed upon, redefined and utilised across the publishing industry and within academia. This is of particular importance in the light of the suggestions (from total sales volumes) that the audiences for books are limited, and therefore the rise of one sub-genre may be directly responsible for the fall of another. Bair argues, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of what she categorises as memoir had direct repercussions on the numbers of birth-to-death biographies that were commissioned, contracted, and published as “sales and marketing staffs conclude[d] that readers don’t want a full-scale life any more” (17). Finally, although we have highlighted the difficulty of using publishing statistics when there is no common understanding as to what such data is reporting, we hope this study shows that the utilisation of such material does add a depth to such enquiries, especially in interrogating the anecdotal evidence that is often quoted as data in publishing and other studies. Appendix 1 Publishers Weekly listings 1990–1999 1990 included two autobiographies, Bo Knows Bo by professional athlete Bo Jackson (with Dick Schaap) and Ronald Reagan’s An America Life: An Autobiography. In 1991, there were further examples of life writing with unimaginative titles, Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, and Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North with William Novak; as indeed there were again in 1992 with It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of Norman Schwarzkopf, Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the founder of Wal-Mart, Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, Every Living Thing, yet another veterinary outpouring from James Herriot, and Truman by David McCullough. In 1993, radio shock-jock Howard Stern was successful with the autobiographical Private Parts, as was Betty Eadie with her detailed recounting of her alleged near-death experience, Embraced by the Light. Eadie’s book remained on the list in 1994 next to Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man, comedian Tim Allen’s autobiography. Flag-waving titles continue in 1995 with Colin Powell’s My American Journey, and Miss America, Howard Stern’s follow-up to Private Parts. 1996 saw two autobiographical works, basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be and figure-skater, Ekaterina Gordeeva’s (with EM Swift) My Sergei: A Love Story. In 1997, Diana: Her True Story returns to the top 10, joining Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and prolific biographer Kitty Kelly’s The Royals, while in 1998, there is only the part-autobiography, part travel-writing A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by musician Jimmy Buffet. There is no biography or autobiography included in either the 1999 or 2000 top 10 lists in Publishers Weekly, nor in that for 2005. In 2001, David McCullough’s biography John Adams and Jack Welch’s business memoir Jack: Straight from the Gut featured. In 2002, Let’s Roll! Lisa Beamer’s tribute to her husband, one of the heroes of 9/11, written with Ken Abraham, joined Rudolph Giuliani’s autobiography, Leadership. 2003 saw Hillary Clinton’s autobiography Living History and Paul Burrell’s memoir of his time as Princess Diana’s butler, A Royal Duty, on the list. In 2004, it was Bill Clinton’s turn with My Life. In 2006, we find John Grisham’s true crime (arguably a biography), The Innocent Man, at the top, Grogan’s Marley and Me at number three, and the autobiographical The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in fourth place. Appendix 2 Amazon.com listings since 2000 In 2000, there were only two auto/biographies in the top Amazon 50 bestsellers with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life about his battle with cancer at 20, and Dave Eggers’s self-consciously fictionalised memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at 32. In 2001, only the top 14 bestsellers were recorded. At number 1 is John Adams by David McCullough and, at 11, Jack: Straight from the Gut by USA golfer Jack Welch. In 2002, Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani was at 12; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro at 29; Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell at 42; Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock at 48; and Louis Gerstner’s autobiographical Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround at 50. In 2003, Living History by Hillary Clinton was 7th; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson 14th; Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How President Bill Clinton Endangered America’s Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson 20th; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer 32nd; Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan 33rd; Kate Remembered, Scott Berg’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, 37th; Who’s your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great and Reprobates of Golf by Rick Reilly 39th; The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about a winning baseball team by David Halberstam 42nd; and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong 49th. In 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton was the best selling book of the year; American Soldier by General Tommy Franks was 16th; Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 18th; Timothy Russert’s Big Russ and Me: Father and Son. Lessons of Life 20th; Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul 23rd; Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton 27th; Cokie Roberts’s Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised our Nation 31st; Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty 42nd; and Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan was 43rd. In 2005, auto/biographical texts were well down the list with only The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion at 45 and The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls at 49. In 2006, there was a resurgence of life writing with Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman at 9; Grisham’s The Innocent Man at 12; Bill Buford’s food memoir Heat: an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany at 23; more food writing with Julia Child’s My Life in France at 29; Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust at 30; CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival at 43; and Isabella Hatkoff’s Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise) at 44. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8; Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe 13; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography of her life in Muslim society, Infidel, 18; The Reagan Diaries 25; Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI 29; Mother Teresa: Come be my Light 36; Clapton: The Autobiography 40; Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles 45; Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life 47; and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant at 49. Acknowledgements A sincere thank you to Michael Webster at RMIT for assistance with access to Nielsen BookScan statistics, and to the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). “About Us.” Australian Story 2008. 1 June 2008. ‹http://www.abc.net.au/austory/aboutus.htm>. 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The National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper—drafted to assist the Australian Government in developing the first national Cultural Policy since Creative Nation nearly two decades ago—envisages a future in which arts, cultural and creative activities directly support the development of an inclusive, innovative and productive Australia. "The policy," it says, "will be based on an understanding that a creative nation produces a more inclusive society and a more expressive and confident citizenry by encouraging our ability to express, describe and share our diverse experiences—with each other and with the world" (Australian Government 3). Even a cursory reading of this Discussion Paper makes it clear that the question of impact—in aesthetic, cultural and economic terms—is central to the Government's agenda in developing a new Cultural Policy. Hand-in-hand with the notion of impact comes the process of measurement of progress. The Discussion Paper notes that progress "must be measurable, and the Government will invest in ways to assess the impact that the National Cultural Policy has on society and the economy" (11). If progress must be measurable, this raises questions about what arts, cultural and creative workers do, whether it is worth it, and whether they could be doing it better. In effect, the Discussion Paper pushes artsworkers ever closer to a climate in which they have to be skilled not just at making work, but at making the impact of this work clear to stakeholders. The Government in its plans for Australia's cultural future, is clearly most supportive of artsworkers who can do this, and the scholars, educators and employers who can best train the artsworkers of the future to do this. Teaching Artsworkers to Measure the Impact of Their Work: The Challenges How do we train artsworkers to assess, measure and articulate the impact of what they do? How do we prepare them to be ready to work in a climate that will—as the National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper makes clear—emphasise measuring impact, communicating impact, and communicating impact across aesthetic, cultural and economic categories? As educators delivering training in this area, the Discussion Paper has made this already compelling question even more pressing as we work to develop the career-ready graduates the Government seeks. Our program, the Master of Creative Industries (Creative Production & Arts Management) offered in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, is, like most programs in arts and cultural management in the US, UK, Europe and Australia, offering a three-Semester postgraduate program that allows students to develop the career-ready skills required to work as managers of arts, cultural or creative organisations. That we need to train our graduates to work not just as producers of plays, paintings or recordings, but as entrepreneurial arts advocates who can measure and articulate the value of their programs to others, is not news (Hadley "Creating" 647-48; cf. Brkic; Ebewo and Sirayi; Beckerman; Sikes). Our program—which offers training in arts policy, management, marketing and budgeting followed by training in entrepreneurship and a practical project—is already structured around this necessity. The question of how to teach students this diverse skill set is, however, still a subject of debate; and the question of how to teach students to measure the impact of this work is even more difficult. There is, of course, a body of literature on the impact of arts, cultural and creative activities, value and evaluation that has been developed over the past decade, particularly through landmark reports like Matarasso's Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts (1997) and the RAND Corporation's Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts (2004). There are also emergent studies in an Australian context: Madden's "Cautionary Note" on using economic impact studies in the arts (2001); case studies on arts and wellbeing by consultancy firm Effective Change (2003); case studies by DCITA (2003); the Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management (2009) issue on "value"; and Australia Council publications on arts, culture and economy. As Richards has explained, "evaluation is basically a straightforward concept. E-value-ation = a process of enquiry that allows a judgment of amount, value or worth to be made" (99). What makes arts evaluation difficult is not the concept, but the measurement of intangible values—aesthetic quality, expression, engagement or experience. In the literature, discussion has been plagued by debate about what is measured, what method is used, and whether subjective values can in fact be measured. Commentators note that in current practice, questions of value are still deferred because they are too difficult to measure (Bilton and Leary 52), discussed only in terms of economic measures such as market share or satisfaction which are statistically quantifiable (Belfiore and Bennett "Rethinking" 137), or done through un-rigorous surveys that draw only ambiguous, subjective, or selective responses (Merli 110). According to Belfiore and Bennett, Public debate about the value of the arts thus comes to be dominated by what might best be termed the cult of the measurable; and, of course, it is those disciplines primarily concerned with measurement, namely, economics and statistics, which are looked upon to find the evidence that will finally prove why the arts are so important to individuals and societies. A corollary of this is that the humanities are of little use in this investigation. ("Rethinking" 137) Accordingly, Ragsdale states, Arts organizations [still] need to find a way to assess their progress in …making great art that matters to people—as evidenced, perhaps, by increased enthusiasm, frequency of attendance, the capacity and desire to talk or write about one's experience, or in some other way respond to the experience, the curiosity to learn about the art form and the ideas encountered, the depth of emotional response, the quality of the social connections made, and the expansion of one's aesthetics over time. Commentators are still looking for a balanced approach (cf. Geursen and Rentschler; Falk and Dierkling), which evaluates aesthetic practices, business practices, audience response, and results for all parties, in tandem. An approach which evaluates intrinsic impacts, instrumental impacts, and the way each enables the other, in tandem—with an emphasis not on the numbers but on whether we are getting better at what we are doing. And, of course, allows evaluators of arts, cultural and creative activities to use creative arts methods—sketches, stories, bodily movements and relationships and so forth—to provide data to inform the assessment, so they can draw not just on statistical research methods but on arts, culture and humanities research methods. Teaching Artsworkers to Measure the Impact of Their Work: Our Approach As a result of this contested terrain, our method for training artsworkers to measure the impact of their programs has emerged not just from these debates—which tend to conclude by declaring the needs for better methods without providing them—but from a research-teaching nexus in which our own trial-and-error work as consultants to arts, cultural and educational organisations looking to measure the impact of or improve their programs has taught us what is effective. Each of us has worked as managers of professional associations such as Drama Australia and Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA), members of boards or committees for arts organisations such as Youth Arts Queensland and Young People and the Arts Australia (YPAA), as well as consultants to major cultural organisations like the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and the Brisbane Festival. The methods for measuring impact we have developed via this work are based not just on surveys and statistics, but on our own practice as scholars and producers of culture—and are therefore based in arts, culture and humanities approaches. As scholars, we investigate the way marginalised groups tell stories—particularly groups marked by age, gender, race or ability, using community, contemporary and public space performance practices (cf. Hadley, "Bree"; Gattenhof). What we have learned by bringing this sort of scholarly analysis into dialogue with a more systematised approach to articulating impact to government, stakeholders and sponsors is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. What is needed, instead, is a toolkit, which incorporates central principles and stages, together with qualitative, quantitative and performative tools to track aesthetics, accessibility, inclusivity, capacity-building, creativity etc., as appropriate on a case-by-case basis. Whatever the approach, it is critical that the data track the relationship between the experience the artists, audience or stakeholders anticipated the activity should have, the aspects of the activity that enabled that experience to emerge (or not), and the effect of that (or not) for the arts organisation, their artists, their partners, or their audiences. The combination of methods needs to be selected in consultation with the arts organisation, and the negotiations typically need to include detailed discussion of what should be evaluated (aesthetics, access, inclusivity, or capacity), when it should be evaluated (before, during or after), and how the results should be communicated (including the difference between evaluation for reporting purposes and evaluation for program improvement purposes, and the difference between evaluation and related processes like reflection, documentary-making, or market research). Translating what we have learned through our cultural research and consultancy into a study package for students relies on an understanding of what they want from their study. This, typically, is practical career-ready skills. Students want to produce their own arts, or produce other people's arts, and most have not imagined themselves participating in meta-level processes in which they argue the value of arts, cultural and creative activities (Hadley, "Creating" 652). Accordingly, most have not thought of themselves as researchers, using cultural research methods to create reports that inform how the Australian government values, supports, and services the arts. The first step in teaching students to operate effectively as evaluators of arts, cultural and creative activities is, then, to re-orient their expectations to include this in their understanding of what artsworkers do, what skills artsworkers need, and where they deploy these skills. Simply handing over our own methods, as "the" methods, would not enable graduates to work effectively in a climate were one size will not fit all, and methods for evaluating impact need to be negotiated again for each new context. 1. Understanding the Need for Evaluation: Cause and Effect The first step in encouraging students to become effective evaluators is asking them to map their sector, the major stakeholders, the agendas, alignments and misalignments in what the various players are trying to achieve, and the programs, projects and products through which the players are trying to achieve it. This starting point is drawn from Program Theory—which, as Joon-Yee Kwok argues in her evaluation of the SPARK National Mentoring Program for Young and Emerging Artists (2010) is useful in evaluating cultural activities. The Program Theory approach starts with a flow chart that represents relationships between activities in a program, allowing evaluators to unpack some of the assumptions the program's producers have about what activities have what sort of effect, then test whether they are in fact having that sort of effect (cf. Hall and Hall). It could, for example, start with a flow chart representing the relationship between a community arts policy, a community arts organisation, a community-devised show it is producing, and a blog it has created because it assumes it will allow the public to become more interested in the show the participants are creating, to unpack the assumptions about the sort of effect this is supposed to have, and test whether this is in fact having this sort of effect. Masterclasses, conversations and debate with peers and industry professionals about the agendas, activities and assumptions underpinning programs in their sector allows students to look for elements that may be critical in their programs' ability to achieve (or not) an anticipated impact. In effect to start asking about, "the way things are done now, […] what things are done well, and […] what could be done better" (Australian Government 12).2. Understanding the Nature of Evaluation: PurposeOnce students have been alerted to the need to look for cause-effect assumptions that can determine whether or not their program, project or product is effective, they are asked to consider what data they should be developing about this, why, and for whom. Are they evaluating a program to account to government, stakeholders and sponsors for the money they have spent? To improve the way it works? To use that information to develop innovative new programs in future? In other words, who is the audience? Being aware of the many possible purposes and audiences for evaluation information can allow students to be clear not just about what needs to be evaluated, but the nature of the evaluation they will do—a largely statistical report, versus a narrative summary of experiences, emotions and effects—which may differ depending on the audience.3. Making Decisions about What to Evaluate: Priorities When setting out to measure the impact of arts, cultural or creative activities, many people try to measure everything, measure for the purposes of reporting, improvement and development using the same methods, or gather a range of different sorts of data in the hope that something in it will answer questions about whether an activity is having the anticipated effect, and, if so, how. We ask students to be more selective, making strategic decisions about which anticipated effects of a program, project or product need to be evaluated, whether the evaluation is for reporting, improvement or innovation purposes, and what information stakeholders most require. In addition to the concept of collecting data about critical points where programs succeed or fail in achieving a desired effect, and different approaches for reporting, improvement or development, we ask students to think about the different categories of effect that may be more or less interesting to different stakeholders. This is not an exhaustive list, or a list of things every evaluation should measure. It is a tool to demonstrate to would-be evaluators points of focus that could be developed, depending on the stakeholders' priorities, the purpose of the evaluation, and the critical points at which desired effects need to occur to ensure success. Without such framing, evaluators are likely to end up with unusable data, which become a difficulty to deal with rather than a benefit for the artsworkers, arts organisations or stakeholders. 4. Methods for Evaluation: Process To be effective, methods for collecting data about how arts, cultural or creative activities have (or fail to have) anticipated impact need to include conventional survey, interview and focus group style tools, and creative or performative tools such as discussion, documentation or observation. We encourage students to use creative practice to draw out people's experience of arts events—for example, observation, documentation still images, video or audio documentation, or facilitated development of sketches, stories or scenes about an experience, can be used to register and record people's feelings. These sorts of methods can capture what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow" of experience (cf. Belfiore and Bennett, "Determinants" 232)—for example, photos of a festival space at hourly intervals or the colours a child uses to convey memory of a performance can capture to flow of movement, engagement, and experience for spectators more clearly than statistics. These, together with conventional surveys or interviews that comment on the feelings expressed, allow for a combination of quantitative, qualitative and performative data to demonstrate impact. The approach becomes arts- and humanities- based, using arts methods to encourage people to talk, write or otherwise respond to their experience in terms of emotion, connection, community, or expansion of aesthetics. The evaluator still needs to draw out the meaning of the responses through content, text or discourse analysis, and teaching students how to do a content analysis of quantitative, qualitative and performative data is critical at this stage. When teaching students how to evaluate their data, our method encourages students not just to focus on the experience, or the effect of the experience, but the relationship between the two—the things that act as "enablers" "determinants" (White and Hede; Belfiore and Bennett, "Determinants" passim) of effect. This approach allows the evaluator to use a combination of conventional and creative methods to describe not just what effect an activity had, but, more critically, what enabled it to have that effect, providing a firmer platform for discussing the impact, and how it could be replicated, developed or deepened next time, than a list of effects and numbers of people who felt those effects alone. 5. Communicating Results: Politics Often arts, cultural or creative organisations can be concerned about the image of their work an evaluation will create. The final step in our approach is to alert students to the professional, political and ethical implications of evaluation. Students learn to share their knowledge with organisations, encouraging them to see the value of reporting both correct and incorrect assumptions about the impact of their activities, as part of a continuous improvement process. Then we assist them in drawing the results of this sort of cultural research into planning, development and training documents which may assist the organisation in improving in the future. In effect, it is about encouraging organisations to take the Australian government at its word when, in the National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper, it says it that measuring impact is about measuring progress—what we do well, what we could do better, and how, not just success statistics about who is most successful—as it is this that will ultimately be most useful in creating an inclusive, innovative, productive Australia. Teaching Artsworkers to Measure the Impact of Their Work: The Impact of Our Approach What, then, is the impact of our training on graduates' ability to measure the impact of work? Have we made measurable progress in our efforts to teach artsworkers to assess and articulate the impact of their work? The MCI (CP&AM) has been offered for three years. Our approach is still emergent and experimental. We have, though, identified a number of impacts of our work. First, our students are less fearful of becoming involved in measuring the value or impact of arts, cultural and creative programs. This is evidenced by the number who chooses to do some sort of evaluation for their Major Project, a 15,000 word individual project or internship which concludes their degree. Of the 50 or so students who have reached the Major Project in three years—35 completed and 15 in planning for 2012—about a third have incorporated evaluation into their Major Project. This includes evaluation of sector, business or producing models (5), youth arts and youth arts mentorship programs (4), audience development programs (2), touring programs (4), and even other arts management training programs (1). Indeed, after internships in programming or producing roles, this work—aligned with the Government's interest in improving training of young artists, touring, audience development, and economic development—has become a most popular Major Project option. This has enabled students to work with a range of arts, cultural and creative organisations, share their training—their methods, their understanding of what their methods can measure, when, and how—with Industry. Second, this Industry-engaged training has helped graduates in securing employment. This is evidenced by the fact that graduates have gone on to be employed with organisations they have interned with as part of their Major Project, or other organisations, including some of Brisbane's biggest cultural organisations—local and state government departments, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane Festival, Metro Arts, Backbone Youth Arts, and Youth Arts Queensland, amongst others. Thirdly, graduates' contribution to local organisations and industry has increased the profile of a relatively new program. This is evidenced by the fact that it enrols 40 to 50 new students a year across Graduate Certificate / MCI (CP&AM) programs, typically two thirds domestic students and one third international students from Canada, Germany, France, Denmark, Norway and, of course, China. Indeed, some students are now disseminating this work globally, undertaking their Major Project as an internship or industry project with an organisation overseas. In effect, our training's impact emerges not just from our research, or our training, but from the fact that our graduates disseminate our approach to a range of arts, cultural and creative organisations in a practical way. We have, as a result, expanded the audience for this approach, and the number of people and contexts via which it is being adapted and made useful. Whilst few of students come into our program with a desire to do this sort of work, or even a working knowledge of the policy that informs it, on completion many consider it a viable part of their practice and career pathway. When they realise what they can achieve, and what it can mean to the organisations they work with, they do incorporate research, research consultant and government roles as part of their career portfolio, and thus make a contribution to the strong cultural sector the Government envisages in the National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper. Our work as scholars, practitioners and educators has thus enabled us to take a long-term, processual and grassroots approach to reshaping agendas for approaches to this form of cultural research, as our practices are adopted and adapted by students and industry stakeholders. Given the challenges commentators have identified in creating and disseminating effective evaluation methods in arts over the past decade, this, for us—though by no means work that is complete—does count as measurable progress. References Beckerman, Gary. "Adventuring Arts Entrepreneurship Curricula in Higher Education: An Examination of Present Efforts, Obstacles, and Best pPractices." The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 37.2 (2007): 87-112. Belfiore, Eleaonora, and Oliver Bennett. "Determinants of Impact: Towards a Better Understanding of Encounters with the Arts." Cultural Trends 16.3 (2007): 225-75. ———. "Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts." International Journal of Cultural Policy 13.2 (2007): 135-51. Bilton, Chris, and Ruth Leary. "What Can Managers Do for Creativity? Brokering Creativity in the Creative Industries." International Journal of Cultural Policy 8.1 (2002): 49-64. Brkic, Aleksandar. "Teaching Arts Management: Where Did We Lose the Core Ideas?" Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 38.4 (2009): 270-80. Czikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. "A Systems Perspective on Creativity." Creative Management. Ed. Jane Henry. Sage: London, 2001. 11-26. Australian Government. "National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper." Department of Prime Minster and Cabinet – Office for the Arts 2011. 1 Oct. 2011 ‹http://culture.arts.gov.au/discussion-paper›. Ebewo, Patrick, and Mzo Sirayi. "The Concept of Arts/Cultural Management: A Critical Reflection." Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 38.4 (2009): 281-95. Effective Change and VicHealth. Creative Connections: Promoting Mental Health and Wellbeing through Community Arts Participation 2003. 1 Oct. 2011 ‹http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/en/Publications/Social-connection/Creative-Connections.aspx›. Effective Change. Evaluating Community Arts and Community Well Being 2003. 1 Oct. 2011 ‹http://www.arts.vic.gov.au/Research_and_Resources/Resources/Evaluating_Community_Arts_and_Wellbeing›. Falk, John H., and Lynn. D Dierking. "Re-Envisioning Success in the Cultural Sector." Cultural Trends 17.4 (2008): 233-46. Gattenhof, Sandra. "Sandra Gattenhof." QUT ePrints Article Repository. Queensland University of Technology, 2011. 1 Oct. 2011 ‹http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Gattenhof,_Sandra.html›. Geursen, Gus and Ruth Rentschler. "Unravelling Cultural Value." The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 33.3 (2003): 196-210. Hall, Irene and David Hall. Evaluation and Social Research: Introducing Small Scale Practice. London: Palgrave McMillan, 2004. Hadley, Bree. "Bree Hadley." QUT ePrints Article Repository. Queensland University of Technology, 2011. 1 Oct. 2011 ‹http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Hadley,_Bree.html›. ———. "Creating Successful Cultural Brokers: The Pros and Cons of a Community of Practice Approach in Arts Management Education." Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management 8.1 (2011): 645-59. Kwok, Joon. When Sparks Fly: Developing Formal Mentoring Programs for the Career Development of Young and Emerging Artists. Masters Thesis. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology, 2010. Madden, Christopher. "Using 'Economic' Impact Studies in Arts and Cultural Advocacy: A Cautionary Note." Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 98 (2001): 161-78. Matarasso, Francis. Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts. Bournes Greens, Stroud: Comedia, 1997. McCarthy, Kevin. F., Elizabeth H. Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras, and Arthur Brooks. Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2004. Merli, Paola. "Evaluating the Social Impact of Participation in Arts Activities." International Journal of Cultural Policy 8.1 (2002): 107-18. Muir, Jan. The Regional Impact of Cultural Programs: Some Case Study Findings. Communications Research Unit - DCITA, 2003. Ragsdale, Diana. "Keynote - Surviving the Culture Change." Australia Council Arts Marketing Summit. Australia Council for the Arts: 2008. Richards, Alison. "Evaluation Approaches." Creative Collaboration: Artists and Communities. Melbourne: Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, 2006. Sikes, Michael. "Higher Education Training in Arts Administration: A Millennial and Metaphoric Reappraisal. Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 30.2 (2000): 91-101.White, Tabitha, and Anne-Marie Hede. "Using Narrative Inquiry to Explore the Impact of Art on Individuals." Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 38.1 (2008): 19-35.

Introduction: Bubbles and Sport The ephemeral materiality of bubbles – beautiful, spectacular, and distracting but ultimately fragile – when applied to protect or conserve in the interests of sport-media profit, creates conditions that exacerbate existing inequalities in sport and society. Bubbles are usually something to watch, admire, and chase after in their brief yet shiny lives. There is supposed to be, technically, nothing inside them other than one or more gasses, and yet we constantly refer to people and objects being inside bubbles. The metaphor of the bubble has been used to describe the life of celebrities, politicians in purpose-built capital cities like Canberra, and even leftist, environmentally activist urban dwellers. The metaphorical and material qualities of bubbles are aligned—they cannot be easily captured and are liable to change at any time. In this article we address the metaphorical sporting bubble, which is often evoked in describing life in professional sport. This is a vernacular term used to capture and condemn the conditions of life of elite sportspeople (usually men), most commonly after there has been a sport-related scandal, especially of a sexual nature (Rowe). It is frequently paired with connotatively loaded adjectives like pampered and indulged. The sporting bubble is rarely interrogated in academic literature, the concept largely being left to the media and moral entrepreneurs. It is represented as involving a highly privileged but also pressurised life for those who live inside it. A sporting bubble is a world constructed for its most prized inhabitants that enables them to be protected from insurgents and to set the terms of their encounters with others, especially sport fans and disciplinary agents of the state. The Covid-19 pandemic both reinforced and reconfigured the operational concept of the bubble, re-arranging tensions between safety (protecting athletes) and fragility (short careers, risks of injury, etc.) for those within, while safeguarding those without from bubble contagion. Privilege and Precarity Bubble-induced social isolation, critics argue, encourages a loss of perspective among those under its protection, an entitled disconnection from the usual rules and responsibilities of everyday life. For this reason, the denizens of the sporting bubble are seen as being at risk to themselves and, more troublingly, to those allowed temporarily to penetrate it, especially young women who are first exploited by and then ejected from it (Benedict). There are many well-documented cases of professional male athletes “behaving badly” and trying to rely on institutional status and various versions of the sporting bubble for shelter (Flood and Dyson; Reel and Crouch; Wade). In the age of mobile and social media, it is increasingly difficult to keep misbehaviour in-house, resulting in a slew of media stories about, for example, drunkenness and sexual misconduct, such as when then-Sydney Roosters co-captain Mitchell Pearce was suspended and fined in 2016 after being filmed trying to force an unwanted kiss on a woman and then simulating a lewd act with her dog while drunk. There is contestation between those who condemn such behaviour as aberrant and those who regard it as the conventional expression of youthful masculinity as part of the familiar “boys will be boys” dictum. The latter naturalise an inequitable gender order, frequently treating sportsmen as victims of predatory women, and ignoring asymmetries of power between men and women, especially in homosocial environments (Toffoletti). For those in the sporting bubble (predominantly elite sportsmen and highly paid executives, also mostly men, with an array of service staff of both sexes moving in and out of it), life is reflected for those being protected via an array of screens (small screens in homes and indoor places of entertainment, and even smaller screens on theirs and others’ phones, as well as huge screens at sport events). These male sport stars are paid handsomely to use their skill and strength to perform for the sporting codes, their every facial expression and bodily action watched by the media and relayed to audiences. This is often a precarious existence, the usually brief career of an athlete worker being dependent on health, luck, age, successful competition with rivals, networks, and club and coach preferences. There is a large, aspirational reserve army of athletes vying to play at the elite level, despite risks of injury and invasive, life-changing medical interventions. Responsibility for avoiding performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) also weighs heavily on their shoulders (Connor). Professional sportspeople, in their more reflective moments, know that their time in the limelight will soon be up, meaning that getting a ticket to the sporting bubble, even for a short time, can make all the difference to their post-sport lives and those of their families. The most vulnerable of the small minority of participants in sport who make a good, short-term living from it are those for whom, in the absence of quality education and prior social status, it is their sole likely means of upward social mobility (Spaaij). Elite sport performers are surrounded by minders, doctors, fitness instructors, therapists, coaches, advisors and other service personnel, all supporting athletes to stay focussed on and maximise performance quality to satisfy co-present crowds, broadcasters, sponsors, sports bodies and mass media audiences. The shield offered by the sporting bubble supports the teleological win-at-all-costs mentality of professional sport. The stakes are high, with athlete and executive salaries, sponsorships and broadcasting deals entangled in a complex web of investments in keeping the “talent” pivotal to the “attention economy” (Davenport and Beck)—the players that provide the content for sale—in top form. Yet, the bubble cannot be entirely secured and poor behaviour or performance can have devastating effects, including permanent injury or disability, mental illness and loss of reputation (Rowe, “Scandals and Sport”). Given this fragile materiality of the sporting bubble, it is striking that, in response to the sudden shutdown following the economic and health crisis caused by the 2020 global pandemic, the leaders of professional sport decided to create more of them and seek to seal the metaphorical and material space with unprecedented efficiency. The outcome was a multi-sided tale of mobility, confinement, capital, labour, and the gendering of sport and society. The Covid-19 Gilded Cage Sociologists such as Zygmunt Bauman and John Urry have analysed the socio-politics of mobilities, whereby some people in the world, such as tourists, can traverse the globe at their leisure, while others remain fixed in geographical space because they lack the means to be mobile or, in contrast, are involuntarily displaced by war, so-called “ethnic cleansing”, famine, poverty or environmental degradation. The Covid-19 global pandemic re-framed these matters of mobilities (Rowe, “Subjecting Pandemic Sport”), with conventional moving around—between houses, businesses, cities, regions and countries—suddenly subjected to the imperative to be static and, in perniciously unreflective technocratic discourse, “socially distanced” (when what was actually meant was to be “physically distanced”). The late-twentieth century analysis of the “risk society” by Ulrich Beck, in which the mysterious consequences of humans’ predation on their environment are visited upon them with terrifying force, was dramatically realised with the coming of Covid-19. In another iteration of the metaphor, it burst the bubble of twenty-first century global sport. What we today call sport was formed through the process of sportisation (Maguire), whereby hyper-local, folk physical play was reconfigured as multi-spatial industrialised sport in modernity, becoming increasingly reliant on individual athletes and teams travelling across the landscape and well over the horizon. Co-present crowds were, in turn, overshadowed in the sport economy when sport events were taken to much larger, dispersed audiences via the media, especially in broadcast mode (Nicholson, Kerr, and Sherwood). This lucrative mediation of professional sport, though, came with an unforgiving obligation to generate an uninterrupted supply of spectacular live sport content. The pandemic closed down most sports events and those that did take place lacked the crucial participation of the co-present crowd to provide the requisite event atmosphere demanded by those viewers accustomed to a sense of occasion. Instead, they received a strange spectacle of sport performers operating in empty “cathedrals”, often with a “faked” crowd presence. The mediated sport spectacle under the pandemic involved cardboard cut-out and sex doll spectators, Zoom images of fans on large screens, and sampled sounds of the crowd recycled from sport video games. Confected co-presence produced simulacra of the “real” as Baudrillardian visions came to life. The sporting bubble had become even more remote. For elite sportspeople routinely isolated from the “common people”, the live sport encounter offered some sensory experience of the social – the sounds, sights and even smells of the crowd. Now the sporting bubble closed in on an already insulated and insular existence. It exposed the irony of the bubble as a sign of both privileged mobility and incarcerated athlete work, both refuge and prison. Its logic of contagion also turned a structure intended to protect those inside from those outside into, as already observed, a mechanism to manage the threat of insiders to outsiders. In Australia, as in many other countries, the populace was enjoined by governments and health authorities to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 through isolation and immobility. There were various exceptions, principally those classified as essential workers, a heterogeneous cohort ranging from supermarket shelf stackers to pharmacists. People in the cultural, leisure and sports industries, including musicians, actors, and athletes, were not counted among this crucial labour force. Indeed, the performing arts (including dance, theatre and music) were put on ice with quite devastating effects on the livelihoods and wellbeing of those involved. So, with all major sports shut down (the exception being horse racing, which received the benefit both of government subsidies and expanding online gambling revenue), sport organisations began to represent themselves as essential services that could help sustain collective mental and even spiritual wellbeing. This case was made most aggressively by Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman, Peter V’landys, in contending that “an Australia without rugby league is not Australia”. In similar vein, prominent sport and media figure Phil Gould insisted, when describing rugby league fans in Western Sydney’s Penrith, “they’re lost, because the football’s not on … . It holds their families together. People don’t understand that … . Their life begins in the second week of March, and it ends in October”. Despite misgivings about public safety and equality before the pandemic regime, sporting bubbles were allowed to form, re-form and circulate. The indefinite shutdown of the National Rugby League (NRL) on 23 March 2020 was followed after negotiation between multiple entities by its reopening on 28 May 2020. The competition included a team from another nation-state (the Warriors from Aotearoa/New Zealand) in creating an international sporting bubble on the Central Coast of New South Wales, separating them from their families and friends across the Tasman Sea. Appeals to the mental health of fans and the importance of the NRL to myths of “Australianness” notwithstanding, the league had not prudently maintained a financial reserve and so could not afford to shut down for long. Significant gambling revenue for leagues like the NRL and Australian Football League (AFL) also influenced the push to return to sport business as usual. Sport contests were needed in order to exploit the gambling opportunities – especially online and mobile – stimulated by home “confinement”. During the coronavirus lockdowns, Australians’ weekly spending on gambling went up by 142 per cent, and the NRL earned significantly more than usual from gambling revenue—potentially $10 million above forecasts for 2020. Despite the clear financial imperative at play, including heavy reliance on gambling, sporting bubble-making involved special licence. The state of Queensland, which had pursued a hard-line approach by closing its borders for most of those wishing to cross them for biographical landmark events like family funerals and even for medical treatment in border communities, became “the nation's sporting hub”. Queensland became the home of most teams of the men’s AFL (notably the women’s AFLW season having been cancelled) following a large Covid-19 second wave in Melbourne. The women’s National Netball League was based exclusively in Queensland. This state, which for the first time hosted the AFL Grand Final, deployed sport as a tool in both national sports tourism marketing and internal pre-election politics, sponsoring a documentary, The Sporting Bubble 2020, via its Tourism and Events arm. While Queensland became the larger bubble incorporating many other sporting bubbles, both the AFL and the NRL had versions of the “fly in, fly out” labour rhythms conventionally associated with the mining industry in remote and regional areas. In this instance, though, the bubble experience did not involve long stays in miners’ camps or even the one-night hotel stopovers familiar to the popular music and sport industries. Here, the bubble moved, usually by plane, to fulfil the requirements of a live sport “gig”, whereupon it was immediately returned to its more solid bubble hub or to domestic self-isolation. In the space created between disciplined expectation and deplored non-compliance, the sporting bubble inevitably became the scrutinised object and subject of scandal. Sporting Bubble Scandals While people with a very low risk of spreading Covid-19 (coming from areas with no active cases) were denied entry to Queensland for even the most serious of reasons (for example, the death of a child), images of AFL players and their families socialising and enjoying swimming at the Royal Pines Resort sporting bubble crossed our screens. Yet, despite their (players’, officials’ and families’) relative privilege and freedom of movement under the AFL Covid-Safe Plan, some players and others inside the bubble were involved in “scandals”. Most notable was the case of a drunken brawl outside a Gold Coast strip club which led to two Richmond players being “banished”, suspended for 10 matches, and the club fined $100,000. But it was not only players who breached Covid-19 bubble protocols: Collingwood coaches Nathan Buckley and Brenton Sanderson paid the $50,000 fine imposed on the club for playing tennis in Perth outside their bubble, while Richmond was fined $45,000 after Brooke Cotchin, wife of team captain Trent, posted an image to Instagram of a Gold Coast day spa that she had visited outside the “hub” (the institutionally preferred term for bubble). She was subsequently distressed after being trolled. Also of concern was the lack of physical distancing, and the range of people allowed into the sporting bubble, including babysitters, grandparents, and swimming coaches (for children). There were other cases of players being caught leaving the bubble to attend parties and sharing videos of their “antics” on social media. Biosecurity breaches of bubbles by players occurred relatively frequently, with stern words from both the AFL and NRL leaders (and their clubs) and fines accumulating in the thousands of dollars. Some people were also caught sneaking into bubbles, with Lekahni Pearce, the girlfriend of Swans player Elijah Taylor, stating that it was easy in Perth, “no security, I didn’t see a security guard” (in Barron, Stevens, and Zaczek) (a month later, outside the bubble, they had broken up and he pled guilty to unlawfully assaulting her; Ramsey). Flouting the rules, despite stern threats from government, did not lead to any bubble being popped. The sport-media machine powering sporting bubbles continued to run, the attendant emotional or health risks accepted in the name of national cultural therapy, while sponsorship, advertising and gambling revenue continued to accumulate mostly for the benefit of men. Gendering Sporting Bubbles Designed as biosecurity structures to maintain the supply of media-sport content, keep players and other vital cogs of the machine running smoothly, and to exclude Covid-19, sporting bubbles were, in their most advanced form, exclusive luxury camps that illuminated the elevated socio-cultural status of sportsmen. The ongoing inequalities between men’s and women’s sport in Australia and around the world were clearly in evidence, as well as the politics of gender whereby women are obliged to “care” and men are enabled to be “careless” – or at least to manage carefully their “duty of care”. In Australia, the only sport for women that continued during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown was netball, which operated in a bubble that was one of sacrifice rather than privilege. With minimum salaries of only $30,000 – significantly less than the lowest-paid “rookies” in the AFL – and some being mothers of small children and/or with professional jobs juggled alongside their netball careers, these elite sportswomen wanted to continue to play despite the personal inconvenience or cost (Pavlidis). Not one breach of the netballers out of the bubble was reported, indicating that they took their responsibilities with appropriate seriousness and, perhaps, were subjected to less scrutiny than the sportsmen accustomed to attracting front-page headlines. National Netball League (also known after its Queensland-based naming rights sponsor as Suncorp Super Netball) players could be regarded as fortunate to have the opportunity to be in a bubble and to participate in their competition. The NRL Women’s (NRLW) Premiership season was also completed, but only involved four teams subject to fly in, fly out and bubble arrangements, and being played in so-called curtain-raiser games for the NRL. As noted earlier, the AFLW season was truncated, despite all the prior training and sacrifice required of its players. Similarly, because of their resource advantages, the UK men’s and boy’s top six tiers of association football were allowed to continue during lockdown, compared to only two for women and girls. In the United States, inequalities between men’s and women’s sports were clearly demonstrated by the conditions afforded to those elite sportswomen inside the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) sport bubble in the IMG Academy in Florida. Players shared photos of rodent traps in their rooms, insect traps under their mattresses, inedible food and blocked plumbing in their bubble accommodation. These conditions were a far cry from the luxury usually afforded elite sportsmen, including in Florida’s Walt Disney World for the men’s NBA, and is just one of the many instances of how gendered inequality was both reproduced and exacerbated by Covid-19. Bursting the Bubble As we have seen, governments and corporate leaders in sport were able to create material and metaphorical bubbles during the Covid-19 lockdown in order to transmit stadium sport contests into home spaces. The rationale was the importance of sport to national identity, belonging and the routines and rhythms of life. But for whom? Many women, who still carry the major responsibilities of “care”, found that Covid-19 intensified the affective relations and gendered inequities of “home” as a leisure site (Fullagar and Pavlidis). Rates of domestic violence surged, and many women experienced significant anxiety and depression related to the stress of home confinement and home schooling. During the pandemic, women were also more likely to experience the stress and trauma of being first responders, witnessing virus-related sickness and death as the majority of nurses and care workers. They also bore the brunt of much of the economic and employment loss during this time. Also, as noted above, livelihoods in the arts and cultural sector did not receive the benefits of the “bubble”, despite having a comparable claim to sport in contributing significantly to societal wellbeing. This sector’s workforce is substantially female, although men dominate its senior roles. Despite these inequalities, after the late March to May hiatus, many elite male sportsmen – and some sportswomen - operated in a bubble. Moving in and out of them was not easy. Life inside could be mentally stressful (especially in long stays of up to 150 days in sports like cricket), and tabloid and social media troll punishment awaited those who were caught going “over the fence”. But, life in the sporting bubble was generally preferable to the daily realities of those afflicted by the trauma arising from forced home confinement, and for whom watching moving sports images was scant compensation for compulsory immobility. The ethical foundation of the sparkly, ephemeral fantasy of the sporting bubble is questionable when it is placed in the service of a voracious “media sports cultural complex” (Rowe, Global Media Sport) that consumes sport labour power and rolls back progress in gender relations as a default response to a global pandemic. Covid-19 dramatically highlighted social inequalities in many areas of life, including medical care, work, and sport. For the small minority of people involved in sport who are elite professionals, the only thing worse than being in a sporting bubble during the pandemic was not being in one, as being outside precluded their participation. Being inside the bubble was a privilege, albeit a dubious one. But, as in wider society, not all sporting bubbles are created equal. Some are more opulent than others, and the experiences of the supporting and the supported can be very different. The surface of the sporting bubble may be impermanent, but when its interior is opened up to scrutiny, it reveals some very durable structures of inequality. Bubbles are made to burst. They are, by nature, temporary, translucent structures created as spectacles. As a form of luminosity, bubbles “allow a thing or object to exist only as a flash, sparkle or shimmer” (Deleuze, 52). In echoing Deleuze, Angela McRobbie (54) argues that luminosity “softens and disguises the regulative dynamics of neoliberal society”. The sporting bubble was designed to discharge that function for those millions rendered immobile by home confinement legislation in Australia and around the world, who were having to deal with the associated trauma, risk and disadvantage. Hence, the gender and class inequalities exacerbated by Covid-19, and the precarious and pressured lives of elite athletes, were obscured. We contend that, in the final analysis, the sporting bubble mainly serves those inside, floating tantalisingly out of reach of most of those outside who try to grasp its elusive power. Yet, it is a small group beyond who wield that power, having created bubbles as armoured vehicles to salvage any available profit in the midst of a global pandemic. References AAP. “NRL Makes Desperate Plea to Government as It Announces Season Will Go Ahead.” 7News.com.au 15 Mar. 2020. 8 Mar. 2021 <https://7news.com.au/sport/rugby-league/nrl-makes-desperate-plea-to-government-as-it-announces-season-will-go-ahead-c-745711>. Al Jazeera English. “Sports TV: Faking Spectators and Spectacles.” The Listening Post 26 Sep. 2020 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AlD63s26sQ&feature=youtu.be&t=827>. 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Introduction Special occasion cookery has been a staple of the cookbook writing in the English speaking Western world for decades. This includes providing catering for personal milestones as well as religious and secular festivals. Yet, in an era when the culinary publishing sector is undergoing considerable expansion and market segmentation, narratives of foods marking of one of life’s central and inescapable rites—death—are extremely rare. This discussion investigates examples of food writing related to death and funeral rites in contemporary cookbooks. Funeral feasts held in honour of the dead date back beyond recorded history (Luby and Gruber), and religious, ceremonial and community group meals as a component of funeral rites are now ubiquitous around the world. In earlier times, the dead were believed to derive both pleasure and advantage from these offerings (LeClercq), and contemporary practice still reflects this to some extent, with foods favoured by the deceased sometimes included in such meals (see, for instance, Varidel). In the past, offering some sustenance as a component of a funeral was often necessary, as mourners might have travelled considerable distances to attend the ceremony, and eateries outside the home were not as commonplace or convenient to access as they are today. The abundance and/or lavishness of the foods provided may also have reflected the high esteem in which the dead was held, and offered as a mark of community respect (Smith and Bird). Following longstanding tradition, it is still common for Western funeral attendees to gather after the formal parts of the event—the funeral service and burial or cremation —in a more informal atmosphere to share memories of the deceased and refreshments (Simplicity Funerals 31). Thursby notes that these events, which are ostensibly about the dead, often develop into a celebration of the ties between living family members and friends, “times of reunions and renewed relationships” (94). Sharing food is central to this celebration as “foods affirm identity, strengthen kinship bonds, provide comfortable and familiar emotional support during periods of stress” (79), while familiar dishes evoke both memories and promising signals of the continued celebration of life” (94). While in the southern states and some other parts of the USA, it is customary to gather at the church premises after the funeral for a meal made up of items contributed by members of the congregation, and with leftovers sent home with the bereaved family (Siegfried), it is more common in Australasia and the UK to gather either in the home of the principal mourners, someone else’s home or a local hotel, club or restaurant (Jalland). Church halls are a less common option in Australasia, and an increasing trend is the utilisation of facilities attached to the funeral home and supplied as a component of a funeral package (Australian Heritage Funerals). The provision of this catering largely depends on the venue chosen, with the cookery either done by family and/or friends, the hotel, club, restaurant or professional catering companies, although this does not usually affect the style of the food, which in Australia and New Zealand is often based on a morning or afternoon tea style meal (Jalland). Despite widespread culinary innovation in other contexts, funeral catering bears little evidence of experimentation. Ash likens this to as being “fed by grandmothers”, and describes “scones, pastries, sandwiches, biscuits, lamingtons—food from a fifties afternoon party with the taste of Country Women’s Association about it”, noting that funerals “require humble food. A sandwich is not an affront to the dead” (online). Numerous other memoirists note this reliance on familiar foods. In “S is for Sad” in her An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949), food writer M.F.K. Fisher writes of mourners’s deep need for sustenance at this time as a “mysterious appetite that often surges in us when our hearts seem breaking and our lives too bleakly empty” (135). In line with Probyn’s argument that food foregrounds the viscerality of life (7), Fisher notes that “most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers: they want a steak. […] It is as if our bodies, wiser than we who wear them, call out for encouragement and strength and […] compel us […] to eat” (135, 136). Yet, while funerals are a recurring theme in food memoirs (see, for example, West, Consuming), only a small number of Western cookbooks address this form of special occasion food provision. Feast by Nigella Lawson Nigella Lawson’s Feast: Food that Celebrates Life (2004) is one of the very few popular contemporary cookbooks in English that includes an entire named section on cookery for funerals. Following twenty-one chapters that range from the expected (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and wedding) to more original (children’s and midnight) feasts, Lawson frames her discussion with an anthropological understanding of the meaning of special occasion eating. She notes that we use food “to mark occasions that are important to us in life” (vii) and how eating together “is the vital way we celebrate anything that matters […] how we mark the connections between us, how we celebrate life” (vii). Such meals embody both personal and group identities because both how and what is eaten “lies at the heart of who we are-as individuals, families, communities” (vii). This is consistent with her overall aims as a food writer—to explore foods’ meanings—as she states in the book’s introduction “the recipes matter […] but it is what the food says that really counts” (vii). She reiterates this near the end of the book, adding, almost as an afterthought, “and, of course, what it tastes like” (318). Lawson’s food writing also reveals considerable detail about herself. In common with many other celebrity chefs and food writers, Lawson continuously draws on, elaborates upon, and ultimately constructs her own life as a major theme of her works (Brien, Rutherford, and Williamson). In doing so, she, like these other chefs and food writers, draws upon revelations of her private life to lend authenticity to her cooking, to the point where her cookbooks could be described as “memoir-illustrated-with-recipes” (Brien and Williamson). The privileging of autobiographical information in Lawson’s work extends beyond the use of her own home and children in her television programs and books, to the revelation of personal details about her life, with the result that these have become well known. Her readers thus know that her mother, sister and first and much-loved husband all died of cancer in a relatively brief space of time, and how these tragedies affected her life. Her first book, How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (1998), opened with the following dedication: “In memory of my mother, Vanessa (1936–1985) and my sister Thomasina (1961–1993)” (dedication page). Her husband, BBC broadcaster and The Times (London) journalist John Diamond, who died of throat cancer in 2001, furthered this public knowledge, writing about both his illness and at length about Lawson in his column and his book C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too (1999). In Feast, Lawson discusses her personal tragedies in the introduction of the ‘Funeral Foods’ chapter, writing about a friend's kind act of leaving bags of shopping from the supermarket for her when she was grieving (451). Her first recipe in this section, for a potato topped fish pie, is highly personalised in that it is described as “what I made on the evening following my mother’s funeral” (451). Following this, she again uses her own personal experience when she notes that “I don’t think anyone wants to cook in the immediate shock of bereavement […] but a few days on cooking can be a calming act, and since the mind knows no rest and has no focus, the body may as well be busy” (451). Similarly, her recipe for the slowly hard-boiled, dark-stained Hamine Eggs are described as “sans bouche”, which she explains means “without mouths to express sorrow and anguish.” She adds, drawing on her own memories of feelings at such times, “I find that appropriate: there is nothing to be said, or nothing that helps” (455). Despite these examples of raw emotion, Lawson’s chapter is not all about grief. She also comments on both the aesthetics of dishes suitable for such times and their meanings, as well as the assistance that can be offered to others through the preparation and sharing of food. In her recipe for a lamb tagine that includes prunes, she notes, for example, that the dried plums are “traditionally part of the funeral fare of many cultures […] since their black colour is thought to be appropriate to the solemnity of the occasion” (452). Lawson then suggests this as a suitable dish to offer to someone in mourning, someone who needs to “be taken care of by you” (452). This is followed by a lentil soup, the lentils again “because of their dark colour … considered fitting food for funerals” (453), but also practical, as the dish is “both comforting and sustaining and, importantly, easy to transport and reheat” (453). Her next recipe for a meatloaf containing a line of hard-boiled eggs continues this rhetorical framing—as it is “always comfort food […] perfect for having sliced on a plate at a funeral tea or for sending round to someone’s house” (453). She adds the observation that there is “something hopeful and cheering about the golden yolk showing through in each slice” (453), noting that the egg “is a recurring feature in funeral food, symbolising as it does, the cycle of life, the end and the beginning in one” (453). The next recipe, Heavenly Potatoes, is Lawson’s version of the dish known as Mormon or Utah Funeral potatoes (Jensen), which are so iconic in Utah that they were featured on one of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games souvenir pins (Spackman). This tray of potatoes baked in milk and sour cream and then topped with crushed cornflakes are, she notes, although they sound exotic, quite familiar, and “perfect alongside the British traditional baked ham” (454), and reference given to an earlier ham recipe. These savoury recipes are followed by those for three substantial cakes: an orange cake marbled with chocolate-coffee swirls, a fruit tea loaf, and a rosemary flavoured butter cake, each to be served sliced to mourners. She suggests making the marble cake (which Lawson advises she includes in memory of the deceased mother of one of her friends) in a ring mould, “as the circle is always significant. There is a cycle that continues but—after all, the cake is sliced and the circle broken—another that has ended” (456). Of the fruitcake, she writes “I think you need a fruit cake for a funeral: there’s something both comforting and bolstering (and traditional) about it” (457). This tripartite concern—with comfort, sustenance and tradition—is common to much writing about funeral foods. Cookbooks from the American South Despite this English example, a large proportion of cookbook writing about funeral foods is in American publications, and especially those by southern American authors, reflecting the bountiful spreads regularly offered to mourners in these states. This is chronicled in novels, short stories, folk songs and food memoirs as well as some cookery books (Purvis). West’s memoir Consuming Passions: A Food Obsessed Life (2000) has a chapter devoted to funeral food, complete with recipes (132–44). West notes that it is traditional in southern small towns to bring covered dishes of food to the bereaved, and that these foods have a powerful, and singular, expressive mode: “Sometimes we say all the wrong things, but food […] says, ‘I know you are inconsolable. I know you are fragile right now. And I am so sorry for your loss’” (139). Suggesting that these foods are “concern and sympathy in a Pyrex bowl” (139), West includes recipes for Chess pie (a lemon tart), with the information that this is known in the South as “funeral pie” (135) and a lemon-flavoured slice that, with a cup of tea, will “revive the spirit” (136). Like Lawson, West finds significance in the colours of funeral foods, continuing that the sunny lemon in this slice “reminds us that life continues, that we must sustain and nourish it” (139). Gaydon Metcalf and Charlotte Hays’s Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral (2005), is one of the few volumes available dedicated to funeral planning and also offers a significant cookery-focused section on food to offer at, and take to, funeral events. Jessica Bemis Ward’s To Die For: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales from the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia (2004) not only contains more than 100 recipes, but also information about funeral customs, practical advice in writing obituaries and condolence notes, and a series of very atmospheric photographs of this historic cemetery. The recipes in the book are explicitly noted to be traditional comfort foods from Central Virginia, as Ward agrees with the other writers identified that “simplicity is the by-word when talking about funeral food” (20). Unlike the other examples cited here, however, Ward also promotes purchasing commercially-prepared local specialties to supplement home-cooked items. There is certainly significantly more general recognition of the specialist nature of catering for funerals in the USA than in Australasia. American food is notable in stressing how different ethnic groups and regions have specific dishes that are associated with post-funeral meals. From this, readers learn that the Amish commonly prepare a funeral pie with raisins, and Chinese-American funerals include symbolic foods taken to the graveside as an offering—including piles of oranges for good luck and entire roast pigs. Jewish, Italian and Greek culinary customs in America also receive attention in both scholarly studies and popular American food writing (see, for example, Rogak, Purvis). This is beginning to be acknowledged in Australia with some recent investigation into the cultural importance of food in contemporary Chinese, Jewish, Greek, and Anglo-Australian funerals (Keys), but is yet to be translated into local mainstream cookery publication. Possible Publishing Futures As home funerals are a growing trend in the USA (Wilson 2009), green funerals increase in popularity in the UK (West, Natural Burial), and the multi-million dollar funeral industry is beginning to be questioned in Australia (FCDC), a more family or community-centered “response to death and after-death care” (NHFA) is beginning to re-emerge. This is a process whereby family and community members play a key role in various parts of the funeral, including in planning and carrying out after-death rituals or ceremonies, preparing the body, transporting it to the place of burial or cremation, and facilitating its final disposition in such activities as digging the grave (Gonzalez and Hereira, NHFA). Westrate, director of the documentary A Family Undertaking (2004), believes this challenges us to “re-examine our attitudes toward death […] it’s one of life’s most defining moments, yet it’s the one we typically prepare for least […] [and an indication of our] culture of denial” (PBS). With an emphasis on holding meaningful re-personalised after-disposal events as well as minimal, non-invasive and environmentally friendly treatment of the body (Harris), such developments would also seem to indicate that the catering involved in funeral occasions, and the cookbooks that focus on the provision of such food, may well become more prominent in the future. References [AHF] Australian Heritage Funerals. “After the Funeral.” Australian Heritage Funerals, 2013. 10 Mar. 2013 ‹http://www.ahfunerals.com.au/services.php?arid=31›. Ash, Romy. “The Taste of Sad: Funeral Feasts, Loss and Mourning.” Voracious: Best New Australian Food Writing. Ed. Paul McNally. Richmond, Vic.: Hardie Grant, 2011. 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.romyash.com/non-fiction/the-taste-of-sad-funeral-feasts-loss-and-mourning›. Brien, Donna Lee, Leonie Rutherford, and Rosemary Williamson. "Hearth and Hotmail: The Domestic Sphere as Commodity and Community in Cyberspace." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). 28 Apr. 2013 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/10-brien.php›. Brien, Donna Lee, and Rosemary Williamson. “‘Angels of the Home’ in Cyberspace: New Technologies and Biographies of Domestic Production”. Biography and New Technologies. Australian National University. Humanities Research Centre, Canberra, ACT. 12-14 Sep. 2006. Conference Presentation. Diamond, John. C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too… . London: Vermilion, 1998. Fisher, M.F.K. “S is for Sad.” An Alphabet for Gourmets. New York, North Point P, 1989. 1st. pub. New York, Viking: 1949. Gonzalez, Faustino, and Mildreys Hereira. “Home-Based Viewing (El Velorio) After Death: A Cost-Effective Alternative for Some Families.” American Journal of Hospice & Pallative Medicine 25.5 (2008): 419–20. Harris, Mark. Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial. New York: Scribner, 2007. Jalland, Patricia. Australian Ways of Death: A Social and Cultural History 1840-1918. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2002. Jensen, Julie Badger. The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations. Salt Lake City: Deseret, 2004. Keys, Laura. “Undertaking a Jelly Feast in Williamstown.” Hobsons Bay Leader 28 Mar. 2011. 2 Apr. 2013 ‹http://hobsons-bay-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/undertaking-a-jelly-feast-in-williamstown›. Lawson, Nigella. How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998. ---. Feast: Food that Celebrates Life. London: Chatto & Windus, 2004. LeClercq, H. “The Agape Feast.” The Catholic Encyclopedia I, New York: Robert Appleton, 1907. 3 Apr. 2013. ‹http://www.piney.com/AgapeCE.html›. Luby, Edward M., and Mark F. Gruber. “The Dead Must Be Fed: Symbolic Meanings of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9.1 (1999): 95–108. Metcalf, Gaydon, and Charlotte Hays. Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. New York: Miramax, 2005. [NHFA] National Home Funeral Alliance. “What is a Home Funeral?” National Home Funeral Alliance, 2012. 3 Apr. 2013. ‹http://homefuneralalliance.org›. PBS. “A Family Undertaking.” POV: Documentaries with a Point of View. PBS, 2004. 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.pbs.org/pov/afamilyundertaking/film_description.php#.UYHI2PFquRY›. Probyn, Elspeth. Carnal Appetites: Food/Sex/Identities. London: Routledge, 2000. Purvis, Kathleen. “Funeral Food.” The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. Ed. Andrew F. Smith. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 247–48. Rogak, Lisa. Death Warmed Over: Funeral Food, Rituals, and Customs from Around the World. Berkeley: Ten Speed P, 2004. Siegfried, Susie. Church Potluck Carry-Ins and Casseroles: Homestyle Recipes for Church Suppers, Gatherings, and Community Celebrations. Avon, MA.: Adams Media, 2006. Simplicity Funerals. Things You Need To Know About Funerals. Sydney: Simplicity Funerals, 1990. Smith, Eric Alden, and Rebecca L. Bliege Bird. “Turtle Hunting and Tombstone Opening: Public Generosity as Costly Signaling.” Evolution and Human Behavior 21.4 (2000): 245–61.Spackman, Christy. “Mormonism’s Jell-O Mold: Why Do We Associate the Religion With the Gelatin Dessert?” Slate Magazine 17 Aug. (2012). 3 Apr. 2013.Thursby, Jacqueline S. Funeral Festivals in America: Rituals for the Living. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2006. Varidel, Rebecca. “Bompas and Parr: Funerals and Food at Nelson Bros.” Inside Cuisine 12 Mar. (2011). 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://insidecuisine.com/2011/03/12/bompas-and-parr-funerals-and-food-at-nelson-bros›. Ward, Jessica Bemis. Food To Die for: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales from the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg: Southern Memorial Association, 2004. West, Ken. A Guide to Natural Burial. Andover UK: Sweet & Maxwell, 2010. West, Michael Lee. Consuming Passions: A Food Obsessed Life. New York: Perennial, 2000. Wilson, M.T. “The Home Funeral as the Final Act of Caring: A Qualitative Study.” Master in Nursing thesis. Livonia, Michigan: Madonna University, 2009.

This article analyses the public persona of Jeremy Gilley, a documentary filmmaker, peace campaigner, and the founder of the organisation Peace One Day (POD). It begins by outlining how Gilley’s persona is presented in a manner which resonates with established archetypes of social campaigners, and how this creates POD’s legitimacy among grassroots organisations. I then describe a distinct, but not inconsistent, facet of Gilley’s persona which speaks specifically to entrepreneurs. The article outlines how Gilley’s individuality works to simultaneously address these overlapping audiences and argues that his persona can be read as an articulation of social entrepreneurship. Gilley represents an example of a public personality working to “crystallise issues and to normativise debates” (Marshall “Personifying” 370) concerning corporate involvement with non-profit organisations and the marketisation of the non-profit sector. Peace One Day (POD) is a UK-based non-profit organisation established in 1999 by actor-turned-documentary-filmmaker Jeremy Gilley. In the 1990s, while filming a documentary about global conflict, Gilley realised there was no internationally recognised day of ceasefire and non-violence. He created POD to found such a day and began lobbying the United Nations. In 2001, the 111th plenary meeting of the General Assembly passed a resolution which marked 21 September as the annual International Day of Peace (United Nations). Since 2001, POD has worked to create global awareness of Peace Day. By 2006, other NGOs began using the day to negotiate 24-hour ceasefires in various conflict zones, allowing them to carry out work in areas normally too dangerous to enter. For example, in 2007, the inoculation of 1.3 million Afghan children against polio was possible due to an agreement from the Taliban to allow safe passage to agencies working in the country during the day. This was repeated in subsequent years and, by 2009, 4.5 million children had been immunised (POD Part Three). While neither POD nor Gilley played a direct part in the polio vaccination programmes or specific ceasefires, his organisation acted as a catalyst for such endeavours and these initiatives would not have occurred without POD’s efforts.Gilley is not only the founder of POD, he is also the majority shareholder, key decision-maker, and predominant public spokesperson in this private, non-charitable, non-profit organisation (Frances 73). While POD’s celebrity supporters participate in press conferences, it is Gilley who does most to raise awareness. His public persona is inextricably linked with POD and is created through a range of presentational media with which he is engaged. These include social media content, regular blogposts on POD’s website, as well as appearances at a series of speaking events. Most significantly, Gilley establishes his public persona through a number of documentary films (Peace One Day; Day After; POD Part Three), which are shot largely from his perspective and narrated by his voiceover, and which depict POD’s key struggles and successes.The Peace Campaigner as an Activist and Entrepreneur In common with other non-profit organisations, POD relies on celebrities from the entertainment industries. It works with them in two key ways: raising the public profile of the organisation, and shaping the public persona of its founder by inviting comparisons of their perceived exceptionalness with his ostensible ordinariness. For example, Gilley’s documentaries depict various press conferences held by POD over a number of years. Those organised prior to POD recruiting celebrity spokespeople were “completely ignored by the media” whereas those held after celebrity backing from Jude Law and Angelina Jolie had been secured attracted considerable interest (Day After). Gilley explains his early difficulties in publicising his message by suggesting that he “was a nobody” (POD Part Three). This representation as a “nobody” or, more diplomatically, as “ordinary,” is a central component of Gilley’s persona. “Ordinariness” here means situating Gilley outside the political and entertainment elites and aligning him with more everyday suburban settings. This is done through a combination of the aesthetic qualities of his public presentation and his publically narrated back-story.Aesthetically speaking, Gilley presents his ordinariness through his casual attire and long hair. His appearance is similar to the campaigners, youth groups and school children he addresses, suggesting he is a representative of that demographic but also distancing him from political elites. The diplomats Gilley meets, such as those at the UN, wear the appropriate attire for their elite political setting: suits. In one key scene in the documentary Peace One Day, Gilley makes his first trip to the UN to meet Kofi Annan, UN General Secretary at the time, and appears at their doors clean cut and suitably dressed. He declares that his new appearance was designed to aid his credibility with the UN. Yet, at the same time, he makes explicit that he borrowed the suit from a friend and the tie from his grandfather and, prior to the meeting, it was decided, “the pony tail had to go.” Thus Gilley seeks the approval of both political elites and the ordinary public, and constructs a persona that speaks to both, though he aligns himself with the latter.Gilley’s back-story permeates his films and works to present his ordinariness. For example, POD has humble beginnings as an almost grassroots, family-run organisation, and Gilley depicts a campaign run on a shoestring from his mother’s spare bedroom in an ordinary suburban home. Although British Airways provided free flights from the organisation’s outset, Gilley shows his friends volunteering their time by organising fundraising events. POD’s modest beginnings are reflected in its founder, who confides about both his lack of formal education and lack of success as an actor (Day After). This “ordinariness” is constructed in opposition to the exceptional qualities of POD’s A-list celebrity backers—such as Angelina Jolie, who does enjoy success as an actor. This contrast is emphasised by inviting Jolie into Gilley’s everyday domestic setting and highlighting the icons of success she brings with her. For example, at his first meeting with Jolie, Gilley waits patiently for her and remarks about the expensive car which eventually arrives outside his house, denoting Jolie’s arrival. He notes in the voiceover to his The Day after Peace documentary, “this was unbelievable, Angelina Jolie sat on my sofa asking me what she could do, I couldn’t stop talking. I was so nervous.”Gilley promotes his ordinariness by using aesthetics and personal narrative. Evidence of how he struggled to realise his goals and the financial burdens he carried (Peace One Day) suggest that there is something authentic about Gilley’s vision for Peace Day. This also helps Gilley to align his public persona with common understandings of the political activist as a prophetic social visionary. POD is able to tap into the idea of the power of the individual as a force for change with references to Martin Luther King and Gandhi. Although Gilley makes no direct comparison between himself and these figures, blog entries such as “ten years ago, I had an idea; I dared to dream that I could galvanise the countries of the world to recognise an official day of ceasefire and nonviolence. Mad? Ambitious? Idealistic? All of the above” (Gilley “Dream”), invite comparisons with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This is further augmented by references to Gilley as an outsider to political establishments, such as the UN, which he is sure have “become cynical about the opportunity” they have to unite the world (BBC Interview).Interestingly, Gilley’s presentation as a pragmatic “change-maker” whose “passion is contagious” (Ahmad Fawzi, in POD Concert) also aligns him with a second figure: the entrepreneur. Where Gilley’s performances at school and community groups present his persona as an activist, his entrepreneur persona is presented through his performances at a series of business seminars. These seminars, entitled “Unleash Your Power of Influence,” are targeted towards young entrepreneurs and business-people very much consistent with the “creative class” demographic (Florida). The speakers, including Gilley, have all been successful in business (POD is a private company) and they offer to their audiences motivational presentations, and business advice. Although a semi-regular occurrence, it is the first two events held in July 2010 (Unleash 1) and November 2010 (Unleash 2) that are discussed here. Held in a luxury five-star London hotel, the events demonstrate a starkly different aspect of POD than that presented to community groups and schools, and the amateur grassroots ethic presented in Gilley’s documentary films—for example, tickets for Unleash 2 started at £69 and offered ‘goody bags’ for £95 (author’s observation of the event)—yet consistencies remain.Aesthetically speaking, Gilley’s appearance signifies a connection with these innovative, stereotypically young, founders of start-up companies and where Gilley is an outsider to political organisations; they are outsiders to business establishments. Further, many of these companies typically started, like POD, in a spare bedroom. The speakers at the Unleash events provide insights into their background which frequently demonstrate a rise from humble beginnings to business success, in the face of adversity, and as a result of innovation and perseverance. Gilley is not out of place in this environment and the modest beginnings of POD are relayed to his audience in a manner which bears a striking similarity to his for-profit counterparts.An analysis of Gilley’s presentations at these events demonstrates clear links between the dual aspects of Gilley’s public persona, the political economy of POD, and the underlying philosophy of the organisation—social entrepreneurship. The next section sets out some of the principals of social entrepreneurship and how the aspects of Gilley’s persona, outlined above, reinforce these.Personifying Social EnterpriseGenerally speaking, the business literature greatly emphasises entrepreneurs as “resourceful, value-creating change agents” who are “never satisfied with the status quo [... and are] a forceful engine of growth in our economy” (Dees and Economy 3-4). More recently, the focus of discussion has included social entrepreneurs. These individuals work within “an organisation that attacks [social and environmental] problems through a business format, even if it is not legally structured as a profit-seeking entity” (Bornstein and Davis xv) and advocate commercially oriented non-profit organisations that establish “win-win” relationships between non-profits and business.This coming together of the for- and non-profit sectors has range of precedents, most notably in “philanthrocapitalism” (Bishop and Green) and the types of partnerships established between corporations and environmentalists, such as Greenpeace Australia (Beder). However, philanthrocapitalism often encompasses the application of business methods to social problems by those who have amassed fortunes in purely commercial ventures (such as Bill Gates), and Beder’s work describes established for- and non-profit institutions working together. While social entrepreneurship overlaps with these, social entrepreneurs seek to do well by doing good by making a profit while simultaneously realising social goals (Bornstein and Davis 25).Read as an articulation of the coming together of the activist and the entrepreneur, Gilley’s individuality encapsulates the social enterprise movement. His persona draws from the commonalities between the archetypes of the traditional grassroots activist and start-up entrepreneur, as pioneering visionary and outsider to the establishment. While his films establish his authenticity among politically attuned members of the public, his appearances at the Unleash events work to signify the legitimacy of his organisation to those who identify with social entrepreneurialism and take the position that business should play a positive role in social causes. As an activist, Gilley’s creates his persona through his aesthetic qualities and a performance that draws on historical precedents of social prophets. As an entrepreneur, Gilley draws on the same aesthetic qualities and, through his performance, mitigates the types of disjuncture evident in the 1980s between environmental activists, politicians and business leaders, when environmentalist’s narratives “were perceived as flaky and failed to transform” (Robèrt 7). To do this, Gilley reconstitutes social and environmental problems (such as conflict) within a market metric, and presents the market as a viable and efficient solution. Consequently, Gilley asserts that “we live in a culture of war because war makes money, we need to live in a culture of peace,” and this depends on “if we can make it economical, if we can make the numbers add up” (Unleash).Social enterprises often eschew formal charity and Gilley is consistent with this when he states that “for me, I think it has to be about business. [...] I think if it’s about charity it’s not going to work for me.” Gilley asserts that partnerships with corporations are essential as “our world is going to change, when the corporate sector becomes engaged.” He, therefore, “want[s] to work with large corporations” in order to “empower individuals to be involved in the process of [creating] a more peaceful and sustainable world” (Unleash). One example of POD’s success in this regard is a co-venture with Coca-Cola.To coincide with Peace Day in 2007, POD and Coca-Cola entered into a co-branding exercise which culminated in a sponsorship deal with the POD logo printed on Coca-Cola packaging. Prior to this, Gilley faced a desperate financial situation and conceded that the only alternative to a co-venture with Coca-Cola was shutting down POD (Day After). While Coca-Cola offered financial support and the potential to spread Gilley’s message through the medium of the Coke can, POD presumably offered good publicity to a corporation persistently the target of allegations of unethical practice (for example, Levenson-Estrada; Gill; Thomas). Gilley was aware of the potential image problems caused by a venture with Coke but accepted the partnership on pragmatic grounds, and with the proviso that Coke’s sponsorship not accompany any attempt to influence POD. Gilley, in effect, was using Coca-Cola, displaying the political independence of the social visionary and the pragmatism of the entrepreneur. By the same token, Coca-Cola was using POD to garner positive publicity, demonstrating the nature of this “win-win” relationship.In his film, Gilley consults Ray C. Anderson, social enterprise proponent, about his ethical concerns. Anderson explains the merits of working with Coke. In his Unleash addresses, such ethical considerations do not feature. Instead, it is relayed that Coca-Cola executives were looking to become involved with a social campaign, consistent with the famous 1970s hilltop advertisement of “teaching the world to sing in harmony.” From a meeting at Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta, Gilley reveals, a correlation emerged between Gilley’s emphasis on Peace Day as a moment of global unity—encapsulated by his belief that “the thing about corporations [...] the wonderful thing about everybody […] is that everybody’s just like us” (Unleash)—and the image of worldwide harmony that Coca-Cola wanted to portray. It is my contention that Gilley’s public persona underpinned the manner in which this co-branding campaign emerged. This is because his persona neatly tied the profit motive of the corporation to the socially spirited nature of the campaign, and spoke to Coca-Cola in a manner relatable to the market. At the same time, it promoted a social campaign premised on an inclusiveness that recast the corporation as a concerned global citizen, and the social campaigner as a free-market agent.Persona in the Competitive Non-Profit SectorThrough a series of works P. David Marshall charts the increasing centrality of individuality as “one of the ideological mainstays of consumer capitalism [...and] equally one of the ideological mainstays of how democracy is conceived” (Marshall “New Media-New Self” 635). Celebrity, accordingly, can be thought of as a powerful discourse that works “to make the cultural centrality of individuality concretely real” (Marshall “New Media-New Self” 635). Beyond celebrity, Marshall offers a wider framework that maps how “personalisation, individuality, and the move from the private to the public are now part of the wider populace rather than just at play in the representational field of celebrity” (Marshall, “Persona” 158). This framework includes fundamental changes to the global, specifically Western, labour market that, while not a fait accompli, point to a more competitive environment in which “greater portions of the culture are engaged in regular—probably frequent—selling of themselves” and where self-promotion becomes a key tool (Marshall, “Persona” 158). Therefore, while consumerism comprises a backdrop to the proliferation of celebrity culture, competition within market capitalism contributes to the wider expansion of personalisation and individualism.The non-profit sector is also a competitive environment. UK studies have found an increase in the number of International NGOs of 46.6% from 1995/6-2005/6 (Anheier, Kaldor, and Glasius. 310). At the same time, the number of large charities (with an income greater than £10 million) rose, between 1999-2013, from 307 to 1,005 and their annual income rose from approximately £10bn to £36bn (Charity Commission). These quantitative changes in the sector have occurred alongside qualitative changes in terms of the orientation of individual organisations. For example, Epstein and Gang describe a non-profit sector in which NGOs compete against each other for funds from aid donors (state and private). It is unclear whether “aid will be allocated properly, say to the poorest or to maximize the social welfare” or to the “efficient aid-seekers” (294)—that is, NGOs with the greatest competitive capabilities. A market for public awareness has also emerged and, in an increasingly crowded non-profit sector, it is clearly important for organisations to establish a public profile that can gain attention.It is in this competitive environment that the public personae of activists become assets for NGOs, and Gilley constitutes a successful example of this. His persona demonstrates an organisation’s response to the competitive nature of the non-profit sector, by appealing to both traditional activist circles and the business sector, and articulating the social enterprise movement. Gilley effectively embodies social entrepreneurship—in his appearance, his performance and his back-story—bridging a gap between the for- and non-profit sectors. His persona helps legitimate efforts to recast the activist as an entrepreneur (and conversely, entrepreneurs as activists) by incorporating activist ideals (in this instance, peace) within a market framework. This, to return to Marshall’s argument, crystallises the issue of peace within market metrics such and normativises debates about the role of corporate actors as global citizens, presenting it as pragmatism and therefore “common sense.” This is not to undermine Gilley’s achievements but, instead, to point out how reading his public persona enables an understanding of efforts to marketise the non-profit sector and align peace activism with corporate power.References Anheier, Helmut K., Mary Kaldor, and Marlies Glasius. Global Civil Society 2006/7. London: Sage, 2007.BBC Storyville. Director Interview: Jeremy Gilley. BBC. 2004. 7 Feb. 2010.Beder, Sharon. Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism. Totnes, UK: Green Books, 2002.Bishop, Matthew, and Michael Green. Philanthrocapitalism. London: A&C Black, 2008.Bornstein, David, and Susan Davis. Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Charity Commission for England and Wales. “Sector Facts and Figures.” N.d. 5 Apr 2014.Day after Peace, The. Dir. Jeremy Gilley. Peace One Day, 2008.Dees, J. Gregory, and Peter Economy. "Social Entrepreneurship." Enterprising Nonprofits: A Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurs. Eds. J. Gregory Dees, Jed Emerson, and Peter Economy. New York: Wiley, 2001. 1-18.Epstein, Gil S., and Ira N. Gang. “Contests, NGOs, and Decentralizing Aid.” Review of Development Economics 10. 2 (2006): 285-296.Florida, Richard. The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent. New York: Harper Business, 2006.Frances, Nic. The End of Charity: Time for Social Enterprise. New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 2008.Fraser, Nick. “Can One Man Persuade the World, via the UN, to Sanction a Global Ceasefire Day?” BBC. 2005. 7 Feb. 2010.Gill, Leslie. “Labor and Human Rights: The ‘Real Thing’ in Colombia.” Transforming Anthropology 13.2 (2005): 110-115.Gilley, Jeremy. “Dream One Day.” Peace One Day. 2009. 23 Jun 2010.Levenson-Estrada, Deborah. Trade Unionists against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954-1985. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1994.Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.Marshall, P. David. “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way: Celebrity and Journalism.” The Celebrity Culture Reader. Ed. P. David Marshall. Oxon: Routledge, 2006. 316-323.Marshall, P. David. “New Media – New Self: The Changing Power of Celebrity.” The Celebrity Culture Reader. Ed. P. David. Marshall. Oxon: Routledge, 2006. 634-644.Marshall, P. David. “Personifying Agency: The Public–Persona–Place–Issue Continuum.” Celebrity Studies 4.3 (2013): 369-371.Marshall, P. David. “Persona Studies: Mapping the Proliferation of the Public Self.” Journalism 15.2 (2014): 153-170.Newsnight. BBC 2. 20 Sep. 2010. 22.30-23.00.Peace One Day. Dir. Jeremy Gilley. Peace One Day, 2004.Peace One Day Concert: Live at the Royal Albert Hall Gilley. Dir. Jeremy Gilley. Peace One Day, 2008.Peace One Day Part Three. Dir. Jeremy Gilley. Peace One Day, 2010.Robèrt, Karl-Henrik. The Natural Step: Seeding a Quiet Revolution. Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2002.Thomas, Mark. Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventure with Coca-Cola. London: Ebury Press, 2008.United Nations General Assembly. “International Day of Peace. A/RES/55/282" 111th Plenary Meeting. 2001. 10 June 2014 ‹http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/55/282&Lang=E›.Unleash Your Power of Influence. Triumphant Events and Peace One Day. 2010.

IntroductionWe five friends clinked glasses in our favourite wine and cocktail bar, and considered our next collaborative writing project. We had seen M/C Journal’s call for articles for a special issue on ‘regional’ and when one of us mentioned the television program, Escape from the City, we began our critique:“They haven’t featured Armidale yet, but wouldn’t it be great if they did?”“Really? I mean, some say any publicity is good publicity but the few early episodes I’ve viewed seem to give little or no screen time to the sorts of lifestyle features I most value in our town.”“Well, seeing as we all moved here from the city ages ago, let’s talk about what made us stay?”We had found our next project.A currently popular lifestyle television show (Escape from the City) on Australia’s national public service broadcaster, the ABC, highlights the limitations of popular cultural representations of life in a regional centre. The program is targeted at viewers interested in relocating to regional Australia. As Raymond Boyle and Lisa Kelly note, popular television is an important entry point into the construction of public knowledge as well as a launching point for viewers as they seek additional information (65). In their capacity to construct popular perceptions of ‘reality’, televisual texts offer a significant insight into our understandings and expectations of what is going on around us. Similar to the concerns raised by Esther Peeren and Irina Souch in their analysis of the popular TV show Farmer Wants a Wife (a version set in the Netherlands from 2004–present), we worry that these shows “prevent important aspects of contemporary rural life from being seen and understood” (37) by the viewers, and do a disservice to regional communities.For the purposes of this article, we interrogate the episodes of Escape from the City screened to date in terms of the impact they may have on promoting regional Australia and speculate on how satisfied (or otherwise) we would be should the producers direct their lens onto our regional community—Armidale, in northern NSW. We start with a brief précis of Escape from the City and then, applying an autoethnographic approach (Butz and Besio) focusing on our subjective experiences, we share our reflections on living in Armidale. We blend our academic knowledge and knowledge of everyday life (Klevan et al.) to argue there is greater cultural diversity, complexity, and value in being in the natural landscape in regional areas than is portrayed in these representations of country life that largely focus on cheaper real estate and a five-minute commute.We employ an autoethnographic approach because it emphasises the socially and politically constituted nature of knowledge claims and allows us to focus on our own lives as a way of understanding larger social phenomena. We recognise there is a vast literature on lifestyle programs and there are many different approaches scholars can take to these. Some focus on the intention of the program, for example “the promotion of neoliberal citizenship through home investment” (White 578), while others focus on the supposed effect on audiences (Tsay-Vogel and Krakowiak). Here we only assert the effects on ourselves. We have chosen to blend our voices (Gilmore et al.) in developing our arguments, highlighting our single voices where our individual experiences are drawn on, as we argue for an alternative representation of regional life than currently portrayed in the regional ‘escapes’ of this mainstream lifestyle television program.Lifestyle TelevisionEscape from the City is one of the ‘lifestyle’ series listed on the ABC iview website under the category of ‘Regional Australia’. Promotional details describe Escape from the City as a lifestyle series of 56-minute episodes in which home seekers are guided through “the trials and tribulations of their life-changing decision to escape the city” (iview).Escape from the City is an example of format television, a term used to describe programs that retain the structure and style of those produced in another country but change the circumstances to suit the new cultural context. The original BBC format is entitled Escape to the Country and has been running since 2002. The reach of lifestyle television is extensive, with the number of programs growing rapidly since 2000, not just in the United Kingdom, but internationally (Hill; Collins). In Australia, they have completed, but not yet screened, 60 episodes of Escape from the City. However, with such popularity comes great potential to influence audiences and we argue this program warrants critical attention.Like House Hunters, the United States lifestyle television show (running since 1997), Escape from the City follows “a strict formula” (Loof 168). Each episode uses the same narrative format, beginning with an introduction to the team of experts, then introducing the prospective house buyers, briefly characterising their reasons for leaving the city and what they are looking for in their new life. After this, we are shown a map of the region and the program follows the ‘escapees’ as they view four pre-selected houses. As we leave each property, the cost and features are reiterated in the written template on the screen. We, the audience, wait in anticipation for their final decision.The focus of Escape from the City is the buying of the house: the program’s team of experts is there to help the potential ‘escapees’ find the real estate gem. Real estate value for money emerges as the primary concern, while the promise of finding a ‘life less ordinary’ as highlighted in the opening credits of the program each week, seems to fall by the wayside. Indeed, the representation of regional centres is not nuanced but limited by the emphasis placed on economics over the social and cultural.The intended move of the ‘escapees’ is invariably portrayed as motivated by disenchantment with city life. Clearly a bigger house and a smaller mortgage also has its hedonistic side. In her study of Western society represented in lifestyle shows, Lyn Thomas lists some of the negative aspects of city life as “high speed, work-dominated, consumerist” (680), along with pollution and other associated health risks. While these are mentioned in Escape from the City, Thomas’s list of the pleasures afforded by a simpler country life including space for human connection and spirituality, is not explored to any satisfying extent. Further, as a launching point for viewers in the city (Boyle and Kelly), we fear the singular focus on the price of real estate reinforces a sense of the rural as devoid of creative arts and cultural diversity with a focus on the productive, rather than the natural, landscape. Such a focus does not encourage a desire to find out more and undersells the richness of our (regional) lives.As Australian regional centres strive to circumvent or halt the negative impacts of the drift in population to the cities (Chan), lifestyle programs are important ‘make or break’ narratives, shaping the appeal and bolstering—or not—a decision to relocate. With their focus on cheaper real estate prices and the freeing up of the assets of the ‘escapees’ that a move to the country may entail, the representation is so focused on the economics that it is almost placeless. While the format includes a map of the regional location, there is little sense of being in the place. Such a limited representation does not do justice to the richness of regional lives as we have experienced them.Our TownLike so many regional centres, Armidale has much to offer and is seeking to grow (Armidale Regional Council). The challenges regional communities face in sustaining their communities is well captured in Gabriele Chan’s account of the city-country divide (Chan) and Armidale, with its population of about 25,000, is no exception. Escape from the City fails to emphasise cultural diversity and richness, yet this is what characterises our experience of our regional city. As long-term and satisfied residents of Armidale, who are keenly aware of the persuasive power of popular cultural representations (O’Sullivan and Sheridan; Sheridan and O’Sullivan), we are concerned about the trivialising or reductive manner in which regional Australia is portrayed.While we acknowledge there has not been an episode of Escape from the City featuring Armidale, if the characterisation of another, although larger, regional centre, Toowoomba, is anything to go by, our worst fears may be realised if our town is to feature in the future. Toowoomba is depicted as rural landscapes, ‘elegant’ buildings, a garden festival (the “Carnival of the Flowers”) and the town’s history as home of the Southern Cross windmill and the iconic lamington sponge. The episode features an old shearing shed and a stock whip demonstration, but makes no mention of the arts, or of the University that has been there since 1967. Summing up Toowoomba, the voiceover describes it as “an understated and peaceful place to live,” and provides “an attractive alternative” to city life, substantiated by a favourable comparison of median real estate prices.Below we share our individual responses to the question raised in our opening conversation about the limitations of Escape from the City: What have we come to value about our own town since escaping from city life?Jane: The aspects of life in Armidale I most enjoy are, at least in part, associated with or influenced by the fact that this is a centre for education and a ‘university town’. As such, there is access to an academic library and an excellent town library. The presence of the University of New England, along with independent and public schools, and TAFE, makes education a major employer, attracting a significant student population, and is a major factor in Armidale being one of the first towns in the roll-out of the NBN/high-speed broadband. University staff and students may also account for the thriving cafe culture, along with designer breweries/bars, art house cinema screenings, and a lively classical and popular music scene. Surely the presence of a university and associated spin-offs would deserve coverage in a prospective episode about Armidale.Alison: Having grown up in the city, and now having lived more than half my life in an inner-regional country town, I don’t feel I am missing out ‘culturally’ from this decision. Within our town, there is a vibrant arts community, with the regional gallery and two local galleries holding regular art exhibitions, theatre at a range of venues, and book launches at our lively local book store. And when my children were younger, there was no shortage of sporting events they could be involved with. Encountering friends and familiar faces regularly at these events adds to my sense of belonging to my community. The richness of this life does not make it to the television screen in episodes of Escape from the City.Kerry: I greatly value the Armidale community’s strong social conscience. There are many examples of successful programs to support diverse groups. Armidale Sanctuary and Humanitarian Settlement sponsored South Sudanese refugees for many years and is currently assisting Ezidi refugees. In addition to the core Sanctuary committee, many in the local community help families with developing English skills, negotiating daily life, such as reading and responding to school notes and medical questionnaires. The Backtrack program assists troubled Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth. The program helps kids “to navigate their relationships, deal with personal trauma, take responsibility […] gain skills […] so they can eventually create a sustainable future for themselves.” The documentary film Backtrack Boys shows what can be achieved by individuals with the support of the community. Missing from Escape from the City is recognition of the indigenous experience and history in regional communities, unlike the BBC’s ‘original’ program in which medieval history and Vikings often get a ‘guernsey’. The 1838 Myall Creek massacre of 28 Wirrayaraay people, led to the first prosecution and conviction of a European for killing Aboriginals. Members of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community in Armidale are now active in acknowledging the past wrongs and beginning the process of reconciliation.Josie: About 10am on a recent Saturday morning I was walking from the car park to the shopping complex. Coming down the escalator and in the vestibule, there were about thirty people and it occurred to me that there were at least six nationalities represented, with some of the people wearing traditional dress. It also struck me that this is not unusual—we are a diverse community as a result of our history and being a ‘university city’. The Armidale Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place was established in 1988 and is being extended in 2019. Diversity is apparent in cultural activities such as an international film festival held annually and many of the regular musical events and stalls at the farmers’ market increasingly reflect the cultural mix of our town. As a long-term resident, I appreciate the lifestyle here.Wendy: It is early morning and I am walking in a forest of tall trees, with just the sounds of cattle and black cockatoos. I travel along winding pathways with mossy boulders and creeks dry with drought. My dog barks at rabbits and ‘roos, and noses through the nooks and crannies of the hillside. In this public park on the outskirts of town, I can walk for two hours without seeing another person, or I can be part of a dog-walking pack. The light is grey and misty now, the ranges blue and dark green, but I feel peaceful and content. I came here from the city 30 years ago and hated it at first! But now I relish the way I can be at home in 10 minutes after starting the day in the midst of nature and feeling part of the landscape, not just a tourist—never a possibility in the city. I can watch the seasons and the animals as they come and go and be part of a community which is part of the landscape too. For me, the first verse of South of My Days, written by a ‘local’ describing our New England environment, captures this well:South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country,rises that tableland, high delicate outlineof bony slopes wincing under the winter,low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced,willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapplebranching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;and the old cottage lurches in for shelter. (Wright 20)Whilst our autoethnographic reflections may not reach the heady heights of Judith Wright, they nevertheless reflect the experience of living in, not just escaping to the country. We are disappointed that the breadth of cultural activities and the sense of diversity and community that our stories evoke are absent from the representations of regional communities in Escape from the City.Kate Oakley and Jonathon Ward argue that ‘visions of the good life’, in particular cultural life in the regions, need to be supported by policy which encourages a sustainable prosperity characterised by both economic and cultural development. Escape from the City, however, dwells on the material aspects of consumption—good house prices and the possibility of a private enterprise—almost to the exclusion of any coverage of the creative cultural features.We recognise that the lifestyle genre requires simplification for viewers to digest. What we are challenging is the sense that emerges from the repetitive format week after week whereby differences between places are lost (White 580). Instead what is conveyed in Escape from the City is that regions are homogenous and monocultural. We would like to see more screen time devoted to the social and cultural aspects of the individual locations.ConclusionWe believe coverage of a far richer and more complex nature of rural life would provide a more ‘realistic’ preview of what could be ahead for the ‘escapees’ and perhaps swing the decision to relocate. Certainly, there is some evidence that viewers gain information from lifestyle programs (Hill 106). We are concerned that a lifestyle television program that purports to provide expert advice on the benefits and possible pitfalls of a possible move to the country should be as accurate and all-encompassing as possible within the constraints of the length of the program and the genre.So, returning to what may appear to have been a light-hearted exchange between us at our local bar, and given the above discussion, we argue that television is a powerful medium. We conclude that a popular lifestyle television program such as Escape from the City has an impact on a large viewing audience. For those city-based viewers watching, the message is that moving to the country is an economic ‘no brainer’, whereas the social and cultural dimensions of regional communities, which we posit have sustained our lives, are overlooked. Such texts influence viewers’ perceptions and expectations of what escaping to the country may entail. Escape from the City exploits regional towns as subject matter for a lifestyle program but does not significantly challenge stereotypical representations of country life or does not fully flesh out what escaping to the country may achieve.ReferencesArmidale Regional Council. Community Strategic Plan 2017–2027. Armidale: Armidale Regional Council, 2017.“Backtrack Boys.” Dir. Catherine Scott. Sydney: Umbrella Entertainment, 2018.Boyle, Raymond, and Lisa W. Kelly. “Television, Business Entertainment and Civic Culture.” Television and New Media 14.1 (2013): 62–70.Butz, David, and Kathryn Besio. “Autoethnography.” Geography Compass 3.5 (2009): 1660–74.Chan, Gabrielle. Rusted Off: Why Country Australia Is Fed Up. Australia: Vintage, 2018.Collins, Megan. Classical and Contemporary Social Theory: The New Narcissus in the Age of Reality Television. Routledge, 2018.Gilmore, Sarah, Nancy Harding, Jenny Helin, and Alison Pullen. “Writing Differently.” Management Learning 50.1 (2019): 3–10.Hill, Annette. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. London: Routledge, 2004.iview. “Escape from the City.” Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2019.Klevan, Trude, Bengt Karlsson, Lydia Turner, Nigel Short, and Alec Grant. “‘Aha! ‘Take on Me’s’: Bridging the North Sea with Relational Autoethnography.” Qualitative Research Journal 18.4 (2018): 330–44.Loof, Travis. “A Narrative Criticism of Lifestyle Reality Programs.” Journal of Media Critiques 1.5 (2015): 167–78.O’Sullivan, Jane, and Alison Sheridan. “The King Is Dead, Long Live the King: Tall Tales of New Men and New Management in The Bill.” Gender, Work and Organization 12.4 (2005): 299–318.Oakley, Kate, and Jonathon Ward. “The Art of the Good Life: Culture and Sustainable Prosperity.” Cultural Trends 27.1 (2018): 4–17.Peeren, Esther, and Irina Souch. “Romance in the Cowshed: Challenging and Reaffirming the Rural Idyll in the Dutch Reality TV Show Farmer Wants a Wife.” Journal of Rural Studies 67.1 (2019): 37–45.Sheridan, Alison, and Jane O’Sullivan. “‘Fact’ and ‘Fiction’: Enlivening Health Care Education.” Journal of Health Orgnaization and Management 27.5 (2013): 561–76.Thomas, Lyn. “Alternative Realities: Downshifting Narratives in Contemporary Lifestyle Television.” Cultural Studies 22.5 (2008): 680–99.Tsay-Vogel, Mina, and K. Maja Krakowiak. “Exploring Viewers’ Responses to Nine Reality TV Subgenres.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 6.4 (2017): 348–60.White, Mimi. “‘A House Divided’.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 20.5 (2017): 575–91.Wright, Judith. Collected Poems: 1942–1985. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1994.

The question of colour in architecture offers many potential points of entry. Taking an historical standpoint, one could discuss the use of bright colour in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, the importance of brilliantly coloured mosaic and stained glass to sacred architecture in the Byzantine and medieval periods, and the primacy of colour in non-Western architectural traditions both ancient and modern. It would be possible to trace prohibitions against the use of applied colour, derived from late 18th century notions of architectural morality—ideals demanding authenticity, honesty and directness in the expression of structure, function and materials. This puritan strand could be pursued into the modern movement, to its quasi-pathological attachment to whiteness.1 It would also be possible to note a trend which ran counter to dominant modernist attitudes to colour, in the eclectic 'neon historicism' of so-called 'post-modernist' architecture. But while it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the history of colour in architecture in passing, it has been well addressed elsewhere, and is in any case outside the scope of this paper.2 What is significant is that this history is marked throughout by many of the same, largely unspoken, prohibitions against colour that can be traced across other cultural realms—that which David Batchelor has described as a history of 'chromophobia'. As Batchelor writes; 'Chromophobia manifests itself in the many and varied attempts to purge colour from culture, to diminish its significance, to deny its complexity…. [T]his purging of colour is usually accomplished in one of two ways. In the first, colour is made out to be the property of some 'foreign' body—usually the feminine, the oriental, the primitive, the infantile, the vulgar, the queer or the pathological. In the second, colour is relegated to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential or the cosmetic. In one, colour is regarded as alien and therefore dangerous; in the other it is perceived merely as a secondary quantity of experience, and thus unworthy or serious consideration.'3 Numerous examples of the attempt to 'purge' colour can be identified throughout the history of architecture in the modern period. The mode of chromophobia particular to architecture may be summarised thus: colour in architecture has been associated with illusion and frivolity, and thus with decoration—it has been seen as being excess or supplementary to 'real' architecture.4 Discussions of colour in architecture can never be completely distinguished from discussions of ornament, or of materials and materiality. Colour is not necessarily a problem in itself—it is acceptable, for instance, when it is inherent to the material or to its weathering process, as in the bright green of copper verdigris. It is the application of colour, in the form of paint or stain, that raises questions of authenticity. The importance of surface and colour have been consistently made subordinate to architectural form; and the idea that colour is acceptable in interiors but not exteriors is merely the expression of another hierarchy, linking and demoting the trivial, contingent, feminised interior in favour of universal, masculinized, heroic external form. In the modern period, a work of 'serious' Architecture (as opposed to vernacular, commercial, or 'popular' architecture) has most often either been white, or coloured in the subdued palette afforded by the inherent characteristics of 'natural' materials.5 This is nowhere more true than in institutional architecture generally, and museum architecture in particular. Museums and their stake in the neutral monochrome The museum as an institution has traditionally functioned as a symbol of the establishment and its authority, a symbolic role often expressed in conventionally monumental architecture. This monumentality has, in turn, been reinforced by prestigious materials: much of the dignity and status of institutional architecture is taken from materials valued for their expense, rarity, or durability.6 Museum buildings are required to last, and thus they must not only use enduring materials, but materials which demonstrate their durability by being self-finishing in their natural, apparently neutral, state. The very idea that 'natural' materials are also somehow 'neutral' opens onto another, more ideological investment that the museum has in avoiding colour. Museums have long held a stake in the idea of an objective stance, and maintained the pretence of an unmediated presentation of historical fact. The notion of the museum as 'white cube' embodies all of this—the idea of the white cube, with its aformal form and achromatic colour, signifies purity and transcendence. Just as the whiteness of modern architecture was a continuation of the hygienic whiteness of doctor's coat, bathroom tiles, and hospital walls, the whiteness of the museum signifies clinical objectivity.7 It also, perhaps more significantly, stands for the ideal of the tabula rasa, the clean slate upon which the documentary evidence of art, history, or any other metanarrative could be methodically examined and arranged. For the museum, abandoning the neutrality of its public presentation may also mean a symbolic abandonment of objectivity. It would mean, if not a surrender to partiality, at least the admission of partiality—and the renunciation of universal whiteness for the specificities of colour. In the modern period, applied colour can never be neutral, but is read as mask, disguise, or stain. In the postmodern period, the discourse of the 'new museology' has challenged and discredited many of the ideological complicities of the idea of the museum as 'white box', linked as they are with a suspiciously absolutist rhetoric of abstract purity. Museums have increasingly begun to render explicit their role in the re-presentation of history, and to work at recontextualising ideas and artefacts. But even if a critical and self-reflexive stance is now more common in museological practice, it has taken much longer to begin to inform museum architecture. It would be a very courageous museum indeed that was willing to cash in all of the chips of its cultural authority, of which prestigious monumental architecture is a particularly powerful source. Most museums are still, if not white, at least respectably neutral, inside and out. But not so the National Museum of Australia (NMA). This museum, in its polychromatic formal complexity, could hardly be further from a 'white cube' museum. The National Museum of Australia: flirting with the flippant The NMA is housed in a loud and gregarious building. From its controversial strategy of literally appropriating elements from other canonical modernist works, through the coded messages of the Braille patterns on its surface, to the device of the extruded string and red 'knot' which passes through and around the building's form, it is relentless in its challenge to conventional institutional architecture. This is nowhere more true than in its colouration—there is hardly a neutral tone in sight. For that matter, there is hardly a 'natural' material in sight either—the majority of the building is constructed from pre-formed aluminium panelling in grey, yellow, red and khaki, crossed in places by sweeping calligraphic symbols.8 The dramatic aerial loop at the museum's entry is white and bright orange. There are walls of black dimpled pre-formed concrete, blue painted poles (get it?), a 'Mexican wave' of multicoloured steel sheets, and of course the richly cacophonous Garden of Australia Dreams. There are also some deliberate plays on colour symbolism—Le Corbusier's gleaming white modernist classic, the Villa Savoye, is reversed and reconstituted in black, corrugated steel. The fact that this forms part of the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is a hint of the building's clear, even dangerously frank, employment of colour symbolism. Given the architects previous work, we can safely assume that in this case, as elsewhere in the building, the choice of colours is calculated for maximum rhetorical effect. But I am less concerned here with the specific ploys of the architects than with the ways in which the building's reception has been conditioned by its employment of colour, specifically the ways in which it has been construed as populist. The NMA has polarised the architectural community in Australia. While much of the comment directed at the building has centred around its contravention of standards of taste and propriety in civic architecture, I would argue that this is only the symptom of a deeper reaction against its apparent frivolity, as signified most strongly by its colour. This is exemplified in a critique of the building by Stephen Frith, a respected Canberra academic. Concluding a polemical review in the Canberra Times, Frith asks: But why such tongue-lashings and breast-beatings over what has quickly established itself as a happy theme park to mediocrity? Surely its condoning of the ruthless kitsch of petty capitalism in its imagery and finishes provides for some spectre of merit? The problem becomes one of the civic domain in which architecture and its rhetoric is interpreted. For a supposedly public work, the museum is an intensely private building, privately encoded with in-jokes, and in the end hugely un-funny... The confection of cheap cladding and plasterboard is a spurious sideshow of magpie borrowings passing themselves off as cultural reference...9 Everything in this passage decries what Frith reads as the NMA's verisimilitude of popularity - the reference to theme-parks, sideshows, commercialism - a confection constructed with poor quality materials and finishes, which nevertheless flirts 'pretentiously' with the canon of modern architecture. To Frith the building reads not as a cheap and cheerful reflection of the Australian vernacular, but as a demeaning attempt to raise a laugh from the elite at the expense of the uncomprehending masses. His complaint is thus two-fold—that the building has insufficient gravitas, and that this is compounded rather than redeemed by the fact that it is not truly popular at all, but rather 'intensely private'. There is an important distinction to be made here, then, between 'populism' and 'popularity'. Populism has the negative connotation of deliberately seeking popular acceptance at the cost of quality, intellectual rigour, or formal aesthetic value. 'Popularity' still retains its more neutral modern sense, either of actual public involvement, or of things that are socially recognised as popular. In architecture, populism is already hedged about with prohibitions springing from the idea that a deliberately populist architecture is somehow fraudulent. A piece of serious, civic, monumental architecture should neither set out expressly to be popular, nor to look like it is, so the logic goes: if a work of high architecture happens to gain popular acclaim, then that is a happy accident. But there are significant reasons why such popularity must be seen to be incidental to other, more lofty concerns. Given that colour is seen to be 'popular', a highly coloured building is thus assumed to be 'lowering' itself in order to appeal to popular taste. Old systems of thought endure, and both museums and architecture are each subject to an unspoken hierarchy that still sees 'populism', if not actual popularity, as inferior. Conclusions: colour as the sign of a critical engagement But there is another possible reading of the NMA's apparent populism. I would argue that the building in fact presents and problematises the question of popularity in formal architectural terms. This leads to a proposition: that there is a 'look' of populism that exists independently of any intended or actual popularity, or even a connection with popular culture. I would argue that the NMA opens an elaborate play on this 'look' of the popular, and that it does so by manipulating certain key aesthetic devices: literal and figurative elements, visual jokes, non-orthogonal forms, and most significantly, bright and mixed colour. Such devices carry a weight of expectation and association, they cause a building to be read or socially recognised as being populist, largely as a result of pre-existing dichotomies between 'high' and 'low' art. In this conception the NMA, turning the modernist prohibition on its head, uses colour as the deliberately frivolous disguise of a profoundly serious intent. Rather than concealing the absence of meaning, it conceals an overabundance of meaning—a despairing accumulation of piled up allegories, codes and fragments. It is thus deeply ironic that the NMA has been read as a light, flippant, and populist confection, since I would argue that it could hardly be further from being those things. Rather than taking the usual path, of seeking cultural authority through allusion to traditional monumental architecture, the NMA makes perverse references to the seemingly trivial, commercial, and populist. The reasons why the architects might want the building to be (mis)read in this way are complex. But by renouncing the aesthetic trappings of a serious institution, the NMA reveals the very superficiality of such trappings. Furthermore, by renouncing the 'look of authority' in favour of colour, frivolity, and apparent populism, it introduces a note of doubt. Could the building, and thus the institution - a national museum, remember, charged with representing the nation and placed in the national capital - really be as flippant as it seems? Or is there some more subtle game afoot, a subversive questioning of accepted notions of Australian national history and national identity? I would argue that this is so. In the NMA, then, colour is the sign of a critical engagement. It positions the building itself as a discourse or discussion, not only of architectural colour as conferring inferiority and flippancy, but of a lack of colour as conferring authority and legitimacy. Of course, it is precisely because of architecture's history of chromophobia that colour can itself become a tool for subversiveness, provide an invitation to alternative readings, and collapse unspoken hierarchies. In this respect, the colour in and of the NMA provides an emblem of that which has long been marginalised in architecture, and in culture more generally. Notes 1. Mark Wigley writes that the primacy of whiteness in high modernist architecture (particularly the work of Le Corbusier) lies partly in the removal of decoration. '[The] erasure of decoration is portrayed [by Le Corbusier] as the necessary gesture of a civilized society. Indeed, civilization is defined as the elimination of the 'superfluous' in favour of the 'essential' and the paradigm of inessential surplus is decoration. Its removal liberates a new visual order. Echoing an argument at least as old as Western philosophy, Le Corbusier describes civilization as a gradual passage from the sensual to the intellectual, from the tactile to the visual. Decoration's 'caresses of the senses' are progressively abandoned in favour of the visual harmony of proportion.' Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1995, pp. 2-3 2. See for example John Gage's superb and authoritative history of the use and meaning of colour, Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism, Thames and Hudson, London, 1999. For a survey of the use of colour in architecture, see Tom Porter, Architectural Colour: A Design Guide to Using Colour on Buildings, Whitney Library of Design, New York, 1982, or the more recent Architectural Design Profile number 120: Colour in Architecture, AD, vol. 66, no 3/4, March/April 1996. These are only a few examples of the available literature. 3. David Batchelor, Chromophobia, Reaktion Books, London, 2000, pp. 22-23. 4. The notable exception to this - the architecture of schools is emblematic in itself: colour is appealing to children, so the logic would go, because they have undeveloped, 'primitive' tastes. 5. William Braham has perceptively examined the allure of 'natural' materials and colours in the modern period. He writes that 'the natural can only be understood as a somewhat flexible category of finishes, not by a single principle of use, manufacture, or appearance. The fact that a family of paint colours neutrals, ochres, and other earth colours fit within the definition of natural is only partly explained by their original manufacture with naturally occurring mineral compounds. Though they are opaque surface coatings, they resemble the tones produced in natural materials by weathering.' He goes on to say that the 'natural/neutral palette' is characterised by 'the difficult pursuit of authenticity', and this question goes indeed to the heart of the issue of colour in architecture. William W. Braham, 'A Wall of Books: The Gender of Natural Colours in Modern Architecture', JAE Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 53. No.1, September 1999, p. 10. 6. But perhaps more important than actual durability in institutional architecture is the appearance of durability, and this appearance is undermined by protective treatments like paint, whether coloured or not. Materials which are seen as flimsy or fragile may as well be coloured, so the logic goes, since they require constant re-painting anyway, and since it fits their low status. 7. Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1995, p. 5. 8. Aluminium panelling is a new technology and a new material one that was unknown in the high modernist period but which is becoming increasingly ubiquitous today. The fact that aluminium panelling is coloured during the manufacturing process opens a new and interesting question: is this colour inherent, or is it simply applied earlier in the building process? Is it, in other words, an 'honest' or a 'dishonest' colour? Given that aluminium does have its own colour, and that it can be lacquered or anodised to retain that colour, it seems that the aluminium panelling of the NMA have been received as 'dishonest'. 9. Frith, 'A monument to lost opportunity', The Canberra Times, 20 March 2001 Citation reference for this article MLA Style Stead, Naomi. "White cubes and red knots" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.3 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/whitecubes.php>. Chicago Style Stead, Naomi, "White cubes and red knots" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 3 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/whitecubes.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Stead, Naomi. (2002) White cubes and red knots. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(3). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/whitecubes.php> ([your date of access]).

IntroductionFestivals, according to Chris Gibson and John Connell, are like “glue”, temporarily sticking together various stakeholders, economic transactions, and networks (9). Australia’s First Nations peoples see festivals as an opportunity to display cultural vitality (Henry 586), and to challenge a history which has rendered them absent (587). The 2017 Australia Council for the Arts Showcasing Creativity report indicates that performing arts by First Nations peoples are under-represented in Australia’s mainstream venues and festivals (1). Large Aboriginal cultural festivals have long thrived in Australia’s northern half, but have been under-developed in the south. Each regional happening develops a cultural landscape connected to a long and intimate relationship with the natural environment.The Far South East coast and mountainous hinterland of New South Wales is rich in pristine landscapes that ground the Yuin and Monaro Nations to Country as the Monaroo Bobberrer Gadu (Peoples of the Mountains and the Sea). This article highlights cross-sector interaction between Koori and mainstream organisations in producing the Giiyong (Guy-Yoong/Welcoming) Festival. This, the first large festival to be held within the Yuin Nation, took place on Aboriginal-owned land at Jigamy, via Eden, on 22 September 2018. Emerging regional artists joined national headline acts, most notably No Fixed Address (one of the earliest Aboriginal bands to break into the Australian mainstream music industry), and hip-hop artist Baker Boy (Danzal Baker, Young Australian of the Year 2019). The festival followed five years of sustained community preparation by South East Arts in association with Grow the Music, Twofold Aboriginal Corporation, the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council, and its Elders. We offer dual understandings of the Giiyong Festival: the viewpoints of a male Yuin Elder wedded to an Australian woman of European descent. We acknowledge, and rely upon, key information, statistics, and photographs provided by the staff of South East Arts including Andrew Gray (General Manager), Jasmin Williams (Aboriginal Creative and Cultural Engagement Officer and Giiyong Festival Project Manager), and Kate Howarth (Screen Industry Development Officer). We are also grateful to Wiradjuri woman Alison Simpson (Program Manager at Twofold Aboriginal Corporation) for valuable feedback. As community leaders from First Nations and non-First Nations backgrounds, Simpson and Williams complement each other’s talents for empowering Indigenous communities. They plan a 2020 follow-up event on the basis of the huge success of the 2018 festival.The case study is informed by our personal involvement with community. Since the general population barely comprehends the number and diversity of Australia’s Indigenous ‘nations’, the burgeoning Indigenous festival movement encourages First Nations and non-First Nations peoples alike to openly and confidently refer to the places they live in according to Indigenous names, practices, histories, and knowledge. Consequently, in the mental image of a map of the island-continent, the straight lines and names of state borders fade as the colours of the Indigenous ‘Countries’ (represented by David Horton’s wall map of 1996) come to the foreground. We reason that, in terms of ‘regionality,’ the festival’s expressions of “the agency of country” (Slater 141) differ vastly from the centre-periphery structure and logic of the Australian colony. There is no fixed centre to the mutual exchange of knowledge, culture, and experience in Aboriginal Australia. The broader implication of this article is that Indigenous cultural festivals allow First Nations peoples cultures—in moments of time—to assume precedence, that is to ‘stitch’ back together the notion of a continent made up of hundreds of countries, as against the exploitative structure of ‘hub and region’ colonial Australia.Festival Concepts and ContextsHoward Becker observed that cultural production results from an interplay between the person of the artist and a multitude of support personnel whose work is not frequently studied: “It is through this network of cooperation that the art work we eventually see or hear comes to be and continues to be” (1). In assisting arts and culture throughout the Bega Valley, Eurobodalla, and Snowy Monaro, South East Arts delivers positive achievements in the Aboriginal arts and cultural sector. Their outcomes are significant in the light of the dispossession, segregation, and discrimination experienced by Aboriginal Australians. Michael Young, assisted by Indigenous authors Ellen Mundy and Debbie Mundy, recorded how Delegate Reserve residents relocating to the coast were faced with having their lives controlled by a Wallaga Lake Reserve manager or with life on the fringes of the towns in shacks (2–3). But as discovered in the records, “their retention of traditional beliefs, values and customs, reveal that the accommodation they were forced to make with the Europeans did not mean they had surrendered. The proof of this is the persistence of their belief in the value of their culture” (3–4). The goal of the Twofold Aboriginal Corporation is to create an inclusive place where Aboriginal people of the Twofold Bay Region can be proud of their heritage, connect with the local economy, and create a real future for their children. When Simpson told Williams of the Twofold Aboriginal Corporation’s and Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council’s dream of housing a large cultural festival at Jigamy, Williams rigorously consulted local Indigenous organisations to build a shared sense of community ownership of the event. She promoted the festival as “a rare opportunity in our region to learn about Aboriginal culture and have access to a huge program of Aboriginal musicians, dancers, visual artists, authors, academics, storytellers, cooks, poets, creative producers, and films” (McKnight).‘Uncle Ossie’ Cruse of Eden envisaged that the welcoming event would enliven the longstanding caring and sharing ethos of the Yuin-Monaro people. Uncle Ossie was instrumental in establishing Jigamy’s majestic Monaroo Bobberrer Gudu Keeping Place with the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council in 1994. Built brick by brick by Indigenous workers, it is a centre for the teaching and celebration of Aboriginal culture, and for the preservation of artefacts. It represents the local community's determination to find their own solutions for “bridging the gap” by creating education and employment opportunities. The centre is also the gateway to the Bundian Way, the first Aboriginal pathway to be listed on the NSW State Heritage Register. Festival Lead-Up EventsEden’s Indigenous students learn a revived South Coast language at Primary and Secondary School. In 2015, Uncle Ossie vitally informed their input into The Black Ducks, a hip-hop song filmed in Eden by Desert Pea Media. A notable event boosting Koori musical socialisation was a Giiyong Grow the Music spectacle performed at Jigamy on 28 October 2017. Grow the Music—co-founded by Lizzy Rutten and Emily White—specialises in mentoring Indigenous artists in remote areas using digital recording equipment. Eden Marine High School students co-directed the film Scars as part of a programme of events with South East Arts and the Giiyong Festival 2018. The Eden Place Project and Campbell Page also create links between in- and out-of-school activities. Eden’s Indigenous students thus perform confidently at NAIDOC Week celebrations and at various festivals. Preparation and PersonnelAn early decision was made to allow free entry to the Giiyong Festival in order to attract a maximum number of Indigenous families. The prospect necessitated in-kind support from Twofold Aboriginal Corporation staff. They galvanised over 100 volunteers to enhance the unique features of Jigamy, while Uncle Ossie slashed fields of bushes to prepare copious parking space. The festival site was spatially focused around two large stages dedicated to the memory of two strong supporters of cultural creativity: Aunty Doris Kirby, and Aunty Liddy Stewart (Image 1). Image 1: Uncle Ossie Cruse Welcomes Festival-Goers to Country on the Aunty Liddy Stewart Stage. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduction Courtesy of South East Arts.Cultural festivals are peaceful weapons in a continuing ontological political contest (Slater 144). In a panel discussion, Uncle Ossie explained and defended the Makarrata: the call for a First Nations Voice to be enshrined in the Constitution.Williams also contracted artists with a view to capturing the past and present achievements of Aboriginal music. Apart from her brilliant centrepiece acts No Fixed Address and Baker Boy, she attracted Pitjantjatjara singer Frank Yamma (Image 2), Yorta Yorta singer/songwriter Benny Walker, the Central Desert Docker River Band, and Jessie Lloyd’s nostalgic Mission Songs Project. These stellar acts were joined by Wallaga Lake performers Robbie Bundle, Warren Foster, and Alison Walker as well as Nathan Lygon (Eden), Chelsy Atkins (Pambula), Gabadoo (Bermagui), and Drifting Doolgahls (Nowra). Stage presentations were technologically transformed by the live broadcast of acts on large screens surrounding the platforms. Image 2: Singer-Songwriter Frank Yamma Performs at Giiyong Festival 2018. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduction Courtesy of South East Arts.Giiyong Music and Dance Music and dance form the staple components of Indigenous festivals: a reflection on the cultural strength of ancient ceremony. Hundreds of Yuin-Monaro people once attended great corroborees on Mumbulla Mountain (Horton 1235), and oral history recorded by Janet Mathews evidences ceremonies at Fishy Flats, Eden, in the 1850s. Today’s highly regarded community musicians and dancers perform the social arrangements of direct communication, sometimes including their children on stage as apprentices. But artists are still negotiating the power structures through which they experience belonging and detachment in the representation of their musical identity.Youth gain positive identities from participating alongside national headline acts—a form of learning that propels talented individuals into performing careers. The One Mob Dreaming Choir of Koori students from three local schools were a popular feature (Image 3), as were Eden Marine student soloists Nikai Stewart, and Nikea Brooks. Grow the Music in particular has enabled these youngsters to exhibit the roots of their culture in a deep and touching way that contributes to their life-long learning and development. Image 3: The One Mob Dreaming Choir, Directed by Corinne Gibbons (L) and Chelsy Atkins (R). Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduction Courtesy of South East Arts. Brydie-Leigh Bartleet describes how discourses of pride emerge when Indigenous Australian youth participate in hip-hop. At the Giiyong Festival the relationship between musical expression, cultural representation, and political positioning shone through the songs of Baker Boy and Gabadoo (Image 4). Channelling emotions into song, they led young audiences to engage with contemporary themes of Indigeneity. The drones launched above the carpark established a numerical figure close on 6,000 attendees, a third of whom were Indigenous. Extra teenagers arrived in time for Baker Boy’s evening performance (Williams), revealing the typical youthful audience composition associated with the hip-hop craze (Image 5).Image 4: Bermagui Resident Gabadoo Performs Hip-Hop at the Giiyong Festival. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduced Courtesy South East Arts.Image 5: A Youthful Audience Enjoys Baker Boy’s Giiyong Festival Performance. Image Credit: David Rogers for South East Arts, Reproduced Courtesy South East Arts.Wallaga Lake’s traditional Gulaga Dancers were joined by Bermagui’s Gadhu Dancers, Eden’s Duurunu Miru Dancers, and Narooma’s Djaadjawan Dancers. Sharon Mason founded Djaadjawan Dancers in 2015. Their cultural practice connects to the environment and Mingagia (Mother Earth). At their festival tent, dancers explained how they gather natural resources from Walbanja Country to hand-make traditional dance outfits, accessories, and craft. They collect nuts, seeds, and bark from the bush, body paint from ancient ochre pits, shells from beaches, and bird feathers from fresh roadkill. Duurunu Miru dancer/didjeriduist Nathan Lygon elaborates on the functions of the Far South East Coast dance performance tradition:Dance provides us with a platform, an opportunity to share our stories, our culture, and our way of being. It demonstrates a beautiful positivity—a feeling of connection, celebration, and inclusion. The community needs it. And our young people need a ‘space’ in which they can grow into the knowledge and practices of their culture. The festival also helped the wider community to learn more about these dimensions. (n.p.)While music and dance were at the heart of the festival, other traditional skills were included, for example the exhibitions mounted inside the Keeping Place featured a large number of visual artists. Traditional bush cooking took place near Lake Pambula, and yarn-ups, poetry, and readings were featured throughout the day. Cultural demonstrations in the Bunaan Ring (the Yuin name for a corroboree circle) included ‘Gum Leaf Playing.’ Robin Ryan explained how the Yuin’s use of cultural elements to entertain settlers (Cameron 79) led to the formation of the Wallaga Lake Gum Leaf Band. As the local custodian of this unique musical practice, Uncle Ossie performed items and conducted a workshop for numerous adults and children. Festival Feedback and Future PlanningThe Giiyong Festival gained huge Indigenous cultural capital. Feedback gleaned from artists, sponsors, supporters, volunteers, and audiences reflected on how—from the moment the day began—the spirit of so many performers and consumers gathered in one place took over. The festival’s success depended on its reception, for as Myers suggests: “It is the audience who create the response to performance and if the right chemistry is achieved the performers react and excel in their presentation” (59). The Bega District News, of 24 September 2018, described the “incredibly beautiful event” (n.p.), while Simpson enthused to the authors:I believe that the amount of people who came through the gates to attend the Giiyong Festival was a testament to the wider need and want for Aboriginal culture. Having almost double the population of Eden attend also highlights that this event was long overdue. (n.p.)Williams reported that the whole festival was “a giant exercise in the breaking down of walls. Some signed contracts for the first time, and all met their contracts professionally. National artists Baker Boy and No Fixed Address now keep in touch with us regularly” (Williams). Williams also expressed her delight that local artists are performing further afield this year, and that an awareness, recognition, and economic impact has been created for Jigamy, the Giiyong Festival, and Eden respectively:We believe that not only celebrating, but elevating these artists and Aboriginal culture, is one of the most important things South East Arts can do for the overall arts sector in the region. This work benefits artists, the economy and cultural tourism of the region. Most importantly it feeds our collective spirit, educates us, and creates a much richer place to live. (Giiyong Festival Report 1)Howarth received 150 responses to her post-event survey. All respondents felt welcome, included, and willing to attend another festival. One commented, “not even one piece of rubbish on the ground.” Vanessa Milton, ABC Open Producer for South East NSW, wrote: “Down to the tiniest detail it was so obvious that you understood the community, the audience, the performers and how to bring everyone together. What a coup to pull off this event, and what a gift to our region” (Giiyong Festival Report 4).The total running cost for the event was $257,533, including $209,606 in government grants from local, state, and federal agencies. Major donor Create NSW Regional Partnerships funded over $100,000, and State Aboriginal Affairs gave $6,000. Key corporate sponsors included Bendigo Bank, Snowy Hydro and Waterway Constructions, Local Land Services Bega, and the Eden Fisherman’s Club. Funding covered artists’ fees, staging, the hiring of toilets, and multiple generators, including delivery costs. South East Arts were satisfied with the funding amount: each time a new donation arrived they were able to invite more performers (Giiyong Festival Report 2; Gray; Williams). South East Arts now need to prove they have the leadership capacity, financial self-sufficiency, and material resources to produce another festival. They are planning 2020 will be similar to 2018, provided Twofold Aboriginal Corporation can provide extra support. Since South East Arts exists to service a wider area of NSW, they envisage that by 2024, they would hand over the festival to Twofold Aboriginal Corporation (Gray; Williams). Forthcoming festivals will not rotate around other venues because the Giiyong concept was developed Indigenously at Jigamy, and “Jigamy has the vibe” (Williams). Uncle Ossie insists that the Yuin-Monaro feel comfortable being connected to Country that once had a traditional campsite on the east side. Evaluation and ConclusionAlthough ostensibly intended for entertainment, large Aboriginal festivals significantly benefit the educational, political, and socio-economic landscape of contemporary Indigenous life. The cultural outpourings and dissemination of knowledges at the 2018 Giiyong Festival testified to the resilience of the Yuin-Monaro people. In contributing to the processes of Reconciliation and Recognition, the event privileged the performing arts as a peaceful—yet powerful truth-telling means—for dealing with the state. Performers representing the cultures of far-flung ancestral lands contributed to the reimagining of a First Nations people’s map representing hundreds of 'Countries.’It would be beneficial for the Far South East region to perpetuate the Giiyong Festival. It energised all those involved. But it took years of preparation and a vast network of cooperating people to create the feeling which made the 2018 festival unique. Uncle Ossie now sees aspects of the old sharing culture of his people springing back to life to mould the quality of life for families. Furthermore, the popular arts cultures are enhancing the quality of life for Eden youth. As the cross-sector efforts of stakeholders and volunteers so amply proved, a family-friendly, drug and alcohol-free event of the magnitude of the Giiyong Festival injects new growth into an Aboriginal arts industry designed for the future creative landscape of the whole South East region. AcknowledgementsMany thanks to Andrew Gray and Jasmin Williams for supplying a copy of the 2018 Giiyong Festival Report. We appreciated prompt responses to queries from Jasmin Williams, and from our editor Rachel Franks. We are humbly indebted to our two reviewers for their expert direction.ReferencesAustralian Government. Showcasing Creativity: Programming and Presenting First Nations Performing Arts. Australia Council for the Arts Report, 8 Mar. 2017. 20 May 2019 <https://tnn.org.au/2017/03/showcasing-creativity-programming-and-presenting-first-nations-performing-arts-australia-council/>.Bartleet, Brydie-Leigh. “‘Pride in Self, Pride in Community, Pride in Culture’: The Role of Stylin’ Up in Fostering Indigenous Community and Identity.” The Festivalization of Culture. Eds. Andy Bennett, Jodie Taylor, and Ian Woodward. New York: Routledge, 2014.Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. 25th anniversary edition. Berkeley: U of California P, 2008.Brown, Bill. “The Monaroo Bubberer [Bobberer] Gudu Keeping Place: A Symbol of Aboriginal Self-determination.” ABC South East NSW, 9 Jul. 2015. 20 May 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/07/09/4270480.htm>.Cameron, Stuart. "An Investigation of the History of the Aborigines of the Far South Coast of NSW in the 19th Century." PhD Thesis. Canberra: Australian National U, 1987. Desert Pea Media. The Black Ducks “People of the Mountains and the Sea.” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fbJNHAdbkg>.“Festival Fanfare.” Eden Magnet 28 June 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <edenmagnet.com.au>.Gibson, Chris, and John Connell. Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012.Gray, Andrew. Personal Communication, 28 Mar. 2019.Henry, Rosita. “Festivals.” The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. Eds. Syvia Kleinert and Margot Neale. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 586–87.Horton, David R. “Yuin.” Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. Ed. David R. Horton. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994.———. Aboriginal Australia Wall Map Compiled by David Horton. Aboriginal Studies Press, 1996.Lygon, Nathan. Personal Communication, 20 May 2019.Mathews, Janet. Albert Thomas Mentions the Leaf Bands That Used to Play in the Old Days. Cassette recorded at Wreck Bay, NSW on 9 July 1964 for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (AIATSIS). LAA1013. McKnight, Albert. “Giiyong Festival the First of Its Kind in Yuin Nation.” Bega District News 17 Sep. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/story/5649214/giiyong-festival-the-first-of-its-kind-in-yuin-nation/?cs=7523#slide=2>. ———. “Giiyong Festival Celebrates Diverse, Enduring Cultures.” Bega District News 24 Sep. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.begadistrictnews.com.au/story/5662590/giiyong-festival-celebrates-diverse-enduring-cultures-photos-videos/>.Myers, Doug. “The Fifth Festival of Pacific Arts.” Australian Aboriginal Studies 1 (1989): 59–62.Simpson, Alison. Personal Communication, 9 Apr. 2019.Slater, Lisa. “Sovereign Bodies: Australian Indigenous Cultural Festivals and Flourishing Lifeworlds.” The Festivalization of Culture. Eds. Andy Bennett, Jodie Taylor, and Ian Woodward. London: Ashgate, 2014. 131–46.South East Arts. "Giiyong Festival Report." Bega: South East Arts, 2018.———. Giiyong Grow the Music. Poster for Event Produced on Saturday, 28 Oct. 2017. Bega: South East Arts, 2017.Williams, Jasmin. Personal Communication, 28 Mar. 2019.Young, Michael, with Ellen, and Debbie Mundy. The Aboriginal People of the Monaro: A Documentary History. Sydney: NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, 2000.

The release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and his subsequent training of thousands of Climate Presenters marks a critical transition point in communication around climate change. An analysis of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth presentation and of the guidelines we were taught as Presenters in The Climate Project, show they reflect the marketing principles that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report Weathercocks and Signposts (Crompton) argues cannot achieve the systemic and transformational changes required to address global warming. This paper will consider the ultimate effectiveness of social marketing approaches to Climate change communication and the Al Gore Climate Project in the light of the WWF critique. Both the film and the various slideshow presentations of An Inconvenient Truth conclude with a series of suggestions about how to “how to start” changing “the way you live.” The audience is urged to: Reduce your own emissions Switch to green power Offset the rest Spread the word The focus on changing individual consumption in An Inconvenient Truth is also reflected in the climate campaign page Get Involved on the website of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)—the Australian partner in Al Gore’s The Climate Project (TCP). Al Gore’s Climate Project, with over 3,000 Climate Presenters worldwide, could be seen as a giant experimental test of the merits of marketing approaches to social change as compared to the recommendations in the WWF critique authored by Crompton. In Orion magazine, Derrick Jensen has described this emphasis on “personal consumption” instead of “organized political resistance” as “a campaign of systematic misdirection.” Jensen points out that “even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent.” The latest scientific reports show we are on the edge of a tipping point into catastrophic climate change—runaway warming which would render the planet uninhabitable for most life forms, including humans (Hansen et al 13). To reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change to a still worrying 13% we need significant action between now and 2012, and carbon dioxide levels will need to be stabilised at between 350 and 375 parts per million by 2050 (Elzen and Meinshausen 17). Because Americans and Australians are taking far more than our share of the global atmospheric commons, we need to reduce our emissions to less than 90% below 1990 levels by 2050 as our share of the global emission reduction targets (Elzen and Meinshausen 24; Garnaut 283). In other words, if one takes the science seriously there is a huge shortfall between the reductions which can be achieved by individual changes to consumption and the scale of reductions that are required to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change to a half-way tolerable level. The actions being promoted as solutions are nowhere near “inconvenient” enough to solve the problem. Like Crompton and Jensen I was inclined to take the gap between goal and means as overwhelming evidence for the inadequacy of marketing approaches emphasising changes to individual consumption choices. Like them I was concerned that the emphasis on consumption in marketing approaches may even reinforce the consumerism and materialism that drives the growth in emissions. Whilst being generally critical of marketing approaches, Crompton says he accepts the importance marketers place on tailoring the message to fit the motivations of the target audience (25). However, while Crompton describes Rose and Dade’s “Values Modes analysis” as “a sophisticated technique for audience segmentation” (21), he rejects the campaign strategies designed around the target audiences they identify (23). Market segmentation provides communications practitioners with the “extensive knowledge of whom you are trying to reach and what moves them” which is one of the “three must haves” of a successful communication campaign (Fenton 3). Rose and Dade’s segmentation analysis categorises people based on the motivational hierarchy in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. They identify three population groupings—the Settlers, driven by security; the Prospectors, esteem driven; and the Pioneers, who are motivated by intrinsic values (1). As with Maslow’s hierarchy these “Values Modes” are developmentally dynamic. The satisfaction of more basic needs, like physical safety and economic security, support a developmental pathway to the next level. Just as the satisfaction of the need for social acceptance and status free the individual to become motivated by self-actualisation, universal and compassionate ethics, and transcendence. Because individuals move in and out of Values Modes, depending on the degree to which economic, social and political conditions facilitate the satisfaction of their needs, the percentage of the population in each group varies across time and location (Rose and Dade 1). In 2007 the UK population was 20% Settlers, 40% Prospectors, and 40% Pioneers (Rose and Dade 1), but the distribution in other countries would need to be determined empirically. Rose et al provide a strategic rationale for a marketing based climate campaign targeted at changing the behaviours of Prospectors, rather than appealing to Pioneers. While the Pioneers are 40% of the population, they don’t like being “marketed at,” they seek out information for themselves and make up their own minds, and “will often have already considered your ideas and decided what to do” (6). They are also well catered for by environmental groups’ existing ethical and issues based campaigns (3). Prospectors, on the other hand, are the 40% of the population which are the “least reached” by existing ethical or issues oriented environmental campaigning; are the most enthusiastic (or “voracious”) consumers, so their choices will sway business; and they tend to be swinging voters, so if their opinions change it will sway politicians (4). Rose et al (13) found that in order to appeal to Prospectors a climate change communications campaign should: Refer to local, visible, negative changes involving loss or damage [In the UK] show the significance of UK emissions and those of normal people (i.e. like them) Use interest in homes and gardens Deploy the nag factor of their children Create offers which are above all easy, cost-effective, instant and painless Prospectors don’t like, and will be put off by campaigns that (Rose et al 13): Talk about the implications: too remote and they are not very bothered Use messengers (voices) which lack authority or could be challenged Criticise behaviours (e.g. wrong type of car, ‘wasting’ energy in your home) Ask them to give things up Ask them to be the first to change (amongst their peers) Invoke critical judgement by others Crompton recommends an environmental campaign that attempts to persuade Prospectors that they are wrong in thinking material consumption and “ostentatious displays of wealth” contribute to their happiness. Prospectors see precisely these sorts of comments by Concerned Ethicals as a judgemental criticism of their love of things, and a denial of their need for the acceptance and approval of others. Maslow’s developmental model, as well as the Value Modes research, would suggest that Crompton’s proposal is the exact opposite of what is required to move Prospectors into the Pioneer value mode. It is by accepting the values people have, and allowing them to meet the needs that drive them, that they can move on to more intrinsically motivated action. Crompton would appear to fall into the common “NGO or public sector campaign […] trap” of devising a campaign based on what will appeal to the 10% of the population that are Concerned Ethicals, but in the process “particularly annoy or intimidate” the strategically significant 40% of the population that are Prospectors (Rose et al 8). Crompton ignores the evidence from marketing campaign research that campaigns can’t directly change people’s basic motivations, while they can change people’s behaviours if they target their existing motivations. Contrary to Crompton’s claim that promoting green consumption will reinforce consumerism and materialism (16), Rose and Dade base their campaign strategy on the results of research into cognitive dissonance, which show that if you can get someone to act a certain way, they will alter their beliefs and preferences, as well as their self concept, to fit with their actions. Crompton confuses a tactic in a larger game, with the end goal of the game. “The trick is to get them to do the behaviour, not to develop the opinion” (Rose, “VBCOP” 2). Prospectors are persuaded to adopt a behaviour if they see it as “in,” and as what everyone else like them is doing. They are more easily persuaded to buy a product than adopt some other sort of behavioural change. The next part of an environmental marketing strategy like this is to label, praise and reward the behaviour (Futerra 11). Rose suggests that Prospectors can be engaged politically if governments are called on to recognise and reward the behaviour “say by giving them a tax break or paying them for their rooftop energy contribution” (“VBCOP” 3). Once governments have given such rewards, both Settlers and Propectors will fight to keep them, where they are normally disinclined to fight political battles. Once Prospectors identify themselves as, for example, in favour of renewable energy, politicians can be persuaded they need to act to get and keep votes, and business can be persuaded to change in order to continue to attract buyers for their products. In order to achieve the scale of emission reductions required individuals need to change their consumption patterns; politicians need to change the regulatory and planning context in which both individual and corporate decisions are made; and the economic system needs to be transformed so it internalises environmental costs and operates within environmental limits. Social marketing analyses have identified changing Prospectors buying habits as the wedge, or leverage point that can lead to such a cascading set of social, political and economic changes. Just as changing Prospector product choices can be exploited as a key leverage point, Al Gore identified getting United States commitment to emission reduction as a key leverage point towards achieving global commitments to binding reduction targets. Because the United States had the highest national greenhouse emissions, and was one of the two industrialised countries who had failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol, changing behaviour and belief in the United States was strategically critical to achieving global action on emissions reduction. Al Gore initially attempted to get the United States to sign the Kyoto Protocol and commit to emission reduction by working directly at the political level, without building the popular support for action that would encourage other politicians to support his proposals. In the movie, Al Gore talks about the defeat of his initial efforts to get the United States to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and of his recognition of the need to gain wider public support before political action would be taken. He talks about the unsuitability of the mass news media as a vehicle for achieving social and political change on climate emissions. The priority given to conflict as a news value means journalists focus on the personalities involved in disputes about climate change rather than provide an analysis of the issue. When climate experts explain the consensus position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), they are “balanced” with opposing statements from the handful of (commonly fossil fuel industry funded) climate deniers. Because climate emissions are part of a complex process of slow change occurring over long time lines they do not fit easily into standard news values like timeliness, novelty and proximity (Harrison). When Al Gore realised he wouldn’t be able to gain the wider public support he needed through the mass news media he began a quest to spread his message “meeting by meeting,” “person by person.” Al Gore turned his slide show into a movie in order to deliver the message to more people than he could reach face to face, and then trained Presenters to reach even more people. When the movie won an Oscar for Best Documentary it turned Al Gore into something of a celebrity. Al Gore’s celebrity status rubs off on Climate Presenters through their association with him, giving them access to community and business groups across the world. When a celebrity recommends or displays a behaviour, Prospectors are more likely to see it as the in thing and thus more willing to do the recommended action. The movie created an opportunity for Al Gore to be a more persuasive messenger than he had been as a politician. Al Gore began The Climate Project to increase the impact of the movie and spread the message further than he could take it by himself. The multiplication of modes of communicating the message fits with Fenton Communications’ “Rule of Three.” In Now Hear This they say the target audience “should read about us in the paper, see us on TV, hear about us from a neighbour and a friend […] have their kid mention us […] and so on” (17). The Presenter training emphasises the “direct communication, especially face to face” recommended by Rose (“To do” 174). During the Presenter training Al Gore warned of the danger of being too negative as it risked moving people “from denial to despair without stopping to act,” and of the need to present the story in such a way as to create hope. This is backed up by the communications marketing literature, which warns that “negative messages may actually induce despair and actually [sic] paralysis while the positive focus can inspire” (Boykoff 172). While it employs dramatic visual images and animations, the movie tends to downplay the potential severity of the consequences of runaway global warming, and presents these in a way that gives the impression of a contracted time frame for the consequences of warming in order to activate motivation based on near term implications. The movie responds to Prospectors’ disinterest in distant implication of climate change by emphasising near-term threats, such as the rising monetary cost of damages, as well as threats to life and property from disease, drought, fire, flood, storm, and rising sea levels. After training an initial round of American Presenters, Al Gore identified training Australian Presenters as the next strategic priority. While Australia’s collective emissions are small, our per capita emissions are higher than those of Americans, and as the only other industrialised nation that had not signed, it was believed our becoming a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol would increase the pressure on the United States to sign. The ACF provided Australian Presenters with additional slides containing vivid images of Australian impacts, and Presenters were encouraged to find their own examples to illustrate impacts relevant to specific local audiences. The importance of identifying local impacts to persuade and move their audiences is impressed upon Presenters during the training. Regular slide updates reinforce this priority. While authors like Crompton and Jensen note the emphasis on changes in consumption as suggested solutions to climate change, other elements of the presentation are just as important in appealing to Prospectors. Prospectors want to belong and gain status by doing whatever is highly regarded by others. The presentation has numerous slides emphasising who else has made commitments to Kyoto and emission reduction. The American presentation includes lists of other countries, and towns and states in the United States that had signed up to Kyoto. The Australian presentation includes graphics emphasising the overwhelming number of Australians who support action. Prospectors don’t like being asked to give things up, and the presentation insists on the high cost of failing to act, compared to the small cost of acting now. Doing something to stop climate change is presented as easy and achievable. Contrary to Crompton’s claim that promoting green consumption would not build the widespread awareness and support for the more far-reaching government action that is required to achieve systemic change (9), the results of recent opinion research show that upwards of 80% of Americans support effective and wide-ranging action to reduce emissions and develop new renewable energy technologies (Climate Checklist). Whereas it would not have been surprising if the financial crisis had dimmed the degree of enthusiasm for action to reduce greenhouse emissions, the high support for action on climate change in their polling continues to encourage the Australian government to use it as a wedge issue against the opposition. Without high levels of public support, there would be little or no chance that politicians would be willing to vote for measures that will reduce emissions. That the push for change in individual consumption choices was only ever one tactic in a wider campaign is also demonstrated by the other projects instigated by Al Gore and his team. Projects like RepoWEr America and WE can solve the climate crisis leverage the interest developed by the Climate Project to increase public pressure on politicians to support regulatory change. The RepoWEr America and WE can solve the climate crisis sites target individuals as citizens and make it easy for them to participate in the political process. Forms help them sign petitions, write letters and meet with their elected officials, write for newspapers and call in to talkback radio, and organise local community meetings or events. Al Gore’s own web site adds a link to the Live Earth company to add to these arsenals. Live Earth “creates innovative, engaging events and media that challenge global leaders, local communities and every individual to actively participate in solving our planet's urgent environmental crises.” These sites provide the infrastructure to make it easy for individuals to move into action in the political domain. But they do it in ways that will appeal to Prospectors. They involve fun, their actions are celebrated, prizes are offered, the number of people involved is emphasised so they feel part of the “happening” thing. RepoWEr America and WE can solve the climate crisis help Prospectors to engage in political action in order to achieve regulatory change. Finally, or first, Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management Company, operating since 2004, is oriented towards systemic transformation in the economic system, so that economic drivers are aligned with sustainability imperatives. Al Gore and his partner David Blood reject Gross Domestic Product—the current measure of economic growth, and a major driver of unsustainable economic activity—as “dangerously imprecise in its ability to account for natural and human resources” and challenge business to accept the “need to internalize externalities” in order to create a sustainable economy. In their Thematic Research Highlights, Al Gore’s Generation company critiques the “Hedonic Treadmill”—which puts “material gains ahead of personal happiness” (32), and challenges “governments, companies, and individuals [...] to broaden their scope of responsibility to match their sphere of influence” (13). While the Climate Project would appear to ignore the inadequacy of individual consumption change as a means of emission reduction, the information and analysis targeted at business by Generation demonstrates this has not been ignored in the overall strategy to achieve systemic change. Al Gore suggests that material consumption should no longer be the measure of economic welfare, an argument he backs with an analysis showing business that long term wealth creation depends on accepting environmental and social sustainability as priorities. While An Inconvenient Truth promotes consumption change as the (inadequate) solution to Global Warming, this is just one strategically chosen tactic in a much larger and coordinated campaign to achieve systemic change through regulatory change and transformation of the economic system. References Australian Conservation Foundation. “Get Involved.” 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.acfonline.org >. Path: Campaigns; Climate Project; Get Involved. Al Gore. AlGore.com. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.algore.com/ >. An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Paramount Classics and Participant Productions, 2006. Boykoff, Maxwell T. “Book Review on: Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change. Eds. Susanne C. Moser and Lisa Dilling.” International Journal of Sustainability Communication 3 (2008): 171-175. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.ccp-online.org/docs/artikel/03/3_11_IJSC_Book_Review_Boykoff.pdf >. Climate Checklist: Recent Opinion Research Findings and Messaging Tips. 2007 Sightline Institute. 27 Aug. 2009. < http://www.sightline.org/research/sust_toolkit/communications-strategy/flashcard2-climate-research-compendium/ >. Crompton, Tom. Weathercocks and Signposts. World Wildlife Fund. April 2008. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/weathercocks_report2.pdf >. Den Elzen, Michel, and Malte Meinshausen. “Meeting the EU 2°C Climate Target: Global and Regional Emission Implications”. Report 728001031/2005. 18 May 2005. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/728001031.pdf >. Fenton Communications. Now Hear This: The 9 Laws of Successful Advocacy Communications. Fenton Communications. 2009. 24 Aug. 2009. < http://www.fenton.com/FENTON_IndustryGuide_NowHearThis.pdf >. Futerra Sustainability Communications. New Rules: New Game. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/NewRules:NewGame.pdf >. Garnaut, Ross. “Targets and Trajectories.” The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report. 2008. 277–298. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.garnautreview.org.au/pdf/Garnaut_Chapter12.pdf >. Generation Investment Management. Thematic Research Highlights. May 2007. 28 Aug. 2009 < http://www.generationim.com/media/pdf-generation-thematic-research-v13.pdf >. Generation Investment Management LLP 2004-09. < http://www.generationim.com/ >. Gore, Al and David Blood. “We Need Sustainable Capitalism: Nature Does Not Do Bailouts.” Generation Investment Management LLP. 5 Nov. 2008. 28 Aug. 2009 < http://www.generationim.com/sustainability/advocacy/sustainable-capitalism.html >. Hansen, James, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer and James C. Zachos. “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” Open Atmospheric Science Journal 2 (2008): 217-231. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf >. Harrison, Karey. “Ontological Commitments and Bias in Environmental Reporting.” Environment and Society Conference. Sunshine Coast, Australia, 1999. Jackson, Tim. Prosperity without Growth? The Transition to a Sustainable Economy. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Sustainable Development Commission. 30 March 2009. 5 Oct. 2009 < http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf >. Jensen, Derrick. “Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does not Equal Political Change?” Orion July/Aug. 2009. 5 Aug. 2009 < http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/ >. Live Earth. Live Earth 2009. 28 Aug. 2009 < http://liveearth.org/en >. RepoWEr America. The Alliance for Climate Protection. 2009. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.repoweramerica.org >. Rose, Chris, and Pat Dade. Using Values Modes. campaignstrategy.org 2007 < http://www.campaignstrategy.org/articles/usingvaluemodes.pdf >. Rose, Chris, Les Higgins and Pat Dadeii. “Who Gives a Stuff about Climate Change and Who's Taking Action—Part of the Nationally Representative British Values Survey.” 2008. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.campaignstrategy.org/whogivesastuff.pdf >. Rose, Chris, Pat Dade, and John Scott. Research into Motivating Prospectors, Settlers and Pioneers to Change Behaviours That Affect Climate Emissions. campaignstrategy.org 2007. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.campaignstrategy.org/articles/behaviourchange_climate.pdf >. Rose, Chris. “To Do and Not to Do.” How to Win Campaigns: 100 Steps to Success. London: Earthscan Publications, 2005. Rose, Chris. “VBCOP—A Unifying Campaign Strategy Model”. Campaignstrategy.org March 2009. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.campaignstrategy.org/articles/VBCOP_unifying_strategy_model.pdf >. The Climate Project. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.theclimateproject.org/ >. Turner, Graham. “A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with 30 Years of Reality.” Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion. CSIRO Working Paper Series. Canberra: CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. June 2008. 5 Oct. 2009 < http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf >. WE Can Solve the Climate Crisis. 2008-09. The Alliance for Climate Protection. 27 Aug. 2009 < http://www.wecansolveit.org >.

To sin by silence, when we should protest,Makes cowards out of men.— Ella Wheeler WilcoxProtest is culturally entwined in historical and juro-political realities and is a fundamental element of the exercise of individual and collective rights. As our title notes, while there are currently many ‘protests in progress’ around the world, there is also a great deal of ‘progress in protest’ in terms of what protests look like, their scale and number, how they are formed and conducted, their goals, how they can be studied, as well as the varying responses formed in relation to protest. The etymology of protest associates two important dynamics pertaining to the topic. Firstly, a protest is something that is put forward, forth, or toward the front (from the Latin pro); essentially, it is in one manner or another, made publically. Secondly, it suggests that a person or persons have beared witness (testis) and instead of remaining silent, have made a declaration or assertion (testari). In other words, someone has made public their disapproval or objection. The nine articles that comprise this issue of M/C Journal on ‘protest’ reminds us of these salient elements of protest. Each, in their own way, highlight the importance of not remaining silent when faced with an injustice or in order to promote social change. As Bill McKibben (7) outlines in his foreword to an excellent collection of protest documents, ‘voices of protest ... are often precisely what propels human civilisation forward and allows it to become unstuck’. However, not all forms of contemporary protest shares ideological or progressive aims. Here, we might consider the emergence of contentious formations such as the alt-right and antifa, what is considered ‘fake’ or ‘real’, and ongoing conflicts between notions of individual and collective rights and state sovereignty.This modest but insightful collection demonstrates the broad scope of this field of inquiry. This issue explores the intersections among social justice, identity and communications technology, as well as the convergences and divergences in the form, function and substance of protest. Through an analysis of protest’s relationship to media, the author’s highlight the possibilities of protest to effect social change. The issue begins with Lakota screenwriter and activist Floris White Bull’s (Floris Ptesáŋ Huŋká) discussion of the documentary AWAKE, a Dream from Standing Rock (2017) and the #NODAPL protest. The film, split into three parts, takes a poignant and quite personal look at the native-led peaceful resistance at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota in 2016. This protest involved tens of thousands of activists from all over the world who opposed the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) which was to transport fracked oil directly underneath the Missouri River and through sovereign Lakota land (see Image 1). However, the events at Standing Rock were not a single-issue protest and brought activists together over a range of interrelated issues including environmental protection, human rights, water security, community health and Native American sovereignty. The Water Protectors were also forced to contest racist and disparaging media representations. As such, Standing Rock remains a site of cultural exchange and learning. These protests are not historical, but instead, are an ongoing struggle. The film AWAKE is important as testimony to the injustices at Standing Rock. A short description of the film is first provided in order to provide some additional context to perspectives addressed in the film. From there, White Bull has been invited to respond to questions posed by the editors regarding the Standing Rock Protests and documentary films such as AWAKE. As an Indigenous person fighting for justice, White Bull reminds readers that ‘[t]he path forward is the same as it has always been – holding on to our goals, values and dignity with resilience’.Image 1: Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters, 2016. Photo credit: Indigenous Environmental Network.Cat Pausé and Sandra Grey use an example of fat shaming to investigate how media impacts body politics and determines who is enfranchised to voice public dissent. Media becomes a mechanism for policing and governing bodily norms and gendered identities. As well as outlining a brief history of feminist body activism, the authors draw on personal experience and interview material with activists to reflect on fat embodiment and politics. Also informed by intersectional approaches, their work alerts us to the diverse vectors by which injustice and oppression fall on some bodies differently as well as the diverse bodies assembled in any crowd.Greg Watson suggests that “[c]ontemporary societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult for people to respectfully negotiate disagreements about human diversity”. Drawing on his experiences organising Human Libraries throughout Australia, Watson argues these spaces create opportunities for engaging with difference. In this sense Human Libraries can be considered sites which protest the micropublics’ “codes of civility” which produce everyday marginalisations of difference.Micropolitics and creative forms of protest are also central to Ella Cutler, Jacqueline Gothe, and Alexandra Crosby’s article. The author’s consider three design projects which seek to facilitate ethical communication with diverse communities. Drawing on Guy Julier’s tactics for activist design, each project demonstrates the value of slowing down in order to pay attention to experience. In this way, research through design offers a reflexive means for engaging social change.Research practices are also central to making visible community resistance. Anthony McCosker and Timothy Graham consider the role of social networking in urban protests through the campaign to save the iconic Melbourne music venue The Palace (see Image 2). Their article considers the value of social media data and analytics in relation to the court proceedings and trial processes. Given the centrality of social media to activist campaigns their reflections provide a timely evaluation of how data publics are constituted and their ongoing legacy.Image 2: Melbourne’s Palace Theatre before demolition. Photo Credit: Melbourne Heritage Action.For Marcelina Piotrowski pleasure is central to understanding data production and protest. She draws on a Deleuze and Guattarian framework in order to consider protests against oil pipelines in British Columbia. Importantly, through this theoretical framework of ‘data desires’, pleasure is not something owned by the individual subject but rather holds the potential to construct generative social collectivities. This is traced through three different practices: deliberation in online forums; citizen science and social media campaigns. This has important implications for understanding environmental issues and our own enfolding within them. Nadine Kozak takes a look at how Online Service Providers (OSPs) have historically used internet ‘blackouts’ in order to protest United States government regulations. Kozak points to protests against the Communications Decency Act (1996) which sought to regulate online pornographic material and the Stop Online Piracy Act (2011) which proposed increased federal government power to take action against online copyright infringement. Recently, the United States Congress recently passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which hold OSPs liable for third-party content including advertising for prostitution. However, despite condemnation from the Department of Justice and trafficking victims, OSPs did not utilise blackouts as a means to protest these new measures. Kozak concludes that the decision to whether or not to utilise blackout protests is dependent on the interests of technology companies and large OSPs. It is evident that most especially since Donald Trump popularised the term, ‘fake news’ has taken a centre stage in discussions concerning media. In fact, the lines between what is fake and what is official have become blurred. Most recently, QAnon proponents have been attending Trump rallies and speeches giving further visibility to various conspiracy narratives stemming from online message boards (see Image 3). Marc Tuters, Emilija Jokubauskaitė, and Daniel Bach establishe a clear timeline of events in order to trace the origins of ‘#Pizzagate’; a 2016 conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that several U.S. restaurants and high-ranking officials of the Democratic Party were connected with human trafficking and an alleged child-sex ring. The authors investigate the affordances of 4chan to unpack how the site’s anonymity, rapid temporality and user collectivisation were instrumental in creating ‘bullshit’; a usage which the authors suggest is a “technical term for persuasive speech unconcerned with veracity”. This provides an understanding of how alt-right communities are assembled and motivated in a post-truth society. Image 3: QAnon proponents at Trump rally in Tampa, 31 July 2018. Photo credit: Kirby Wilson, Tampa Bay Times.Finally, Colin Salter analyses protests for animal rights as a lens to critique notions of national identity and belonging. Protests on whaling in the Southern Ocean (see Image 4) and live export trade from Australia continue to be highly contested political issues. Salter reflects on the ABC’s 2011 exposé into Australian live animal exports to Indonesia and the 2014 hearings at the International Court of Justice into Japanese whaling. Salter then traces the common elements between animal rights campaigns in order to demonstrate the manner in which the physical bodies of animals, their treatment, and the debate surrounding that treatment become sites for mapping cultural identity, nationhood, and sovereignty. Here, Salter suggests that such inquiry is useful for promoting broader consideration of efficacious approaches to animal advocacy and social change.Image 4: The ship Bob Barker, rammed by the Japanese whaling vessel Nishin Maru. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd Facebook Page. As indicated in the opening paragraphs, it is crucial for people committed to social justice to publically raise their voices in protest. As such, we would like to thank each of the authors for their important contributions to this issue on ‘protest’. In its own way, each contribution serves doubly as a form of protest and a means to understand the topic more clearly. There is solidarity evidenced in this issue. Taken as a whole, these articles attest to the importance of understanding protest and social change.ReferencesMcKibben, B. "Foreword." Voices of Protest: Documents of Courage and Dissent. Eds. Frank Lowenstein, Sheryl Lechner, and Erik Bruun. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2007. 7-8.Wilcox, E.W. "Protest." Poems of Problems. Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company, 1914.

Despite numerous critics describing him as an auteur (i.e. a film-maker who ‘does’ everything and fulfils every production role [Bordwell and Thompson 37] and/or with a signature “world-view” detectable in his/her work [Caughie 10]), Rolf de Heer appears to have declined primary authorship of Dance Me to My Song (1997), his seventh in an oeuvre of twelve feature films. Indeed, the opening credits do not mention his name at all: it is only with the closing credits that the audience learns de Heer has directed the film. Rather, as the film commences, the viewer is informed by the titles that it is “A film by Heather Rose”, thus suggesting that the work is her singular creation. Direct and uncompromising, with its unflattering shots of the lead actor and writer (Heather Rose Slattery, a young woman born with cerebral palsy), the film may be read as a courageous self-portrait which finds the grace, humanity and humour trapped inside Rose’s twisted body. Alternatively, it may be read as yet another example of de Heer’s signature interest in foregrounding a world view which gives voice to marginalised characters such as the disabled or the disadvantaged. For example, the developmentally retarded eponyme of Bad Boy Bubby (1993) is eventually able to make art as a singer in a band and succeeds in creating a happy family with a wife and two kids. The ‘mute’ girl in The Quiet Room (1996) makes herself heard by her squabbling parents through her persistent activism. In Ten Canoes (2006) the Indigenous Australians cast themselves according to kinship ties, not according to the director’s choosing, and tell their story in their own uncolonised language. A cursory glance at the films of Rolf de Heer suggests he is overtly interested in conveying to the audience the often overlooked agency of his unlikely protagonists. In the ultra-competitive world of professional film-making it is rare to see primary authorship ceded by a director so generously. However, the allocation of authorship to a member of a marginalized population re-invigorates questions prompted by Andy Medhurst regarding a film’s “authorship test” (198) and its relationship to a subaltern community wherein he writes that “a biographical approach has more political justification if the project being undertaken is one concerned with the cultural history of a marginalized group” (202-3). Just as films by gay authors about gay characters may have greater credibility, as Medhurst posits, one might wonder would a film by a person with a disability about a character with the same disability be better received? Enabling authorship by an unknown, crippled woman such as Rose rather than a famous, able-bodied male such as de Heer may be cynically regarded as good (show) business in that it is politically correct. This essay therefore asks if the appellation “A film by Heather Rose” is appropriate for Dance Me to My Song. Whose agency in telling the story (or ‘doing’ the film-making), the able bodied Rolf de Heer or the disabled Heather Rose, is reflected in this cinematic production? In other words, whose voice is enabled when an audience receives this film? In attempting to answer these questions it is inevitable that Paul Darke’s concept of the “normality drama” (181) is referred to and questioned, as I argue that Dance Me to My Song makes groundbreaking departures from the conventions of the typical disability narrative. Heather Rose as Auteur Rose plays the film’s heroine, Julia, who like herself has cerebral palsy, a group of non-progressive, chronic disorders resulting from changes produced in the brain during the prenatal stages of life. Although severely affected physically, Rose suffered no intellectual impairment and had acted in Rolf de Heer’s cult hit Bad Boy Bubby five years before, a confidence-building experience that grew into an ongoing fascination with the filmmaking process. Subsequently, working with co-writer Frederick Stahl, she devised the scenario for this film, writing the lead role for herself and then proactively bringing it to de Heer’s attention. Rose wrote of de Heer’s deliberate lack of involvement in the script-writing process: “Rolf didn’t even want to read what we’d done so far, saying he didn’t want to interfere with our process” (de Heer, “Production Notes”). In 2002, aged 36, Rose died and Stahl reports in her obituary an excerpt from her diary: People see me as a person who has to be controlled. But let me tell you something, people. I am not! And I am going to make something real special of my life! I am going to go out there and grab life with both hands!!! I am going to make the most sexy and honest film about disability that has ever been made!! (Stahl, “Standing Room Only”) This proclamation of her ability and ambition in screen-writing is indicative of Rose’s desire to do. In a guest lecture Rose gave further insights into the active intent in writing Dance Me to My Song: I wanted to create a screenplay, but not just another soppy disability film, I wanted to make a hot sexy film, which showed the real world … The message I wanted to convey to an audience was “As people with disabilities, we have the same feelings and desires as others”. (Rose, “ISAAC 2000 Conference Presentation”) Rose went on to explain her strategy for winning over director de Heer: “Rolf was not sure about committing to the movie; I had to pester him really. I decided to invite him to my birthday party. It took a few drinks, but I got him to agree to be the director” (ibid) and with this revelation of her tactical approach her film-making agency is further evidenced. Rose’s proactive innovation is not just evident in her successfully approaching de Heer. Her screenplay serves as a radical exception to films featuring disabled persons, which, according to Paul Darke in 1998, typically involve the disabled protagonist struggling to triumph over the limitations imposed by their disability in their ‘admirable’ attempts to normalize. Such normality dramas are usually characterized by two generic themes: first, that the state of abnormality is nothing other than tragic because of its medical implications; and, second, that the struggle for normality, or some semblance of it in normalization – as represented in the film by the other characters – is unquestionably right owing to its axiomatic supremacy. (187) Darke argues that the so-called normality drama is “unambiguously a negation of ascribing any real social or individual value to the impaired or abnormal” (196), and that such dramas function to reinforce the able-bodied audience’s self image of normality and the notion of the disabled as the inferior Other. Able-bodied characters are typically portrayed positively in the normality drama: “A normality as represented in the decency and support of those characters who exist around, and for, the impaired central character. Thus many of the disabled characters in such narratives are bitter, frustrated and unfulfilled and either antisocial or asocial” (193). Darke then identifies The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980) and Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989) as archetypal films of this genre. Even in films in which seemingly positive images of the disabled are featured, the protagonist is still to be regarded as the abnormal Other, because in comparison to the other characters within that narrative the impaired character is still a comparatively second-class citizen in the world of the film. My Left Foot is, as always, a prime example: Christy Brown may well be a writer, relatively wealthy and happy, but he is not seen as sexual in any way (194). However, Dance Me to My Song defies such generic restrictions: Julia’s temperament is upbeat and cheerful and her disability, rather than appearing tragic, is made to look healthy, not “second class”, in comparison with her physically attractive, able-bodied but deeply unhappy carer, Madelaine (Joey Kennedy). Within the first few minutes of the film we see Madelaine dissatisfied as she stands, inspecting her healthy, toned and naked body in the bathroom mirror, contrasted with vision of Julia’s twisted form, prostrate, pale and naked on the bed. Yet, in due course, it is the able-bodied girl who is shown to be insecure and lacking in character. Madelaine steals Julia’s money and calls her “spastic”. Foul-mouthed and short-tempered, Madelaine perversely positions Julia in her wheelchair to force her to watch as she has perfunctory sex with her latest boyfriend. Madelaine even masquerades as Julia, commandeering her voice synthesizer to give a fraudulently positive account of her on-the-job performance to the employment agency she works for. Madelaine’s “axiomatic supremacy” is thoroughly undermined and in the most striking contrast to the typical normality drama, Julia is unashamedly sexual: she is no Christy Brown. The affective juxtaposition of these two different personalities stems from the internal nature of Madelaine’s problems compared to the external nature of Julia’s problems. Madelaine has an emotional disability rather than a physical disability and several scenes in the film show her reduced to helpless tears. Then one day when Madelaine has left her to her own devices, Julia defiantly wheels herself outside and bumps into - almost literally - handsome, able-bodied Eddie (John Brumpton). Cheerfully determined, Julia wins him over and a lasting friendship is formed. Having seen the joy that sex brings to Madelaine, Julia also wants carnal fulfilment so she telephones Eddie and arranges a date. When Eddie arrives, he reads the text on her voice machine’s screen containing the title line to the film ‘Dance me to my song’ and they share a tender moment. Eddie’s gentleness as he dances Julia to her song (“Kizugu” written by Bernard Huber and John Laidler, as performed by Okapi Guitars) is simultaneously contrasted with the near-date-rapes Madelaine endures in her casual relationships. The conflict between Madeline and Julia is such that it prompts Albert Moran and Errol Vieth to categorize the film as “women’s melodrama”: Dance Me to My Song clearly belongs to the genre of the romance. However, it is also important to recognize it under the mantle of the women’s melodrama … because it has to do with a woman’s feelings and suffering, not so much because of the flow of circumstance but rather because of the wickedness and malevolence of another woman who is her enemy and rival. (198-9) Melodrama is a genre that frequently resorts to depicting disability in which a person condemned by society as disabled struggles to succeed in love: some prime examples include An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey, 1957) involving a paraplegic woman, and The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) in which a strong-spirited but mute woman achieves love. The more conventional Hollywood romances typically involve attractive, able-bodied characters. In Dance Me to My Song the melodramatic conflict between the two remarkably different women at first seems dominated by Madelaine, who states: “I know I’m good looking, good in bed ... better off than you, you poor thing” in a stream-of-consciousness delivery in which Julia is constructed as listener rather than converser. Julia is further reduced to the status of sub-human as Madelaine says: “I wish you could eat like a normal person instead of a bloody animal” and her erstwhile boyfriend Trevor says: “She looks like a fuckin’ insect.” Even the benevolent Eddie says: “I don’t like leaving you alone but I guess you’re used to it.” To this the defiant Julia replies; “Please don’t talk about me in front of me like I’m an animal or not there at all.” Eddie is suitably chastised and when he treats her to an over-priced ice-cream the shop assistant says “Poor little thing … She’ll enjoy this, won’t she?” Julia smiles, types the words “Fuck me!”, and promptly drops the ice-cream on the floor. Eddie laughs supportively. “I’ll just get her another one,” says the flustered shop assistant, “and then get her out of here, please!” With striking eloquence, Julia wheels herself out of the shop, her voice machine announcing “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me”, as she departs exultantly. With this bold statement of independence and defiance in the face of patronising condescension, the audience sees Rose’s burgeoning strength of character and agency reflected in the onscreen character she has created. Dance Me to My Song and the films mentioned above are, however, rare exceptions in the many that dare represent disability on the screen at all, compliant as the majority are with Darke’s expectations of the normality drama. Significantly, the usual medical-model nexus in many normality films is ignored in Rose’s screenplay: no medication, hospitals or white laboratory coats are to be seen in Julia’s world. Finally, as I have described elsewhere, Julia is shown joyfully dancing in her wheelchair with Eddie while Madelaine proves her physical inferiority with a ‘dance’ of frustration around her broken-down car (see Starrs, "Dance"). In Rose’s authorial vision, audience’s expectations of yet another film of the normality drama genre are subverted as the disabled protagonist proves superior to her ‘normal’ adversary in their melodramatic rivalry for the sexual favours of an able-bodied love-interest. Rolf de Heer as Auteur De Heer does not like to dwell on the topic of auteurism: in an interview in 2007 he somewhat impatiently states: I don’t go in much for that sort of analysis that in the end is terminology. … Look, I write the damn things, and direct them, and I don’t completely produce them anymore – there are other people. If that makes me an auteur in other people’s terminologies, then fine. (Starrs, "Sounds" 20) De Heer has been described as a “remarkably non-egotistical filmmaker” (Davis “Working together”) which is possibly why he handed ownership of this film to Rose. Of the writer/actor who plied him with drink so he would agree to back her script, de Heer states: It is impossible to overstate the courage of the performance that you see on the screen. … Heather somehow found the means to respond on cue, to maintain the concentration, to move in the desired direction, all the myriad of acting fundamentals that we take for granted as normal things to do in our normal lives. (“Production NHotes”) De Heer’s willingness to shift authorship from director to writer/actor is representative of this film’s groundbreaking promotion of the potential for agency within disability. Rather than being passive and suffering, Rose is able to ‘do.’ As the lead actor she is central to the narrative. As the principle writer she is central to the film’s production. And she does both. But in conflict with this auteurial intent is the temptation to describe Dance Me to My Song as an autobiographical documentary, since it is Rose herself, with her unique and obvious physical handicap, playing the film’s heroine, Julia. In interview, however, De Heer apparently disagrees with this interpretation: Rolf de Heer is quick to point out, though, that the film is not a biography.“Not at all; only in the sense that writers use material from their own lives.Madelaine is merely the collection of the worst qualities of the worst carers Heather’s ever had.” Dance Me to My Song could be seen as a dramatised documentary, since it is Rose herself playing Julia, and her physical or surface life is so intense and she is so obviously handicapped. While he understands that response, de Heer draws a comparison with the first films that used black actors instead of white actors in blackface. “I don’t know how it felt emotionally to an audience, I wasn’t there, but I think that is the equivalent”. (Urban) An example of an actor wearing “black-face” to portray a cerebral palsy victim might well be Gus Trikonis’s 1980 film Touched By Love. In this, the disabled girl is unconvincingly played by the pretty, able-bodied actress Diane Lane. The true nature of the character’s disability is hidden and cosmeticized to Hollywood expectations. Compared to that inauthentic film, Rose’s screenwriting and performance in Dance Me to My Song is a self-penned fiction couched in unmediated reality and certainly warrants authorial recognition. Despite his unselfish credit-giving, de Heer’s direction of this remarkable film is nevertheless detectable. His auteur signature is especially evident in his technological employment of sound as I have argued elsewhere (see Starrs, "Awoval"). The first distinctly de Heer influence is the use of a binaural recording device - similar to that used in Bad Boy Bubby (1993) - to convey to the audience the laboured nature of Julia’s breathing and to subjectively align the audience with her point of view. This apparatus provides a disturbing sound bed that is part wheezing, part grunting. There is no escaping Julia’s physically unusual life, from her reliance on others for food, toilet and showering, to the half-strangled sounds emanating from her ineffectual larynx. But de Heer insists that Julia does speak, like Stephen Hawkings, via her Epson RealVoice computerized voice synthesizer, and thus Julia manages to retain her dignity. De Heer has her play this machine like a musical instrument, its neatly modulated feminine tones immediately prompting empathy. Rose Capp notes de Heer’s preoccupation with finding a voice for those minority groups within the population who struggle to be heard, stating: de Heer has been equally consistent in exploring the communicative difficulties underpinning troubled relationships. From the mute young protagonist of The Quiet Room to the aphasic heroine of Dance Me to My Song, De Heer’s films are frequently preoccupied with the profound inadequacy or outright failure of language as a means of communication (21). Certainly, the importance to Julia of her only means of communication, her voice synthesizer, is stressed by de Heer throughout the film. Everybody around her has, to varying degrees, problems in hearing correctly or understanding both what and how Julia communicates with her alien mode of conversing, and she is frequently asked to repeat herself. Even the well-meaning Eddie says: “I don’t know what the machine is trying to say”. But it is ultimately via her voice synthesizer that Julia expresses her indomitable character. When first she meets Eddie, she types: “Please put my voice machine on my chair, STUPID.” She proudly declares ownership of a condom found in the bathroom with “It’s mine!” The callous Madelaine soon realizes Julia’s strength is in her voice machine and withholds access to the device as punishment for if she takes it away then Julia is less demanding for the self-centred carer. Indeed, the film which starts off portraying the physical superiority of Madelaine soon shows us that the carer’s life, for all her able-bodied, free-love ways, is far more miserable than Julia’s. As de Heer has done in many of his other films, a voice has been given to those who might otherwise not be heard through significant decision making in direction. In Rose’s case, this is achieved most obviously via her electric voice synthesizer. I have also suggested elsewhere (see Starrs, "Dance") that de Heer has helped find a second voice for Rose via the language of dance, and in doing so has expanded the audience’s understandings of quality of life for the disabled, as per Mike Oliver’s social model of disability, rather than the more usual medical model of disability. Empowered by her act of courage with Eddie, Julia sacks her uncaring ‘carer’ and the film ends optimistically with Julia and her new man dancing on the front porch. By picturing the couple in long shot and from above, Julia’s joyous dance of triumph is depicted as ordinary, normal and not deserving of close examination. This happy ending is intercut with a shot of Madeline and her broken down car, performing her own frustrated dance and this further emphasizes that she was unable to ‘dance’ (i.e. communicate and compete) with Julia. The disabled performer such as Rose, whether deliberately appropriating a role or passively accepting it, usually struggles to placate two contrasting realities: (s)he is at once invisible in the public world of interhuman relations and simultaneously hyper-visible due to physical Otherness and subsequent instantaneous typecasting. But by the end of Dance Me to My Song, Rose and de Heer have subverted this notion of the disabled performer grappling with the dual roles of invisible victim and hyper-visible victim by depicting Julia as socially and physically adept. She ‘wins the guy’ and dances her victory as de Heer’s inspirational camera looks down at her success like an omniscient and pleased god. Film academic Vivian Sobchack writes of the phenomenology of dance choreography for the disabled and her own experience of waltzing with the maker of her prosthetic leg, Steve, with the comment: “for the moment I did displace focus on my bodily immanence to the transcendent ensemble of our movement and I really began to waltz” (65). It is easy to imagine Rose’s own, similar feeling of bodily transcendence in the closing shot of Dance Me to My Song as she shows she can ‘dance’ better than her able-bodied rival, content as she is with her self-identity. Conclusion: Validation of the Auteurial OtherRolf de Heer was a well-known film-maker by the time he directed Dance Me to My Song. His films Bad Boy Bubby (1993) and The Quiet Room (1996) had both screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. He was rapidly developing a reputation for non-mainstream representations of marginalised, subaltern populations, a cinematic trajectory that was to be further consolidated by later films privileging the voice of Indigenous Peoples in The Tracker (2002) and Ten Canoes (2006), the latter winning the Special Jury prize at Cannes. His films often feature unlikely protagonists or as Liz Ferrier writes, are “characterised by vulnerable bodies … feminised … none of whom embody hegemonic masculinity” (65): they are the opposite of Hollywood’s hyper-masculine, hard-bodied, controlling heroes. With a nascent politically correct worldview proving popular, de Heer may have considered the assigning of authorship to Rose a marketable idea, her being representative of a marginalized group, which as Andy Medhurst might argue, may be more politically justifiable, as it apparently is with films of gay authorship. However, it must be emphasized that there is no evidence that de Heer’s reticence about claiming authorship of Dance Me to My Song is motivated by pecuniary interests, nor does he seem to have been trying to distance himself from the project through embarrassment or dissatisfaction with the film or its relatively unknown writer/actor. Rather, he seems to be giving credit for authorship where credit is due, for as a result of Rose’s tenacity and agency this film is, in two ways, her creative success. Firstly, it is a rare exception to the disability film genre defined by Paul Darke as the “normality drama” because in the film’s diegesis, Julia is shown triumphing not simply over the limitations of her disability, but over her able-bodied rival in love as well: she ‘dances’ better than the ‘normal’ Madelaine. Secondly, in her gaining possession of the primary credits, and the mantle of the film’s primary author, Rose is shown triumphing over other aspiring able-bodied film-makers in the notoriously competitive film-making industry. Despite being an unpublished and unknown author, the label “A film by Heather Rose” is, I believe, a deserved coup for the woman who set out to make “the most sexy and honest film about disability ever made”. As with de Heer’s other films in which marginalised peoples are given voice, he demonstrates a desire not to subjugate the Other, but to validate and empower him/her. He both acknowledges their authorial voices and credits them as essential beings, and in enabling such subaltern populations to be heard, willingly cedes his privileged position as a successful, white, male, able-bodied film-maker. In the credits of this film he seems to be saying ‘I may be an auteur, but Heather Rose is a no less able auteur’. References Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. Capp, Rose. “Alexandra and the de Heer Project.” RealTime + Onscreen 56 (Aug.-Sep. 2003): 21. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue56/7153›. Caughie, John. “Introduction”. Theories of Authorship. Ed. John Caughie. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 9-16. Darke, Paul. “Cinematic Representations of Disability.” The Disability Reader. Ed. Tom Shakespeare. London and New York: Cassell, 1988. 181-198. Davis, Therese. “Working Together: Two Cultures, One Film, Many Canoes.” Senses of Cinema 2006. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/06/41/ten-canoes.html›. De Heer, Rolf. “Production Notes.” Vertigo Productions. Undated. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.vertigoproductions.com.au/information.php?film_id=10&display=notes›. Ferrier, Liz. “Vulnerable Bodies: Creative Disabilities in Contemporary Australian Film.” Australian Cinema in the 1990s. Ed. Ian Craven. London and Portland: Frank Cass and Co., 2001. 57-78. Medhurst, Andy. “That Special Thrill: Brief Encounter, Homosexuality and Authorship.” Screen 32.2 (1991): 197-208. Moran, Albert, and Errol Veith. Film in Australia: An Introduction. Melbourne: Cambridge UP, 2006. Oliver, Mike. Social Work with Disabled People. Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1983. Rose Slattery, Heather. “ISAAC 2000 Conference Presentation.” Words+ n.d. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.words-plus.com/website/stories/isaac2000.htm›. Sobchack, Vivian. “‘Choreography for One, Two, and Three Legs’ (A Phenomenological Meditation in Movements).” Topoi 24.1 (2005): 55-66. Stahl, Frederick. “Standing Room Only for a Thunderbolt in a Wheelchair,” Sydney Morning Herald 31 Oct. 2002. 6 June 2008 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/30/1035683471529.html›. Starrs, D. Bruno. “Sounds of Silence: An Interview with Rolf de Heer.” Metro 152 (2007): 18-21. ———. “An avowal of male lack: Sound in Rolf de Heer’s The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2003).” Metro 156 (2008): 148-153. ———. “Dance Me to My Song (Rolf de Heer 1997): The Story of a Disabled Dancer.” Proceedings Scopic Bodies Dance Studies Research Seminar Series 2007. Ed. Mark Harvey. University of Auckland, 2008 (in press). Urban, Andrew L. “Dance Me to My Song, Rolf de Heer, Australia.” Film Festivals 1988. 6 June 2008. ‹http://www.filmfestivals.com/cannes98/selofus9.htm›.

Introduction Within wellness circles, there has been growing concern over an increasing focus on Alternative Right (or Alt-right) conspiracy (see Aubry; Bloom and Moskalenko). Greene, referring to a definition provided by the Anti-Defamation League, defines the Alt-right as a loose political network characterised by its rejection of mainstream conservatism, embrace of white nationalism, and use of online platforms (33). The “wellness revolution”, on the other hand, which marked a split from the health care sector in which “thought leaders” replaced medical experts as authorities on health (Pilzer, qtd. in Kickbusch and Payne 275), combines New Age practices with ideological movements that emphasise the “interdependence of body, mind and spirit” (Voigt and Laing 32). It has been noted that there is overlap between the circulation of conspiracy theory and New Age mysticism (see Ward and Voas; Parmigiani). Influencers following the Paleo diet, or Palaeolithic diet, such as Australian celebrity chef and Paleo diet guru Pete Evans, have also come under fire for sharing conspiracy theories and pseudoscience (see Brennan). Johnson notes that the origins of the Paleo diet can be traced back to 1975, with the publication of Dr Walter Voegtlin’s book The Stone Age Diet. This text, however, has been largely disavowed by Paleo leaders due to Voegtlin’s “white supremacist, eugenicist, and generally unpalatable politics”. Nevertheless, it is interesting to consider how white nationalism and conspiracy theory may overlap within the wellness space. A specific example occurred in 2020, when Pete Evans shared an Alt-right conspiracy meme to his Facebook account. The ‘butterfly-caterpillar meme’ contained the image of a black sun, a symbol equated with the swastika (Goodrick-Clarke 3). Though Evans later commented that the sharing of the hate symbol was unintentional, and that he misunderstood the symbol, this case raised questions about the ability of wellness influencers to amplify white nationalist messaging. This essay is concerned with the question: what makes the wellness industry a target for the spreading of white nationalist ideas? It argues that the wellness industry and far-right ideology possess a pre-occupation with bodily purity which makes it more likely that white nationalist material carrying this message will be spread via wellness networks. Through a critical examination of the media surrounding Evans’s sharing of the butterfly-caterpillar meme, this case study will examine the ideological aspects of the Paleo diet and how they appeal to a white nationalist agenda. Focussing on the Australian context, this essay will theorise the spreadability of memes in relation to white nationalist symbolism. It contends that the Paleo diet positions foods that are not organic as impure, and holds a preference for positive messaging. Alt-right propaganda packaged in a positive and New Age frame poses a danger in that it can operate as a kind of contagion for high-profile networks, exponentially increasing its spreadability. This is of particular concern when it is considered that diet can have an impact on people’s actions outside of the online space: it impacts what people consume and do with their bodies, as evidenced by calls for eating disorders created by algorithmic repetition to be considered a ‘cyber-pathy’. This creates the conditions for the wellness industry to be targeted using memes as recruitment material for white nationalist groups. The Paleo Diet and the Sharing of a Neo-Nazi Meme Pete Evans is a famous Australian TV Chef from the hit series My Kitchen Rules, a show that ran from 2010-2020. The show followed pairs from different households as they cooked for Evans and his co-host Manu Feildel. During the show’s run, Evans also became known for spruiking the Paleo diet, producing several cookbooks and a documentary on the topic. According to Catie Gressier, who conducted a study of Paleo dieters in Melbourne, Paleo’s aim is “to eat only those foods available prior to the agricultural revolution: meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, seeds and a small amount of fruit” and that this framed as a more “authentic” diet (3). This is seen as an ideological diet as opposed to others which may consist of rules or eating restrictions. The Paleo diet stresses “real foods” or “organic foods as close to their real state as possible” (Ramachandran et al.). Studies find that the paleo diet can be very nutritious (Cambeses-Franco et al. 2021). However, it is important to note that the presence of multiple influencers and thought leaders in the field means that there can be several variations in the diet. This article will limit its examination to that of the diet promoted by Evans. A common rationale is that the human body is incompatible with certain mass-produced foods (like grains, pulses, and dairy products, sugar, salt, and modification practices (like food processing), and that these are the cause of many modern conditions (Cambeses-Franco et al. 2021). While growing concerns over unnatural additives in foods are warranted, it can be observed that in Evans’s case, the promotion of the Paleo diet increasingly blurred the line between pseudoscience and conspiracy. In his Paleo diet book for toddlers, Evans emphasised the importance of the ideological diet and suggested that parents feed their toddlers bone broth instead of breast milk, prompting a federal investigation by the health department (Brennan). This escalated in 2020 during the global pandemic. In January, Evans promoted the work of a prominent anti-vaccine advocate (Molloy). In April, his Biocharger device, which he claimed could cure coronavirus, earned him a hefty fine from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (White). In November, several months after My Kitchen Rules was cancelled, Evans posted an Alt-right political cartoon with the image of a black sun, a symbol equated with the swastika (Goodrick-Clarke 3), to his Facebook account (Gillespie). In later news reports, it was also pointed out that the black sun symbol was emblazoned on the backpack of the Christchurch shooter (see Sutton and Molloy) who had targeted two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51 people and injuring 40. Initially, when a user on Facebook pointed out that the meme contained a black sun, Evans responded “I was waiting for someone to see that” (Evans, qtd. in Gillespie). Evans eventually recanted the image, writing: sincere apologies to anyone who misinterpreted a previous post of a caterpillar and a butterfly having a chat over a drink and perceived that I was promoting hatred. I look forward to studying every symbol that have ever existed and research them thoroughly before posting. Hopefully this symbol ❤️ resonates deeply into the hearts of ALL! (Evans, qtd. in Gillespie). The post was later deleted. In December of 2020, Evans’s Facebook page of around 1.5 million followers was removed due to its sharing of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the coronavirus (Gillespie). However, it should be noted that the sharing of the caterpillar-butterfly meme was different from the previous instances of conspiracy sharing, in that Evans stated that it was unintentional, and it included imagery associated with neo-Nazi ideology (the black sun). Evans’s response implies that, while the values of the Paleo diet are framed in terms of positivity, the symbols in the butterfly-caterpillar meme are associated with “promoting hatred”. In this way, Evans frames racism as merely and simplistically an act of hatred, rather than engaging in the ways in which it reinforces a racial hierarchy and racially motivated violence. According to Hartzell (10), white nationalists tend to position themselves as superior to other races and see themselves as protectors of the “white race”. “White” in this context is of European descent (Geary, Schofield and Sutton). There are conspiracy theories associated with this belief, one of which is that their race is under threat of extinction because of immigration from ‘undesirable’ countries of origin. This can also be observed in the Alt-right, which is a white nationalist movement that was created and organised online. According to Berger, this movement “seeks to unify the activities of several different extremist movements or ideologies”. This is characterised by anti-immigrant sentiment, conspiracy theories, and support for former US President Donald Trump. It can be argued, in this case, that the symbol links to a larger conspiracy theory in which whiteness must be defended against some perceived threat. The meme implies that there is an ‘us’ versus ‘them’, or ‘good’ versus ‘evil’, and that some people are ‘in the know’ while others are not. Spreadable Memes An important aspect of this case study is that this instance of far-right recruitment used the form of a meme. Memes are highly spreadable, and they have very complex mechanisms for disseminating ideas and ideology. This can have a dramatic impact if that ideology is a harmful one, such a white supremacist symbol. While the digital meme, an image with a small amount of text, is common today, Richard Dawkins originally used the term meme to describe the ways in which units of culture can be spread from person to person (qtd. in Shifman 9). These can be anything from the lyrics of a song to a political idea. Jeff Hemsley and Robert Mason (qtd. in Shifman) see virality as a “process wherein a message is actively forwarded from one person to other, within and between multiple weakly linked personal networks, resulting in a rapid increase in the number of people who are exposed to the message” (55). This also links to Jenkins, Ford, and Green’s notions of spreadability (3-11), a natural selection process by which media content continues to exist through networked sharing, or disappears once it stops being shared. Evans’s response indicates that he merely shared the image. Despite the black sun imagery, a Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat is clearly present. A political presence, and one that is associated with white nationalism, is present despite Evans’s attempts to frame the meme in the language of innocence and positivity. This is not to say Evans is extremist or supports a white nationalist agenda. However, in much the same way that sharing of imagery may not necessarily indicate agreement with its ideological messaging, this framing creates a way in which wellness influencers may avoid criticism (Ma 1). Furthermore, the act of sharing the meme, regardless of intention, amplifies its message exponentially. The Paleo Diet, the Far Right and Purity This overlap between wellness and white nationalist ideology is not new. In Jules Evans’s exploration of why QAnon is popular with New Age and far-right followers, she points to the fact that many Nazi leaders – Hitler, Hess, Himmler – “were into alternative medicine, organic and vegetarian diets, homeopathy, anti-vaxxing, and natural healing”. Similarly, Bernhard Forchtner and Ana Tominc argue that a natural diet which focussed on food purity was favoured by the Nazis (421). In their examination of the German neo-Nazi YouTube channel Balaclava Küche they argue add that “present-day extreme right views on environment and diet are often close to positions found in contemporary Green movements and foodie magazines” (422). Like neo-Nazi preoccupations with food, the Paleo diet’s ideology has its basis in the concept of purity. Gressier found that the Paleo diet contains an “embedded moralism” that “filters into constructions of food as either pure or polluting” (1). This is supported by Ramachandran et al.’s study, which found that the diet “promoted ‘real food’ – or the shift to consuming organic whole foods that are as close to their natural state as possible, with an avoidance of processed foods”. This framing of the food as real creates a binary – if one is real, the other must not be. Another example can be seen in Pete Evans’s Webpage, which lists about 33 Paleo recipes. The Butter Chicken recipe states: the paleo way of life is not meant to be restrictive, as you can see from this lovely butter chicken recipe. All the nasties have been replaced with good-quality ingredients that make it as good, if not better, than the original. I prefer chicken thighs for their superior flavour and tenderness. The term “nasties” here can be seen to create a dichotomy between real and fake, the west and the east. We see these foods are associated with impurity, the foods that are not “real foods” are positioned as a threat. It can be seen as an orientalist approach, othering those not associated with the west. As can be observed in this Butter Chicken recipe that is “getting rid of the nasties”, it appropriates and ‘sanitises’ ingredients. In her article on the campaign to boycott Halal, Shakira Hussein points out that “ethnic food” presents as multiculturalism in the context of white chefs and homecooks, but the opposite is true if the roles are switched (91). Later in her essay “Halal Chops and Fascist Cupcakes”, she discusses the “weaponisation of food” and how specific white nationalist groups express disgust at the thought of consuming Muslim food. This ethnocentric framing of butter chicken projects a western superiority, replacing traditional ingredients with ‘familiar’ ingredients, making it more palatable to nationalistic tastes. Spreading Consumption I have established that the Paleo diet, with its emphasis on ‘real foods’, is deeply embedded with nationalist ideology. I have also discussed how this is highly spreadable in the form of a meme, particularly when it is framed in the language of positivity. Furthermore, I have argued that this is an attempt to escape criticism for promoting white nationalist values. I would like to turn now to how this spreadability through diet can have an impact on the physical actions of its followers through its digital communication. The Paleo diet, and how to go about following it as described by celebrity influencers, has an impact on what people do with their bodies. Hanganu-Bresch discusses the concept of orthorexia, a fixation with eating proper foods that operates as a cyber-pathy, a digitally propagated condition targeting media users. Like the ‘viral’ and ‘spreadable’ meme, this puritanical obsession with eating can also be considered both a spreadable condition and ideology. According to Hanganu-Bresch, orthorexia sees this diet as a way to overcome an illness or to improve general health, but this also begins to feel righteous and even holy or spiritual. This operates within the context of neoliberalism. Brice and Thorpe talk about women’s activewear worn in everyday settings, or ‘athleisure’, as a neoliberal uniform that says, ‘I’m taking control of my body and health’. To take this idea a step further, this uniform could be extended out into digital spaces as well in terms of what people post on their profiles and social media. This ideological aspect operates as not only a highly spreadable message, but one that is targeted at the overall health of its followers. It encourages not only the spreading of ideology, in this case, white nationalist ideology, but also the modification of food consumption. If this were then to be used as a vehicle to spread messages that encourage white nationalist ideology, it can be seen to be not only a kind of contagion but a powerful one at that. White nationalist iconography that is clearly associated with white supremacist propaganda has the potential to spread extremism. However, neoliberal principles of discipline and bodywork operate through “messages of empowerment, choice, and self-care” (Lavrence and Lozanski, qtd. in Brice and Thorpe). While racist extremism does not necessarily equate to neoliberal and ethnocentric values, a frame of growth, purity, and positivity create an overlap that allow extremist messaging to spread more easily through these networks. Conclusion The case of Pete Evans’s sharing of the butterfly-caterpillar meme exemplifies a concerning overlap between white nationalist discourse and wellness. Ideologically based diets that emphasise real foods, such as the Paleo diet, have a preoccupation with purity and consumption that appeals to white nationalism. They also share a tolerance for the promotion of conspiracy theory and tendency to create an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy. Noting these points can provide insight into a potential targeting of the wellness industry to spread racist ideology. As research into spreadability shows, memes are extremely shareable, even if the user does not grasp the meaning behind the symbolism. This article has also extended the idea of the cyberpathy further, noting a weaponisation of the properties of the meme, for the purposes of radicalisation, and how these are accelerated by celebrity influence. This is more potent within the wellness industry when the message is packaged as a form of growth and positivity, which serve to deflect accusations of racism. Furthermore, when diet is combined with white nationalist ideology, it may operate like a contagion, creating the conditions for racism. Those exposed may not have the intention of sharing or spreading racist ideology, but its amplification contributes to the promotion of a racist agenda nevertheless. As such, further investigation into the far-right infiltration of the wellness industry would be beneficial as it could provide more insight into how wellness groups are targeted. 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Music from Another Time – One Perth Night in 2009The following extract is taken from fieldwork notes from research into the enduring Northern Soul dance scene in Perth, Western Australia.It’s 9.30 and I’m walking towards the Hyde Park Hotel on a warm May night. I stop to talk to Jenny, from London, who tells me about her 1970s trip to India and teenage visits to soul clubs in Soho. I enter a cavernous low-ceilinged hall, which used to be a jazz venue and will be a Dan Murphy’s bottle shop before the year ends. South West Soul organiser Tommy, wearing 34-inch baggy trousers, gives me a Northern Soul handshake, involving upturned thumbs. ‘Spread the Faith’, he says. Drinkers are lined up along the long bar to the right and I grab a glass of iced water. A few dancers are out on the wooden floor and a mirror ball rotates overhead. Pat Fisher, the main Perth scene organiser, is away working in Monaco, but the usual suspects are there: Carlisle Derek, Ivan from Cheltenham, Ron and Gracie from Derby. Danny is back from DJing in Tuscany, after a few days in Widnes with old friends. We chat briefly mouth to ear, as the swirling strings and echo-drenched vocals of the Seven Souls’ 45 record, ‘I still love you’ boom through the sound system. The drinkers at the bar hit the floor for Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move on up’ and the crowd swells to about 80. When I move onto the floor, Barbara Acklin’s ‘Am I the Same Girl?’ plays, prompting reflection on being the same, older person dancing to a record from my teenage years. On the bridge of the piano and conga driven ‘’Cause you’re mine’, by the Vibrations, everybody claps in unison, some above their heads, some behind their backs, some with an expansive, open-armed gesture. The sound is like the crack of pistol. We are all living in the moment, lost in the music, moving forward and backward, gliding sideways, and some of us spinning, dervish-like, for a few seconds, if we can still maintain our balance.Having relocated their scene from England south to the Antipodes, most of the participants described on this night are now in their sixties. Part of the original scene myself, I was a participant observer, dancing and interviewing, and documenting and exploring scene practices over five years.The local Perth scene, which started in 1996, is still going strong, part of a wider Australian and New Zealand scene. The global scene goes back nearly 50 years to the late 1960s. Northern Soul has now also become southern. It has also become significantly present in the USA, its place of inspiration, and in such disparate places as Medellin, in Colombia, and Kobe, in Japan.The feeling of ‘living in the moment’ described is a common feature of dance-oriented subcultures. It enables escape from routines, stretches the present opportunity for leisure and postpones the return to other responsibilities. The music and familiar dance steps of a long-standing scene like Northern Soul also stimulate a nostalgic reverie, in which you can persuade yourself you are 18 again.Dance steps are forward, backward and sideways and on crowded dancefloors self-expression is necessarily attenuated. These movements are repeated and varied as each bar returns to the first beat and in subcultures like Northern Soul are sufficiently stylised as to show solidarity. This solidarity is enhanced by a unison handclap, triggered by cues in some records. Northern Soul is not line-dancing. Dancers develop their own moves.Place of Origin: Soul from the North?For those new to Northern Soul, the northern connection may seem a little puzzling. The North of England is often still imagined as a cold, rainy wasteland of desolate moors and smoky, industrial, mostly working-class cities, but such stereotyping obscures real understanding. Social histories have also tended to focus on such phenomena as the early twentieth century Salford gang members, the “Northern Scuttlers”, with “bell-bottomed trousers … and the thick iron-shod clogs” (Roberts 123).The 1977 Granada television documentary about the key Northern Soul club, Wigan Casino, This England, captured rare footage; but this was framed by hackneyed backdrops of mills and collieries. Yet, some elements of the northern stereotype are grounded in reality.Engels’s portrayal of the horrors of early nineteenth century Manchester in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 was an influential exploration of the birth pains of this first industrial city, and many northern towns and cities have experienced similar traumas. Levels of social disadvantage in contemporary Britain, whilst palpable everywhere, are still particularly significant in the North, as researched by Buchan, Kontopantelis, Sperrin, Chandola and Doran in North-South Disparities in English Mortality 1965–2015: Longitudinal Population Study.By the end of the 1960s, the relative affluence of Harold Wilson’s England began to recede and there was increased political and counter-cultural activity. Into this social climate emerged both skinheads, as described by Fowler in Skins Rule and the Northern Soul scene.Northern Soul scene essentially developed as an extension of the 1960s ‘mod’ lifestyle, built around soul music and fashion. A mostly working-class response to urban life and routine, it also evidenced the ability of the more socially mobile young to get out and stay up late.Although more London mods moved into psychedelia and underground music, many soul fans sought out obscure, but still prototypical Motown-like records, often from the northern American cities Detroit and Chicago. In Manchester, surplus American records were transported up the Ship Canal to Trafford Park, the port zone (Ritson and Russell 1) and became cult club hits, as described in Rylatt and Scott’s Central 1179: The Story of Manchester's Twisted Wheel.In the early 1970s, the rare soul fans found a name for their scene. “The Dave Godin Column” in the fanzine Blues and Soul, published in London, referred for the first time to ‘Northern Soul’ in 1971, really defining ‘Northern’ directionally, as a relative location anywhere ‘north of Watford’, not a specific place.The scene gradually developed specific sites, clothes, dances and cultural practices, and was also popular in southern England, and actually less visible in cities such as Liverpool and Newcastle. As Nowell (199) argues, the idea that Northern Soul was regionally based is unfounded, a wider movement emerging as a result of the increased mobility made possible by railways and motorways (Ritson and Russell 14).Clubs like the Blackpool Mecca and Wigan Casino were very close to motorway slip roads and accessible to visitors from further south. The initial scene was not self-consciously northern and many early clubs, like the ‘Golden Torch’, in Tunstall were based in the Midlands, as recounted by Wall (441).The Time and Space of the DancefloorThe Northern Soul scene’s growth was initially covered in fanzines like Blues and Soul, and then by Frith and Cummings (23-32). Following Cosgrove (38-41) and Chambers (142), a number of insider accounts (Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story by Winstanley and Nowell; Too Darn Soulful: The Story of Northern Soul by Nowell; The In-Crowd: The Story of the Northern & Rare Soul Scene by Ritson & Russell) were followed by academic studies (Milestone 134-149; Hollows and Milestone 83-103; Wall 431-445). The scene was first explored by an American academic in Browne’s Identity Scene and Material Culture: The Place of African American Rare Soul Music on the British Northern Soul Scene.Many clubs in earlier days were alcohol-free, though many club-goers substituted amphetamines (Wilson 1-5) as a result, but across the modern scene, drug-taking is not significant. On Northern Soul nights, dancing is the main activity and drinking is incidental. However, dance has received less subtle attention than it deserves as a key nexus between the culture of the scene and black America.Pruter (187) referred to the earlier, pre-disco “myopia” of many music writers on the subject of dance, though its connection to leisure, pleasure, the body and “serious self-realization” (Chambers 7) has been noted. Clearly Northern Soul dancers find “evasive” pleasure (Fiske 127) and “jouissance” (Barthes v) in the merging of self into record.Wall (440) has been more nuanced in his perceptions of the particular “physical geography” of the Northern Soul dance floor, seeing it as both responsive to the music, and a vehicle for navigating social and individual space. Dancers respond to each other, give others room to move and are also connected to those who stand and watch. Although friends often dance close, they are careful not to exclude others and dancing between couples is rare. At the end of popular records, there is often applause. Some dance all night, with a few breaks; others ‘pace’ themselves (Mercieca et al. 78).The gymnastics of Northern Soul have attracted attention, but the forward dives, back drops and spins are now less common. Two less noticed markers of the Northern Soul dancing style, the glide and the soul clap, were highlighted by Wall (432). Cosgrove (38) also noted the sideways glide characteristic of long-time insiders and particularly well deployed by female dancers.Significantly, friction-reducing talcum powder is almost sacramentally sprinkled on the floor, assisting dancers to glide more effectively. This fluid feature of the dancing makes the scene more attractive to those whose forms of expression are less overtly masculine.Sprung wooden floors are preferred and drink on the floor is frowned upon, as spillage compromises gliding. The soul clap is a communal clap, usually executed at key points in a record. Sometimes very loud, this perfectly timed unison clap is a remarkable, though mostly unselfconscious, display of group co-ordination, solidarity and resonance.Billy from Manchester, one of the Perth regulars, and notable for his downward clapping motion, explained simply that the claps go “where the breaks are” (Mercieca et al. 71). The Northern Soul clap demonstrates key attributes of what Wunderlich (384) described as “place-temporality in urban space”, emerging from the flow of music and movement in a heightened form of synchronisation and marked by the “vivid sense of time” (385) produced by emotional and social involvement.Crucially, as Morris noted, A Sense of Space is needed to have a sense of time and dancers may spin and return via the beat of the music to the same spot. For Northern Soul dancers, the movements forwards, backwards, sideways through objective, “geometric space” are paralleled by a traversing of existential, “conceived space”. The steps in microcosm symbolise the relentless wider movements we make through life. For Lefebvre, in The Production of Space, these “trialectics” create “lived space”.A Sense of Place and Evolving IdentitySpaces are plastic environments, charged with emerging meanings. For Augé, they can also remain spaces or be manipulated into “Non-Places”. When the sense of space is heightened there is the potential for lived spaces to become places. The space/place distinction is a matter of contention, but, broadly, space is universal and non-relational, and place is particular and relational.For Augé, a space can be social, but if it lacks implicit, shared cultural understandings and requires explicit signs and rules, as with an airport or supermarket, it is a non-place. It is not relational. It lacks history. Time cannot be stretched or temporarily suspended. As non-places proliferate, urban people spend more time alone in crowds, ”always, and never, at home” (109), though this anonymity can still provide the possibility of changing identity and widening experience.Northern Soul as a culture in the abstract, is a space, but one with distinct practices which tend towards the creation of places and identities. Perth’s Hyde Park Hotel is a place with a function space at the back. This empty hall, on the night described in the opening, temporarily became a Northern Soul Club. The dance floor was empty as the night began, but gradually became not just a space, but a place. To step onto a mostly empty dance floor early in the night, is to cross liminal space, and to take a risk that you will be conspicuous or lonely for a while, or both.This negotiation of space is what Northern Soul, like many other club cultures has always offered, the promise and risk of excitement outside the home. Even when the floor is busy, it is still possible to feel alone in a crowd, but at some stage in the night, there is also the possibility, via some moment of resonance, that a feeling of connection with others will develop. This is a familiar teenage theme, a need to escape bonds and make new ones, to be both mobile and stable. Northern Soul is one of the many third spaces/places (Soja 137) which can create opportunities to navigate time, space and place, and to find a new sense of direction and identity. Nicky from Cornwall, who arrived in Perth in the early 1970s, felt like “a fish out of water”, until involvement in the Northern Soul scene helped him to achieve a successful migration (Mercieca et al. 34-38). Figure 1: A Perth Northern Soul night in 2007. Note the talcum powder on the DJ table, for sprinkling on the dancefloor. The record playing is ‘Helpless’, by Kim Weston.McRobbie has argued in Dance and Social Fantasy that Northern Soul provides places for women to define and express themselves, and it has appealed to more to female and LGBTQIA participants than the more masculine dominated rock, funk and hip-hop scenes. The shared appreciation of records and the possibilities for expression and sociality in dance unite participants and blur gender lines.While the more athletic dancers have tended to be male, dancing is essentially non-contact, as in many other post-1960s ‘discotheque’ styles, yet there is little overt sexual display or flirtation involved. Male and female styles, based on foot rather than arm movements, are similar, almost ungendered, and the Soul scene has differed from more mainstream nightlife cultures focussed on finding partners, as noted in Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story by Winstanley and Nowell. Whilst males, who are also involved in record buying, predominated in the early scene, women now often dominate the dance floor (Wall 441).The Perth scene is little different, yet the changed gender balance has not produced more partner-seeking for either the older participants, who are mostly in long-term relationships and the newer, younger members, who enjoy the relative gender-blindness, and focus on communality and cultural affinity. Figure 2: A younger scene member, ‘Nash’, DJing in Perth in 2016. He has since headed north to Denmark and is now part of the Nordic Northern Soul scene.In Perth, for Stan from Derby, Northern Soul linked the experiences of “poor white working class kids” with young black Americans (Mercieca et al. 97). Hollows and Milestone (87-94) mapped a cultural geographic relationship between Northern Soul and the Northern cities of the USA where the music originated. However, Wall (442) suggested that Northern Soul is drawn from the more bi-racial soul of the mid-1960s than the funky, Afro-centric 1970s and essentially deploys the content of the music to create an alternative British identity, rather than to align more closely with the American movement for self-determination. Essentially, Northern Soul shows how “the meanings of one culture can be transformed in the cultural practices of another time and place” (Wall 444).Many contemporary Australian youth cultures are more socially and ethnically mixed than the Northern Soul scene. However, over the years, the greater participation of women, and of younger and newer members, has made its practices less exclusive, and the notion of an “in-crowd” more relaxed (Wall 439). The ‘Northern’ connection is less meaningful, as members have a more adaptable sense of cultural identity, linked to a global scene made possible by the internet and migration. In Australia, attachment seems stronger to locality rather than nation or region, to place of birth in Britain and place of residence in Perth, two places which represent ‘home’. Northern Soul appears to work well for all members because it provides both continuity and change. As Mercieca et al. suggested of the scene (71) “there is potential for new meanings to continue to emerge”.ConclusionThe elements of expression and directional manoeuvres of Northern Soul dancing, symbolise the individual and social negotiation of direction, place, space, identity and time. The sense of time and space travelled can create a feeling of being pushed forward without control. It can also produce an emotional pull backwards, like an elastic band being stretched. For those growing older and moving far from places of birth, these dynamics can be particularly challenging. Membership of global subcultures can clearly help to create successful migrations, providing third spaces/places (Soja 137) between home and host culture identities, as evidenced by the ‘Southern’ Northern Soul scene in Australia. For these once teenagers, now grandparents in Australia, connections to time and space have been both transformed and transcended. They remain grounded in their youth, but have reduced the gravitational force of home connections, projecting themselves forward into the future by balancing aspects of both stability and mobility. Physical places and places and their connections with culture have been replaced by multiple and overlapping mappings, but it is important not to romanticise notions of agency, hybridity, third spaces and “deterritorialization” (Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia). In a globalised world, most people are still located geographically and labelled ideologically. The Northern Soul repurposing of the culture indicates a transilience (Richmond 328) “differentially available to those in different locations in the field of power” (Gupta and Ferguson 20). However, the way in which Northern Soul has moved south over the decade via migration, has arguably now provided a stronger possible sense of resonance with the lives of black Americans whose lives in places like Chicago and Detroit in the 1960s, and their wonderful music, are grounded in the experience of family migrations in the opposite direction from the South to the North (Mercieca et al. 11). In such a celebration of “memory, loss, and nostalgia” (Gupta and Ferguson 13), it may still be possible to move beyond the exclusion that characterises defensive identities.ReferencesAugé, Marc. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. Trans. John Howe. London: Verso, 2008.Barthes, Roland. The Pleasure of the Text. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1975Browne, Kimasi L. "Identity Scene and Material Culture: The Place of African American Rare Soul Music on the British Northern Soul Scene." Proceedings of Manchester Music & Place Conference. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University. Vol. 8. 2006.Buchan, Iain E., Evangelos Kontopantelis, Matthew Sperrin, Tarani Chandola, and Tim Doran. "North-South Disparities in English Mortality 1965–2015: Longitudinal Population Study." Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 71 (2017): 928-936.Chambers, Iain. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. London: Macmillan, 1985.Cosgrove, Stuart. "Long after Tonight Is All Over." Collusion 2 (1982): 38-41.Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. Trans. Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1892.Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989.Fowler, Pete. "Skins Rule." The Beat Goes On: The Rock File Reader. Ed. Charlie Gillett. London: Pluto Press, 1972. 10-26.Frith, Simon, and Tony Cummings. “Playing Records.” Rock File 3. Eds. Charlie Gillett and Simon Frith. St Albans: Panther, 1975. 21–48.Godin, Dave. “The Dave Godin Column”. Blues and Soul 67 (1971).Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson. "Beyond 'Culture': Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference." Cultural Anthropology 7.1 (1992): 6-23.Hollows, Joanne, and Katie Milestone. "Welcome to Dreamsville: A History and Geography of Northern Soul." The Place of Music. Eds. Andrew Leyshon, David Matless, and George Revill. New York: The Guilford Press, 1998. 83-103.Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.McRobbie, Angela. "Dance and Social Fantasy." Gender and Generation. Eds. Angela McRobbie and Mica Nava. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1984. 130-161.Mercieca, Paul, Anne Chapman, and Marnie O'Neill. To the Ends of the Earth: Northern Soul and Southern Nights in Western Australia. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2013.Milestone, Katie. "Love Factory: The Sites, Practices and Media Relationships of Northern Soul." The Clubcultures Reader. Eds. Steve Redhead, Derek Wynne, and Justin O’Connor. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. 134-149.Morris, David. The Sense of Space. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2004.Nowell, David. Too Darn Soulful: The Story of Northern Soul. London: Robson, 1999.Pruter, Robert. Chicago Soul. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.Richmond, Anthony H. "Sociology of Migration in Industrial and Post-Industrial Societies." Migration (1969): 238-281.Ritson, Mike, and Stuart Russell. The In Crowd: The Story of the Northern & Rare Soul Scene. London: Robson, 1999.Roberts, Robert. The Classic Slum. London: Penguin, 1971.Rylatt, Keith, and Phil Scott. Central 1179: The Story of Manchester's Twisted Wheel Club. London: Bee Cool, 2001.Soja, Edward W. "Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places." Capital & Class 22.1 (1998): 137-139.This England. TV documentary. Manchester: Granada Television, 1977.Wall, Tim. "Out on the Floor: The Politics of Dancing on the Northern Soul Scene." Popular Music 25.3 (2006): 431-445.Wilson, Andrew. Northern Soul: Music, Drugs and Subcultural Identity. Cullompton: Willan, 2007.Winstanley, Russ, and David Nowell. Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story. London: Robson, 1996.Wunderlich, Filipa Matos. "Place-Temporality and Urban Place-Rhythms in Urban Analysis and Design: An Aesthetic Akin to Music." Journal of Urban Design 18.3 (2013): 383-408.

From elephants to ABBA fans, silicon to hormone, the following discussion uses a new research method to look at printed text, motion pictures and a teenage rebel icon. If by ‘print’ we mean a mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium, then printing has been with us since before microdot security prints were painted onto cars, before voice prints, laser prints, network servers, record pressings, motion picture prints, photo prints, colour woodblock prints, before books, textile prints, and footprints. If we accept that higher mammals such as elephants have a learnt culture, then it is possible to extend a definition of printing beyond Homo sapiens. Poole reports that elephants mechanically trumpet reproductions of human car horns into the air surrounding their society. If nothing else, this cross-species, cross-cultural reproduction, this ‘ability to mimic’ is ‘another sign of their intelligence’. Observation of child development suggests that the first significant meaningful ‘impression’ made on the human mind is that of the face of the child’s nurturer – usually its mother. The baby’s mind forms an ‘impression’, a mental print, a reproducible memory data set, of the nurturer’s face, voice, smell, touch, etc. That face is itself a cultural construct: hair style, makeup, piercings, tattoos, ornaments, nutrition-influenced skin and smell, perfume, temperature and voice. A mentally reproducible pattern of a unique face is formed in the mind, and we use that pattern to distinguish ‘familiar and strange’ in our expanding social orbit. The social relations of patterned memory – of imprinting – determine the extent to which we explore our world (armed with research aids such as text print) or whether we turn to violence or self-harm (Bretherton). While our cultural artifacts (such as vellum maps or networked voice message servers) bravely extend our significant patterns into the social world and the traversed environment, it is useful to remember that such artifacts, including print, are themselves understood by our original pattern-reproduction and impression system – the human mind, developed in childhood. The ‘print’ is brought to mind differently in different discourses. For a reader, a ‘print’ is a book, a memo or a broadsheet, whether it is the Indian Buddhist Sanskrit texts ordered to be printed in 593 AD by the Chinese emperor Sui Wen-ti (Silk Road) or the US Defense Department memo authorizing lower ranks to torture the prisoners taken by the Bush administration (Sanchez, cited in ABC). Other fields see prints differently. For a musician, a ‘print’ may be the sheet music which spread classical and popular music around the world; it may be a ‘record’ (as in a ‘recording’ session), where sound is impressed to wax, vinyl, charged silicon particles, or the alloys (Smith, “Elpida”) of an mp3 file. For the fine artist, a ‘print’ may be any mechanically reproduced two-dimensional (or embossed) impression of a significant image in media from paper to metal, textile to ceramics. ‘Print’ embraces the Japanese Ukiyo-e colour prints of Utamaro, the company logos that wink from credit card holographs, the early photographs of Talbot, and the textured patterns printed into neolithic ceramics. Computer hardware engineers print computational circuits. Homicide detectives investigate both sweaty finger prints and the repeated, mechanical gaits of suspects, which are imprinted into the earthy medium of a crime scene. For film makers, the ‘print’ may refer to a photochemical polyester reproduction of a motion picture artifact (the reel of ‘celluloid’), or a DVD laser disc impression of the same film. Textualist discourse has borrowed the word ‘print’ to mean ‘text’, so ‘print’ may also refer to the text elements within the vision track of a motion picture: the film’s opening titles, or texts photographed inside the motion picture story such as the sword-cut ‘Z’ in Zorro (Niblo). Before the invention of writing, the main mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium was the humble footprint in the sand. The footprints of tribes – and neighbouring animals – cut tracks in the vegetation and the soil. Printed tracks led towards food, water, shelter, enemies and friends. Having learnt to pattern certain faces into their mental world, children grew older and were educated in the footprints of family and clan, enemies and food. The continuous impression of significant foot traffic in the medium of the earth produced the lines between significant nodes of prewriting and pre-wheeled cultures. These tracks were married to audio tracks, such as the song lines of the Australian Aborigines, or the ballads of tramping culture everywhere. A typical tramping song has the line, ‘There’s a track winding back to an old-fashion shack along the road to Gundagai,’ (O’Hagan), although this colonial-style song was actually written for radio and became an international hit on the airwaves, rather than the tramping trails. The printed tracks impressed by these cultural flows are highly contested and diverse, and their foot prints are woven into our very language. The names for printed tracks have entered our shared memory from the intersection of many cultures: ‘Track’ is a Germanic word entering English usage comparatively late (1470) and now used mainly in audio visual cultural reproduction, as in ‘soundtrack’. ‘Trek’ is a Dutch word for ‘track’ now used mainly by ecotourists and science fiction fans. ‘Learn’ is a Proto-Indo-European word: the verb ‘learn’ originally meant ‘to find a track’ back in the days when ‘learn’ had a noun form which meant ‘the sole of the foot’. ‘Tract’ and ‘trace’ are Latin words entering English print usage before 1374 and now used mainly in religious, and electronic surveillance, cultural reproduction. ‘Trench’ in 1386 was a French path cut through a forest. ‘Sagacity’ in English print in 1548 was originally the ability to track or hunt, in Proto-Indo-European cultures. ‘Career’ (in English before 1534) was the print made by chariots in ancient Rome. ‘Sleuth’ (1200) was a Norse noun for a track. ‘Investigation’ (1436) was Latin for studying a footprint (Harper). The arrival of symbolic writing scratched on caves, hearth stones, and trees (the original meaning of ‘book’ is tree), brought extremely limited text education close to home. Then, with baked clay tablets, incised boards, slate, bamboo, tortoise shell, cast metal, bark cloth, textiles, vellum, and – later – paper, a portability came to text that allowed any culture to venture away from known ‘foot’ paths with a reduction in the risk of becoming lost and perishing. So began the world of maps, memos, bills of sale, philosophic treatises and epic mythologies. Some of this was printed, such as the mechanical reproduction of coins, but the fine handwriting required of long, extended, portable texts could not be printed until the invention of paper in China about 2000 years ago. Compared to lithic architecture and genes, portable text is a fragile medium, and little survives from the millennia of its innovators. The printing of large non-text designs onto bark-paper and textiles began in neolithic times, but Sui Wen-ti’s imperial memo of 593 AD gives us the earliest written date for printed books, although we can assume they had been published for many years previously. The printed book was a combination of Indian philosophic thought, wood carving, ink chemistry and Chinese paper. The earliest surviving fragment of paper-print technology is ‘Mantras of the Dharani Sutra’, a Buddhist scripture written in the Sanskrit language of the Indian subcontinent, unearthed at an early Tang Dynasty site in Xian, China – making the fragment a veteran piece of printing, in the sense that Sanskrit books had been in print for at least a century by the early Tang Dynasty (Chinese Graphic Arts Net). At first, paper books were printed with page-size carved wooden boards. Five hundred years later, Pi Sheng (c.1041) baked individual reusable ceramic characters in a fire and invented the durable moveable type of modern printing (Silk Road 2000). Abandoning carved wooden tablets, the ‘digitizing’ of Chinese moveable type sped up the production of printed texts. In turn, Pi Sheng’s flexible, rapid, sustainable printing process expanded the political-cultural impact of the literati in Asian society. Digitized block text on paper produced a bureaucratic, literate elite so powerful in Asia that Louis XVI of France copied China’s print-based Confucian system of political authority for his own empire, and so began the rise of the examined public university systems, and the civil service systems, of most European states (Watson, Visions). By reason of its durability, its rapid mechanical reproduction, its culturally agreed signs, literate readership, revered authorship, shared ideology, and distributed portability, a ‘print’ can be a powerful cultural network which builds and expands empires. But print also attacks and destroys empires. A case in point is the Spanish conquest of Aztec America: The Aztecs had immense libraries of American literature on bark-cloth scrolls, a technology which predated paper. These libraries were wiped out by the invading Spanish, who carried a different book before them (Ewins). In the industrial age, the printing press and the gun were seen as the weapons of rebellions everywhere. In 1776, American rebels staffed their ‘Homeland Security’ units with paper makers, knowing that defeating the English would be based on printed and written documents (Hahn). Mao Zedong was a book librarian; Mao said political power came out of the barrel of a gun, but Mao himself came out of a library. With the spread of wireless networked servers, political ferment comes out of the barrel of the cell phone and the internet chat room these days. Witness the cell phone displays of a plane hitting a tower that appear immediately after 9/11 in the Middle East, or witness the show trials of a few US and UK lower ranks who published prints of their torturing activities onto the internet: only lower ranks who published prints were arrested or tried. The control of secure servers and satellites is the new press. These days, we live in a global library of burning books – ‘burning’ in the sense that ‘print’ is now a charged silicon medium (Smith, “Intel”) which is usually made readable by connecting the chip to nuclear reactors and petrochemically-fired power stations. World resources burn as we read our screens. Men, women, children burn too, as we watch our infotainment news in comfort while ‘their’ flickering dead faces are printed in our broadcast hearths. The print we watch is not the living; it is the voodoo of the living in the blackout behind the camera, engaging the blood sacrifice of the tormented and the unfortunate. Internet texts are also ‘on fire’ in the third sense of their fragility and instability as a medium: data bases regularly ‘print’ fail-safe copies in an attempt to postpone the inevitable mechanical, chemical and electrical failure that awaits all electronic media in time. Print defines a moral position for everyone. In reporting conflict, in deciding to go to press or censor, any ‘print’ cannot avoid an ethical context, starting with the fact that there is a difference in power between print maker, armed perpetrators, the weak, the peaceful, the publisher, and the viewer. So many human factors attend a text, video or voice ‘print’: its very existence as an aesthetic object, even before publication and reception, speaks of unbalanced, and therefore dynamic, power relationships. For example, Graham Greene departed unscathed from all the highly dangerous battlefields he entered as a novelist: Riot-torn Germany, London Blitz, Belgian Congo, Voodoo Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Reagan’s Washington, and mafia Europe. His texts are peopled with the injustices of the less fortunate of the twentieth century, while he himself was a member of the fortunate (if not happy) elite, as is anyone today who has the luxury of time to read Greene’s works for pleasure. Ethically a member of London and Paris’ colonizers, Greene’s best writing still electrifies, perhaps partly because he was in the same line of fire as the victims he shared bread with. In fact, Greene hoped daily that he would escape from the dreadful conflicts he fictionalized via a body bag or an urn of ashes (see Sherry). In reading an author’s biography we have one window on the ethical dimensions of authority and print. If a print’s aesthetics are sometimes enduring, its ethical relationships are always mutable. Take the stylized logo of a running athlete: four limbs bent in a rotation of action. This dynamic icon has symbolized ‘good health’ in Hindu and Buddhist culture, from Madras to Tokyo, for thousands of years. The cross of bent limbs was borrowed for the militarized health programs of 1930s Germany, and, because of what was only a brief, recent, isolated yet monstrously horrific segment of its history in print, the bent-limbed swastika is now a vilified symbol in the West. The sign remains ‘impressed’ differently on traditional Eastern culture, and without the taint of Nazism. Dramatic prints are emotionally charged because, in depicting Homo sapiens in danger, or passionately in love, they elicit a hormonal reaction from the reader, the viewer, or the audience. The type of emotions triggered by a print vary across the whole gamut of human chemistry. A recent study of three genres of motion picture prints shows a marked differences in the hormonal responses of men compared to women when viewing a romance, an actioner, and a documentary (see Schultheiss, Wirth, and Stanton). Society is biochemically diverse in its engagement with printed culture, which raises questions about equality in the arts. Motion picture prints probably comprise around one third of internet traffic, in the form of stolen digitized movie files pirated across the globe via peer-to-peer file transfer networks (p2p), and burnt as DVD laser prints (BBC). There is also a US 40 billion dollar per annum legitimate commerce in DVD laser pressings (Grassl), which would suggest an US 80 billion per annum world total in legitimate laser disc print culture. The actively screen literate, or the ‘sliterati’ as I prefer to call them, research this world of motion picture prints via their peers, their internet information channels, their television programming, and their web forums. Most of this activity occurs outside the ambit of universities and schools. One large site of sliterate (screen literate) practice outside most schooling and official research is the net of online forums at imdb.com (International Movie Data Base). Imdb.com ‘prints’ about 25,000,000 top pages per month to client browsers. Hundreds of sliterati forums are located at imdb, including a forum for the Australian movie, Muriel’s Wedding (Hogan). Ten years after the release of Muriel’s Wedding, young people who are concerned with victimization and bullying still log on to http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/> and put their thoughts into print: I still feel so bad for Muriel in the beginning of the movie, when the girls ‘dump’ her, and how much the poor girl cried and cried! Those girls were such biartches…I love how they got their comeuppance! bunniesormaybemidgets’s comment is typical of the current discussion. Muriel’s Wedding was a very popular film in its first cinema edition in Australia and elsewhere. About 30% of the entire over-14 Australian population went to see this photochemical polyester print in the cinemas on its first release. A decade on, the distributors printed a DVD laser disc edition. The story concerns Muriel (played by Toni Collette), the unemployed daughter of a corrupt, ‘police state’ politician. Muriel is bullied by her peers and she withdraws into a fantasy world, deluding herself that a white wedding will rescue her from the torments of her blighted life. Through theft and deceit (the modus operandi of her father) Muriel escapes to the entertainment industry and finds a ‘wicked’ girlfriend mentor. From a rebellious position of stubborn independence, Muriel plays out her fantasy. She gets her white wedding, before seeing both her father and her new married life as hollow shams which have goaded her abandoned mother to suicide. Redefining her life as a ‘game’ and assuming responsibility for her independence, Muriel turns her back on the mainstream, image-conscious, female gang of her oppressed youth. Muriel leaves the story, having rekindled her friendship with her rebel mentor. My methodological approach to viewing the laser disc print was to first make a more accessible, coded record of the entire movie. I was able to code and record the print in real time, using a new metalanguage (Watson, “Eyes”). The advantage of Coding is that ‘thinks’ the same way as film making, it does not sidetrack the analyst into prose. The Code splits the movie print into Vision Action [vision graphic elements, including text] (sound) The Coding splits the vision track into normal action and graphic elements, such as text, so this Coding is an ideal method for extracting all the text elements of a film in real time. After playing the film once, I had four and a half tightly packed pages of the coded story, including all its text elements in square brackets. Being a unique, indexed hard copy, the Coded copy allowed me immediate access to any point of the Muriel’s Wedding saga without having to search the DVD laser print. How are ‘print’ elements used in Muriel’s Wedding? Firstly, a rose-coloured monoprint of Muriel Heslop’s smiling face stares enigmatically from the plastic surface of the DVD picture disc. The print is a still photo captured from her smile as she walked down the aisle of her white wedding. In this print, Toni Collette is the Mona Lisa of Australian culture, except that fans of Muriel’s Wedding know the meaning of that smile is a magical combination of the actor’s art: the smile is both the flush of dreams come true and the frightening self deception that will kill her mother. Inserting and playing the disc, the text-dominant menu appears, and the film commences with the text-dominant opening titles. Text and titles confer a legitimacy on a work, whether it is a trade mark of the laser print owners, or the household names of stars. Text titles confer status relationships on both the presenters of the cultural artifact and the viewer who has entered into a legal license agreement with the owners of the movie. A title makes us comfortable, because the mind always seeks to name the unfamiliar, and a set of text titles does that job for us so that we can navigate the ‘tracks’ and settle into our engagement with the unfamiliar. The apparent ‘truth’ and ‘stability’ of printed text calms our fears and beguiles our uncertainties. Muriel attends the white wedding of a school bully bride, wearing a leopard print dress she has stolen. Muriel’s spotted wild animal print contrasts with the pure white handmade dress of the bride. In Muriel’s leopard textile print, we have the wild, rebellious, impoverished, inappropriate intrusion into the social ritual and fantasy of her high-status tormentor. An off-duty store detective recognizes the printed dress and calls the police. The police are themselves distinguished by their blue-and-white checked prints and other mechanically reproduced impressions of cultural symbols: in steel, brass, embroidery, leather and plastics. Muriel is driven in the police car past the stenciled town sign (‘Welcome To Porpoise Spit’ heads a paragraph of small print). She is delivered to her father, a politician who presides over the policing of his town. In a state where the judiciary, police and executive are hijacked by the same tyrant, Muriel’s father, Bill, pays off the police constables with a carton of legal drugs (beer) and Muriel must face her father’s wrath, which he proceeds to transfer to his detested wife. Like his daughter, the father also wears a spotted brown print costume, but his is a batik print from neighbouring Indonesia (incidentally, in a nation that takes the political status of its batik prints very seriously). Bill demands that Muriel find the receipt for the leopard print dress she claims she has purchased. The legitimate ownership of the object is enmeshed with a printed receipt, the printed evidence of trade. The law (and the paramilitary power behind the law) are legitimized, or contested, by the presence or absence of printed text. Muriel hides in her bedroom, surround by poster prints of the pop group ABBA. Torn-out prints of other people’s weddings adorn her mirror. Her face is embossed with the clown-like primary colours of the marionette as she lifts a bouquet to her chin and stares into the real time ‘print’ of her mirror image. Bill takes the opportunity of a business meeting with Japanese investors to feed his entire family at ‘Charlie Chan’’s restaurant. Muriel’s middle sister sloppily wears her father’s state election tee shirt, printed with the text: ‘Vote 1, Bill Heslop. You can’t stop progress.’ The text sets up two ironic gags that are paid off on the dialogue track: “He lost,’ we are told. ‘Progress’ turns out to be funding the concreting of a beach. Bill berates his daughter Muriel: she has no chance of becoming a printer’s apprentice and she has failed a typing course. Her dysfunction in printed text has been covered up by Bill: he has bribed the typing teacher to issue a printed diploma to his daughter. In the gambling saloon of the club, under the arrays of mechanically repeated cultural symbols lit above the poker machines (‘A’ for ace, ‘Q’ for queen, etc.), Bill’s secret girlfriend Diedre risks giving Muriel a cosmetics job. Another text icon in lights announces the surf nightclub ‘Breakers’. Tania, the newly married queen bitch who has made Muriel’s teenage years a living hell, breaks up with her husband, deciding to cash in his negotiable text documents – his Bali honeymoon tickets – and go on an island holiday with her girlfriends instead. Text documents are the enduring site of agreements between people and also the site of mutations to those agreements. Tania dumps Muriel, who sobs and sobs. Sobs are a mechanical, percussive reproduction impressed on the sound track. Returning home, we discover that Muriel’s older brother has failed a printed test and been rejected for police recruitment. There is a high incidence of print illiteracy in the Heslop family. Mrs Heslop (Jeannie Drynan), for instance, regularly has trouble at the post office. Muriel sees a chance to escape the oppression of her family by tricking her mother into giving her a blank cheque. Here is the confluence of the legitimacy of a bank’s printed negotiable document with the risk and freedom of a blank space for rebel Muriel’s handwriting. Unable to type, her handwriting has the power to steal every cent of her father’s savings. She leaves home and spends the family’s savings at an island resort. On the island, the text print-challenged Muriel dances to a recording (sound print) of ABBA, her hand gestures emphasizing her bewigged face, which is made up in an impression of her pop idol. Her imitation of her goddesses – the ABBA women, her only hope in a real world of people who hate or avoid her – is accompanied by her goddesses’ voices singing: ‘the mystery book on the shelf is always repeating itself.’ Before jpeg and gif image downloads, we had postcard prints and snail mail. Muriel sends a postcard to her family, lying about her ‘success’ in the cosmetics business. The printed missal is clutched by her father Bill (Bill Hunter), who proclaims about his daughter, ‘you can’t type but you really impress me’. Meanwhile, on Hibiscus Island, Muriel lies under a moonlit palm tree with her newly found mentor, ‘bad girl’ Ronda (Rachel Griffiths). In this critical scene, where foolish Muriel opens her heart’s yearnings to a confidante she can finally trust, the director and DP have chosen to shoot a flat, high contrast blue filtered image. The visual result is very much like the semiabstract Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Utamaro. This Japanese printing style informed the rise of European modern painting (Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc., were all important collectors and students of Ukiyo-e prints). The above print and text elements in Muriel’s Wedding take us 27 minutes into her story, as recorded on a single page of real-time handwritten Coding. Although not discussed here, the Coding recorded the complete film – a total of 106 minutes of text elements and main graphic elements – as four pages of Code. Referring to this Coding some weeks after it was made, I looked up the final code on page four: taxi [food of the sea] bq. Translation: a shop sign whizzes past in the film’s background, as Muriel and Ronda leave Porpoise Spit in a taxi. Over their heads the text ‘Food Of The Sea’ flashes. We are reminded that Muriel and Ronda are mermaids, fantastic creatures sprung from the brow of author PJ Hogan, and illuminated even today in the pantheon of women’s coming-of-age art works. That the movie is relevant ten years on is evidenced by the current usage of the Muriel’s Wedding online forum, an intersection of wider discussions by sliterate women on imdb.com who, like Muriel, are observers (and in some cases victims) of horrific pressure from ambitious female gangs and bullies. Text is always a minor element in a motion picture (unless it is a subtitled foreign film) and text usually whizzes by subliminally while viewing a film. By Coding the work for [text], all the text nuances made by the film makers come to light. While I have viewed Muriel’s Wedding on many occasions, it has only been in Coding it specifically for text that I have noticed that Muriel is a representative of that vast class of talented youth who are discriminated against by print (as in text) educators who cannot offer her a life-affirming identity in the English classroom. Severely depressed at school, and failing to type or get a printer’s apprenticeship, Muriel finds paid work (and hence, freedom, life, identity, independence) working in her audio visual printed medium of choice: a video store in a new city. Muriel found a sliterate admirer at the video store but she later dumped him for her fantasy man, before leaving him too. One of the points of conjecture on the imdb Muriel’s Wedding site is, did Muriel (in the unwritten future) get back together with admirer Brice Nobes? That we will never know. While a print forms a track that tells us where culture has been, a print cannot be the future, a print is never animate reality. At the end of any trail of prints, one must lift one’s head from the last impression, and negotiate satisfaction in the happening world. References Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Memo Shows US General Approved Interrogations.” 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. British Broadcasting Commission. “Films ‘Fuel Online File-Sharing’.’’ 22 Feb. 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3890527.stm>. Bretherton, I. “The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.” 1994. 23 Jan. 2005 http://www.psy.med.br/livros/autores/bowlby/bowlby.pdf>. Bunniesormaybemidgets. Chat Room Comment. “What Did Those Girls Do to Rhonda?” 28 Mar. 2005 http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/>. Chinese Graphic Arts Net. Mantras of the Dharani Sutra. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.cgan.com/english/english/cpg/engcp10.htm>. Ewins, R. Barkcloth and the Origins of Paper. 1991. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.justpacific.com/pacific/papers/barkcloth~paper.html>. Grassl K.R. The DVD Statistical Report. 14 Mar. 2005 http://www.corbell.com>. Hahn, C. M. The Topic Is Paper. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.nystamp.org/Topic_is_paper.html>. Harper, D. Online Etymology Dictionary. 14 Mar. 2005 http://www.etymonline.com/>. Mask of Zorro, The. Screenplay by J McCulley. UA, 1920. Muriel’s Wedding. Dir. PJ Hogan. Perf. Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Hunter, and Jeannie Drynan. Village Roadshow, 1994. O’Hagan, Jack. On The Road to Gundagai. 1922. 2 Apr. 2005 http://ingeb.org/songs/roadtogu.html>. Poole, J.H., P.L. Tyack, A.S. Stoeger-Horwath, and S. Watwood. “Animal Behaviour: Elephants Are Capable of Vocal Learning.” Nature 24 Mar. 2005. Sanchez, R. “Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy.” 14 Sept. 2003. 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. Schultheiss, O.C., M.M. Wirth, and S.J. Stanton. “Effects of Affiliation and Power Motivation Arousal on Salivary Progesterone and Testosterone.” Hormones and Behavior 46 (2005). Sherry, N. The Life of Graham Greene. 3 vols. London: Jonathan Cape 2004, 1994, 1989. Silk Road. Printing. 2000. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.silk-road.com/artl/printing.shtml>. Smith, T. “Elpida Licenses ‘DVD on a Chip’ Memory Tech.” The Register 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02>. —. “Intel Boffins Build First Continuous Beam Silicon Laser.” The Register 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02>. Watson, R. S. “Eyes And Ears: Dramatic Memory Slicing and Salable Media Content.” Innovation and Speculation, ed. Brad Haseman. Brisbane: QUT. [in press] Watson, R. S. Visions. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation, 1994. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Watson, Robert. "E-Press and Oppress: Audio Visual Print Drama, Identity, Text and Motion Picture Rebellion." M/C Journal 8.2 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/08-watson.php>. APA Style Watson, R. (Jun. 2005) "E-Press and Oppress: Audio Visual Print Drama, Identity, Text and Motion Picture Rebellion," M/C Journal, 8(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/08-watson.php>.

IntroductionUtopian and forward looking in tenor, official narratives of urban renewal and development implicitly promote normative ideals of progress and necessary civic improvement. Yet an underlying condition of such renewal is frequently the very opposite of building: the demolition of existing urban fabric. Taking as its starting point the large-scale demolition of buildings proposed for the NSW Government’s Sydney Metro rail project, this article interrogates the role of literary treatments of demolition in mediating complex, and often contradictory, responses to transformations of the built environment. Case studies are drawn from literary texts in which demolition and infrastructure development are key preoccupations, notably Louis Aragon’s 1926 Surrealist document of a threatened Parisian arcade, Paris Peasant, and the non-fiction accounts of the redevelopment of London’s East End by British writer Iain Sinclair. Sydney UnbuiltPresently, Australia’s biggest public transport project according to the NSW Government website, the Sydney Metro is set to revolutionise Sydney’s rail future with more than 30 metro stations and a fleet of fully-automated driverless trains. Its impetus extends at least as far back as the Liberal-National Coalition’s landslide win at the 2011 New South Wales state election when Barry O’Farrell, then party leader, declared “NSW has to be rebuilt” (qtd in Aston). Infrastructure upgrades became one of the Coalition’s key priorities upon forming government. Following a second Coalition win at the 2015 election, the state of NSW, or the city of Sydney more accurately, remains today deep amidst widespread building works with an unprecedented number of infrastructure, development and urban renewal projects simultaneously underway.From an historical perspective, Sydney is certainly no stranger to demolition. This was in evidence in Demolished Sydney, an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney that captured the zeitgeist of 2016 with its historical survey of Sydney’s demolished architecture. As the exhibition media release pointed out: “Since 1788 Sydney has been built, unbuilt and rebuilt as it has grown from Georgian town to Victorian city to the global urban centre it is today” (Museum of Sydney). What this evolutionist narrative glosses over, however, is the extent to which the impact of Sydney’s significant reinventions of itself through large-scale redevelopment are often not properly registered until well after such changes have taken place. With the imminent commencement of Sydney Metro Stage 2 CBD works, the city similarly stands to lose a number of buildings that embody the civic urban ideals of an earlier era, the effects of which are unlikely to be fully appreciated until the project’s post-demolition phase. The revelation, over the past year, of the full extent of demolition required to build Sydney Metro casts a spotlight on the project and raises questions about its likely impact in reconfiguring the character of Sydney’s inner city. An Environmental Impact Statement Summary (EISS) released by the NSW Government in May 2016 confirms that 79 buildings in the CBD and surrounding suburbs are slated for demolition as part of station development plans for the Stage 2 Chatswood to Sydenham line (Transport for NSW). Initial assurances were that the large majority of acquisitions would be commercial buildings. Yet, the mix also comprises some locally-heritage listed structures including, most notably, 7 Elizabeth Street Sydney (Image 1), a residential apartment tower of 54 studio flats located at the top end of the Sydney central business district.Image 1: 7 Elizabeth Street Sydney apartment towers (middle). Architect: Emil Sodersten. Image credit: Ella Mudie.As the sole surviving block of CBD flats constructed during the 1930s, 7 Elizabeth Street had been identified by the Australian Institute of Architects as an example of historically significant twentieth-century residential architecture. Furthermore, the modernist block is aesthetically significant as the work of prominent Art Deco architect Emil Sodersten (1899-1961) and interior designer Marion Hall Best (1905-1988). Disregarding recommendations that the building should be retained and conserved, Transport for NSW compulsorily acquired the block, evicting residents in late 2016 from one of the few remaining sources of affordable housing in the inner-city. Meanwhile, a few blocks down at 302 Pitt Street the more than century-old Druids House (Image 2) is also set to be demolished for the Metro development. Prior to purchase by Transport for NSW, the property had been slated for a state-of-the-art adaptive reuse as a boutique hotel which would have preserved the building’s façade and windows. In North Sydney, a locally heritage listed shopfront at 187 Miller Street, one of the few examples of the Victorian Italianate style remaining on the street, faces a similar fate. Image 2. Druids House, 302 Pitt Street Sydney. Image credit: Ella Mudie.Beyond the bureaucratic accounting of the numbers and locations of demolitions outlined in the NSW Government’s EISS, this survey of disappearing structures highlights to what extent, large-scale transport infrastructure projects like Sydney Metro, can reshape what the Situationists termed the “psychogeography” of a city; the critical manner in which places and environments affect our emotions and behaviour. With their tendency to erase traces of the city’s past and to smooth over its textures, those variegations in the urban fabric that emerge from the interrelationship of the built environment with the lived experience of a space, the changes wrought by infrastructure and development thus manifest a certain anguish of urban dynamism that is connected to broader anxieties over modernity’s “speed of change and the ever-changing horizons of time and space” (Huyssen 23). Indeed, just as startling as the disappearance of older and more idiosyncratic structures is the demolition of newer building stock which, in the case of Sydney Metro, includes the slated demolition of a well-maintained 22-storey commercial office tower at 39 Martin Place (Image 3). Completed in just 1972, the fact that the lifespan of this tower will amount to less than fifty years points to the rapid obsolescence, and sheer disposability, of commercial building stock in the twenty first-century. It is also indicative of the drive towards destruction that operates within the project of modernism itself. Pondering the relationship of modernist architecture to time, Guiliana Bruno asks: can we really speak of a modernist ruin? Unlike the porous, permeable stone of ancient building, the material of modernism does not ‘ruin.’ Concrete does not decay. It does not slowly erode and corrode, fade out or fade away. It cannot monumentally disintegrate. In some way, modernist architecture does not absorb the passing of time. Adverse to deterioration, it does not age easily, gracefully or elegantly. (80)In its resistance to organic ruination, Bruno’s comment thus implies it is demolition that will be the fate of the large majority of the urban building stock of the twentieth century and beyond. In this way, Sydney Metro is symptomatic of far broader cycles of replenishment and renewal at play in cities around the world, bringing to the fore timely questions about demolition and modernity, the conflict between economic development and the civic good, and social justice concerns over the public’s right to the city. Image 3: 39 Martin Place Sydney. Image credit: Ella Mudie.In the second part of this article, I turn to literary treatments of demolition in order to consider what role the writer might play in giving expression to some of the conflicts and tensions, as exemplified by Sydney Metro, that manifest in ‘unbuilding’ the city. How might literature, I ask, be uniquely placed to mobilise critique? And to what extent does the writer—as both a detached observer and engaged participant in the city—occupy an ambivalent stance especially sensitive to the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of the built environment’s relationship to modernity?Iain Sinclair: Calling Time on the Grand Projects For more than two decades, British author Iain Sinclair has been mapping the shifting terrain of London and its edgelands across a spectrum of experimental fiction and non-fiction works. In addition to the thematic attention paid to neoliberal capitalist processes of urban renewal and their tendency to implode established ties between place, memory and identity, Sinclair’s hybrid documentary-novels are especially pertinent to the analysis of “writing demolition” for their distinct writerly approach. Two recent texts, Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project (2011) and London Overground: A Day’s Walk around the Ginger Line (2015), highlight an intensification of interest on Sinclair’s part in the growing influence exerted by global finance, hyper consumerism and security fears on the reterritorialisation of the English capital. Written in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympics, Ghost Milk is Sinclair’s scathing indictment of the corporate greed that fuelled the large-scale redevelopment of Stratford and its surrounds ahead of the Games. It is an angry and vocal response to urban transformation, a sustained polemic intensified by the author’s local perspective. A long-term resident of East London, in the 1970s Sinclair worked as a labourer at Chobham Farm and thus feels a personal assault in how Stratford “abdicated its fixed identity and willingly prostituted itself as a backdrop for experimental malls, rail hubs and computer generated Olympic parks” (28). For Sinclair, the bulldozing of the Stratford and Hackney boroughs was performed in the name of a so-called civic legacy beyond the Olympic spectacle that failed to culminate in anything more than a “long march towards a theme park without a theme” (11), a site emblematic of the bland shopping mall architecture of what Sinclair derisorily terms “the GP [Grand Project] era” (125).As a literary treatment of demolition Ghost Milk is particularly concerned with the compromised role of language in urban planning rhetoric. The redevelopment required for the Olympics is backed by a “fraudulent narrative” (99), says Sinclair, a conspiratorial co-optation of language made to bend in the service of urban gentrification. “In many ways,” he writes, “the essential literature of the GP era is the proposal, the bullet-point pitch, the perversion of natural language into weasel forms of not-saying” (125). This impoverishment and simplification of language, Sinclair argues, weakens the critical thinking required to recognise the propagandising tendencies underlying so many urban renewal programs.The author’s vocal admonishment of the London Olympics did not go unnoticed. In 2008 a reading from his forthcoming book Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire (2009), at a local library was cancelled out of fear of providing a public platform for his negative views. In Ghost Milk Sinclair reflects upon the treatment of his not yet published docu-novel as “found guilty, with no right of reply, of being political but somehow outside politics” (115). Confronted with the type of large-scale change that underpins such projects as the Olympic Games, or the Sydney Metro closer to home, Sinclair’s predicament points to the ambiguous position of influence occupied by writers. On the one hand, influence is limited in so far as authors play no formal part in the political process. Yet, when outspoken critique resonates words can become suddenly powerful, radically undermining the authority of slick environmental impact statements and sanctioned public consultation findings. In a more poetic sense, Sinclair’s texts are further influential for the way in which they offer a subjective mythologising of the city as a counterpoint to the banal narratives of bureaucratised urbanism. This is especially apparent in London Overground: A Day’s Walk around the Ginger Line (2015), in which Sinclair recounts a single-day street-level pedestrian exploration of the 35-mile and 33-station circuit of the new London Overground railway line. Surveying with disapproval the “new bridges, artisan bakeries, blue-bike racks and coffee shops” (20) that have sprung up along the route of the elevated railway, the initial gambit of the text appears to be to critique the London Overground as a “device for boosting property values” (23). Rail zone as “generator for investment” (31), and driver of the political emasculation of suburbs like Hackney and Shoreditch. Yet as the text develops the narrator appears increasingly drawn to the curious manner in which the Overground line performs an “accidental re-mapping of London” (24). He drifts, then, in search of: a site in which to confront one’s shadow. In a degraded form, this was the ambition behind our orbital tramp. To be attentive to the voices; to walk beside our shadow selves. To reverse the polarity of incomprehensible public schemes, the secret motors of capital defended and promoted by professionally mendacious politicians capable of justifying anything. (London Overground 127)Summoning the oneiric qualities of the railway and its inclination to dreaming and reverie, Sinclair reimagines it as divine oracle, a “ladder of initiation” (47) bisecting resonant zones animated by traces of the visionary artists and novelists whose sensitivity to place have shaped the perception of the London boroughs in the urban imaginary. It is in this manner that Sinclair’s walks generate “an oppositional perspective against the grand projects of centralized planning and management of space” (Weston 261). In a kind of poetic re-enchantment of urban space, texts like Ghost Milk and London Overground shatter the thin veneer of present-day capitalist urbanism challenging the reader to conceive of alternative visions of the city as heterogeneous and imbued with deep historical time.Louis Aragon: Demolition and ModernityWhile London Overground was composed after the construction of the new railway circuit, the pre-demolition phase of a project is, by comparison, a threshold moment. Literary responses to impending demolition are thus shaped in an unstable context as the landscape of a city becomes subject to unpredictable changes that can unfold at a very swift pace. Declan Tan suggests that the writing of Ghost Milk in the lead up to the London Olympics marks Sinclair’s disapproval as “futile, Ghost Milk is knowingly written as a documentary of near-history, an archival treatment of 2012 now, before it happens.” Yet, paradoxically it is the very futility of Sinclair’s project that intensifies the urgency to record, sharpening his polemic. This notion of writing a “documentary of near-history” also suggests a certain breach in time, which in the case of Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant is mined for its revolutionary energies.First published in book form in 1926, Paris Peasant is an experimental Surrealist novel comprising four collage-like fragments including Aragon’s famous panegyric on the Passage de l’Opéra, a nineteenth-century Parisian arcade slated for demolition to make way for a new access road to the Boulevard Haussmann. Reading the text in the present era of Sydney Metro works, the predicament of the disappearing Opera Arcade resonates with the fate of the threatened Art Deco tower at 7 Elizabeth Street, soon to be razed to build a new metro station. Critical of the media’s overall neglect of the redevelopment, Aragon’s text pays sympathetic attention to the plight of the arcade’s business owners, railing against the injustices of their imminent eviction whilst mourning the disappearance of one of the last vestiges of the more organic configuration of the city that preceded the Haussmann renovation of Paris:the great American passion for city planning, imported into Paris by a prefect of police during the Second Empire and now being applied to the task of redrawing the map of our capital in straight lines, will soon spell the doom of these human aquariums. (Aragon 14)In light of these concerns it is tempting to cast Paris Peasant as a classic anti-development polemic. However, closer interrogation of the narrator’s ambivalent stance points to a more complicated attitude towards urban renewal. For, as he casts a forensic eye across the arcade’s shops it becomes apparent that these threatened sites hold a certain lure of attraction for the Surrealist author. The explanatory genre of the guide-book is subverted in a highly imaginative inventory of the arcade interiors. Touring its baths, brothels and hair salon, shoe shine parlour, run-down theatre, and the Café Certa—meeting place of the Surrealists—the narrator’s perambulation provides a launching point for intoxicated reveries and effervescent flights of fancy. Finally, the narrator concedes: “I would never have thought of myself as an observer. I like to let the winds and the rain blow through me: chance is my only experience, hazard my sole experiment” (88). Neither a journalist nor an historian, Paris Peasant’s narrator is not concerned merely to document the Opera Arcade for posterity. Rather, his interest in the site resides in its liminal state. On the cusp of being transformed into something else, the ontological instability of the arcade provides a dramatic illustration of the myth of architecture’s permanency. Aragon’s novel is concerned then, Abigail Susik notes, with the “insatiable momentum of progress,” and how it “renders all the more visible what could be called the radical remainders of modernity: the recently ruined, lately depleted, presently-passé entities that, for better and for worse, multiply and accumulate in the wake of accelerated production and consumption in industrial society” (34). Drawing comparison with Walter Benjamin’s sprawling Arcades Project, a kaleidoscopic critique of commodity culture, Paris Vaclav similarly characterises Paris Peasant as manifesting a distinct form of “political affect: one of melancholy for the destruction of the arcades yet also of a decidedly non-conservative devotion to aesthetic innovation” (24).Sensitive to the contradictory nature of progress under late capitalist modernity, Paris Peasant thus recognises destruction as an underlying condition of change and innovation as was typical of avant-garde texts of the early twentieth century. Yet Aragon resists fatalism in his simultaneous alertness to the radical potential of the marvellous in the everyday, searching for the fault lines in ordinary reality beneath which poetic re-enchantment challenges the status quo of modern life. In this way, Aragon’s experimental novel sketches the textures and psychogeographies of the city, tracing its detours and shifts in ambience, the relationship of architecture to dreams, memory and fantasy; those composite layers of a city that official documents and masterplans rarely ascribe value to and which literary authors are uniquely placed to capture in their writings on cities. ConclusionUnable to respond within the swift publication timeframes of journalistic articles, the novelist is admittedly not well-placed to halt the demolition of buildings. In this article, I have sought to argue that the power and agency of the literary response resides, rather, in its long view and the subjective perspective of the author. At the time of writing, Sydney Metro is poised to involve a scale of demolition that has not been seen in Sydney for several decades and which will transform the city in a manner that, to date, has largely passed uncritiqued. The works of Iain Sinclair and Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant point to the capacity of literary texts to deconstruct those broader forces that increasingly reshape the city without proper consideration; exposing the seductive ideology of urban renewal and the false promises of grand projects that transform multifaceted cityscapes into homogenous non-places. The literary text thus makes visible what is easily missed in the experience of everyday life, forcing us to consider the losses that haunt every gain in the building and rebuilding of the city.ReferencesAragon, Louis. Paris Peasant. Trans. Simon Taylor Watson. Boston: Exact Change, 1994. Aston, Heath. “We’ll Govern for All.” Sydney Morning Herald 27 Mar. 2011. 23 Feb. 2017 <http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/state-election-2011/well-govern-for-all-20110326-1cbbf.html>. Bruno, Guiliana. “Modernist Ruins, Filmic Archaeologies.” Ruins. Ed. Brian Dillon. London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2011. 76-81.Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003.Museum of Sydney. Demolished Sydney Media Release. Sydney: Sydney Living Museums 20 Oct. 2016. 25 Feb. 2017 <http://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/2016/12/05/new-exhibition-demolished-sydney>.Paris, Vaclav. “Uncreative Influence: Louis Aragon’s Paysan de Paris and Walter Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk.” Journal of Modern Literature 37.1 (Autumn 2013): 21-39.Sinclair, Iain. Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project. London: Penguin, 2012. ———. Hackney, That Rose Red Empire. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2009.———. London Overground: A Day’s Walk around the Ginger Line. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2015.Susik, Abigail. “Paris 1924: Aragon, Le Corbusier, and the Question of the Outmoded.” Wreck: Graduate Journal of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory 2.2 (2008): 29-44.Tan, Declan. “Review of Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project by Iain Sinclair.” Huffington Post 15 Dec. 2011; updated 14 Feb. 2012. 21 Feb 2017 <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/declan-tan/ghost-milk-ian-sinclair-review_b_1145692.html>. Transport for NSW, Chatswood to Sydenham: Environmental Impact Statement Summary. 25 Mar. 2017 <http://www.sydneymetro.info>. Sydney: NSW Government, May-June 2016.Weston, David. “Against the Grand Project: Iain Sinclair’s Local London.” Contemporary Literature 56.2 (Summer 2015): 255-79.

Introduction Children are not only born digital, they are fashioned toward a lifestyle that needs them to be digital all the time (Palfrey and Gasser). They click, tap, save, circulate, download, and upload the texts of their lives, their friends’ lives, and the anonymous lives of the people that surround them. They are socialised as Internet consumers ready to participate in digital services targeted to them as they age such as Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. But they are also fashioned as producers, whereby their lives are sold as content on these same markets. As commodities, the minutiae of their lives become the fodder for online circulation. Paradoxically, we also celebrate these digital behaviours as a means to express identity. Personal profile-building for adults is considered agency-building (Beer and Burrows), and as a consequence, we praise children for mimicking these acts of adult lifestyle. This article reflects on the Kids, Creative Storyworlds, and Wearables project, which involved an ethnographic study with five young children (ages 4-7), who were asked to share their autobiographical stories, creative self-narrations, and predictions about their future mediated lives (Atkins et al.). For this case study, we focus on commercialised forms of children’s automedia, and we compare discussions we had with 6-year old Cayden, a child we met in the study who expresses the desire to make himself famous online, with videos of Jacob, a child vlogger on YouTube’s Kinder Playtime, who clearly influences children like Cayden. We argue that child social influencers need consideration both as autobiographical agents and as child subjects requiring a sheltered approach to their online lives.Automedia Automedia is an emergent genre of autobiography (Smith and Watson Reading 190; “Virtually Me” 78). Broadcasting one’s life online takes many forms (Kennedy “Vulnerability”). Ümit Kennedy argues “Vlogging on YouTube is a contemporary form of autobiography in which individuals engage in a process of documenting their life on a daily or weekly basis and, in doing so, construct[ing] their identity online” (“Exploring”). Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson write that “visual and digital modes are projecting and circulating not just new subjects but new notions of subjectivity through the effects of automediality” with the result that “the archive of the self in time, in space and in relation expands and is fundamentally reorganized” (Reading 190). Emma Maguire addresses what online texts “tell us about cultural understandings of selfhood and what it means to communicate ‘real’ life through media” naming one tool, “automedia”. Further, Julie Rak calls on scholars “to rethink ‘life’ and ‘writing’ as automedia” to further “characterize the enactment of a personal life story in a new media environment.” We define automedia as a genre that involves the practices of creating, performing, sharing, circulating, and (at times) preserving one’s digital life narrative meant for multiple publics. Automedia revises identity formation, embodiment, or corporealities in acts of self-creation (Brophy and Hladki 4). Automedia also emphasizes circulation. As shared digital life texts now circulate through the behaviours of other human subjects, and automatically via algorithms in data assemblages, we contend that automediality currently involves a measure of relinquishing control over perpetually evolving mediatised environments. One cannot control how a shared life narrative will meet a public in the future, which is a revised way of thinking about autobiography. For the sake of this paper, we argue that children’s automedia ought to be considered a creative, autobiographical act, in order to afford child authors who create them the consideration they deserve as agents, now and in the future. Automedial practices often begin when children receive access to a device. The need for a distraction activity is often the reason parents hand a young child a smartphone, iPad, or even a wearable camera (Nansen). Mirroring the lives of parents, children aspire to share representations of their own personal lives in pursuit of social capital. They are often encouraged to use technologies and apps as adults do–to track aspects of self, broadcast life stories and eventually “live share” them—effectively creating, performing, sharing, and at times, seeking to preserve a public life narrative. With this practice, society inculcates children into spheres of device ubiquity, “socializing them to a future digital lifestyle that will involve always carrying a computer in some form” (Atkins et al. 49). Consequently, their representations become inculcated in larger media assemblages. Writing about toddlers, Nansen describes how the “archiving, circulation and reception of these images speaks to larger assemblages of media in which software protocols and algorithms are increasingly embedded in and help to configure everyday life (e.g. Chun; Gillespie), including young children’s media lives (Ito)” (Nansen). Children, like adult citizens, are increasingly faced with choices “not structured by their own preferences but by the economic imperatives of the private corporations that have recently come to dominate the internet” (Andrejevic). Recent studies have shown that for children and youth in the digital age, Internet fame, often characterized by brand endorsements, is a major aspiration (Uhls and Greenfield, 2). However, despite the ambition to participate as celebrity digital selves, children are also mired in the calls to shield them from exposure to screens through institutions that label these activities detrimental. In many countries, digital “protections” are outlined by privacy commissioners and federal or provincial/state statutes, (e.g. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada). Consequently, children are often caught in a paradox that defines them either as literate digital agents able to compose or participate with their online selves, or as subjectified wards caught up in commercial practices that exploit their lives for commercial gain.Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables ProjectBoth academic and popular cultural critics continually discuss the future but rarely directly engage the people who will be empowered (or subjugated) by it as young adults in twenty years. To address children’s lack of agency in these discussions, we launched the Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables project to bring children into a dialogue about their own digital futures. Much has been written on childhood agency and participation in culture and mediated culture from the discipline of sociology (James and James; Jenks; Jenkins). In previous work, we addressed the perspective of child autobiographical feature filmmakers to explore issues of creative agency and consent when adult gatekeepers facilitate children in film production (Pedersen and Aspevig “My Eyes”; Pedersen and Aspevig “Swept”). Drawing on that previous work, this project concentrates on children’s automediated lives and the many unique concerns that materialize with digital identity-building. Children are categorised as a vulnerable demographic group necessitating special policy and legislation, but the lives they project as children will eventually become subsumed in their own adult lives, which will almost certainly be treated and mediated in a much different manner in the future. We focused on this landscape, and sought to query the children on their futures, also considering the issues that arise when adult gatekeepers get involved with child social media influencers. In the Storyworlds ethnographic study, children were given a wearable toy, a Vtech smartwatch called Kidizoom, to use over a month’s timeframe to serve as a focal point for ethnographic conversations. The Kidizoom watch enables children to take photos and videos, which are uploaded to a web interface. Before we gave them the tech, we asked them questions about their lives, including What are machines going to be like in the future? Can you imagine yourself wearing a certain kind of computer? Can you tell/draw a story about that? If you could wear a computer that gave you a super power, what would it be? Can you use your imagination to think of a person in a story who would use technology? In answering, many of them drew autobiographical drawings of technical inventions, and cast themselves in the images. We were particularly struck by the comments made by one participant, Cayden (pseudonym), a 6-year-old boy, and the stories he told us about himself and his aspirations. He expressed the desire to host a YouTube channel about his life, his activities, and the wearable technologies his family already owned (e.g. a GroPro camera) and the one we gave him, the Kidizoom smartwatch. He talked about how he would be proud to publically broadcast his own videos on YouTube, and about the role he had been allowed to play in the making of videos about his life (that were not broadcast). To contextualize Cayden’s commentary and his automedial aspirations, we extended our study to explore child social media influencers who broadcast components of their personal lives for the deliberate purpose of popularity and the financial gain of their parents.We selected the videos of Jacob, a child vlogger because we judged them to be representative of the kinds that Cayden watched. Jacob reviews toys through “unboxing videos,” a genre in which a child tells an online audience her or his personal experiences using new toys in regular, short videos on a social media site. Jacob appears on a YouTube channel called Kinder Playtime, which appears to be a parent-run channel that states that, “We enjoy doing these things while playing with our kids: Jacob, Emily, and Chloe” (see Figure 1). In one particular video, Jacob reviews the Kidizoom watch, serving as a child influencer for the product. By understanding Jacob’s performance as agent-driven automedia, as well as being a commercialised, mediatised form of advertising, we get a clearer picture of how the children in the study are coming to terms with their own digital selfhood and the realisation that circulated, life-exposing videos are the expectation in this context.Children are implicated in a range of ways through “family” influencer and toy unboxing videos, which are emergent entertainment industries (Abidin 1; Nansen and Nicoll; Craig and Cunningham 77). In particular, unboxing videos do impact child viewers, especially when children host them. Jackie Marsh emphasizes the digital literacy practices at play here that co-construct viewers as “cyberflâneur[s]” and she states that “this mode of cultural transmission is a growing feature of online practices for this age group” (369). Her stress, however, is on how the child viewer enjoys “the vicarious pleasure he or she may get from viewing the playing of another child with the toy” (376). Marsh writes that her study subject, a child called “Gareth”, “was not interested in being made visible to EvanHD [a child celebrity social media influencer] or other online peers, but was content to consume” the unboxing videos. The concept of the cyberflâneur, then, is fitting as a mediatising co-constituting process of identity-building within discourses of consumerism. However, in our study, the children, and especially Cayden, also expressed the desire to create, host, and circulate their own videos that broadcast their lives, also demonstrating awareness that videos are valorised in their social circles. Child viewers watch famous children perform consumer-identities to create an aura of influence, but viewers simultaneously aspire to become influencers using automedial performances, in essence, becoming products, themselves. Jacob, Automedial Subjects and Social Media InfluencersJacob is a vlogger on YouTube whose videos can garner millions of views, suggesting that he is also an influencer. In one video, he appears to be around the age of six as he proudly sits with folded hands, bright eyes, and a beaming, but partly toothless smile (see Figure 2). He says, “Welcome to Kinder Playtime! Today we have the Kidi Zoom Smartwatch DX. It’s from VTech” (Kinder Playtime). We see the Kidi Zoom unboxed and then depicted in stylized animations amid snippets of Jacob’s smiling face. The voice and hands of a faceless parent guide Jacob as he uses his new wearable toy. We listen to both parent and child describe numerous features for recording and enhancing the wearer’s daily habits (e.g. calculator, calendar, fitness games), and his dad tells him it has a pedometer “which tracks your steps” (Kinder Playtime). But the watch is also used by Jacob to mediate himself and his world. We see that Jacob takes pictures of himself on the tiny watch screen as he acts silly for the camera. He also uses the watch to take personal videos of his mother and sister in his home. The video ends with his father mentioning bedtime, which prompts a “thank you” to VTech for giving him the watch, and a cheerful “Bye!” from Jacob (Kinder Playtime). Figure 1: Screenshot of Kinder Playtime YouTube channel, About page Figure 2: Screenshot of “Jacob,” a child vlogger at Kinder Playtime We chose Jacob for three reasons. First, he is the same age as the children in the Storyworlds study. Second, he reviews the smart watch artifact that we gave to the study children, so there was a common use of automedia technology. Third, Jacob’s parents were involved with his broadcasts, and we wanted to work within the boundaries of parent-sanctioned practices. However, we also felt that his playful approach was a good example of how social media influence overlaps with automediality. Jacob is a labourer trading his public self-representations in exchange for free products and revenue earned through the monetisation of his content on YouTube. It appears that much of what Jacob says is scripted, particularly the promotional statements, like, “Today we have the Kidizoom Smartwatch DX. It’s from VTech. It’s the smartest watch for kids” (Kinder Playtime). Importantly, as an automedial subject Jacob reveals aspects of his self and his identity, in the manner of many child vloggers on public social media sites. His product reviews are contextualised within a commoditised space that provides him a means for the public performance of his self, which, via YouTube, has the potential to reach an enormous audience. YouTube claims to have “over a billion users—almost one-third of all people on the Internet—and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views” (YouTube). Significantly, he is not only filmed by others, Jacob is also a creative practitioner, as Cayden aspired to become. Jacob uses high-tech toys, in this case, a new wearable technology for self-compositions (the smart watch), to record himself, friends, family or simply the goings-on around him. Strapped to his wrist, the watch toy lets him play at being watched, at being quantified and at recording the life stories of others, or constructing automediated creations for himself, which he may upload to numerous social media sites. This is the start of his online automediated life, which will be increasingly under his ownership as he ages. To greater or lesser degrees, he will later be able to curate, add to, and remediate his body of automedia, including his digital past. Kennedy points out that “people are using YouTube as a transformative tool, and mirror, to document, construct, and present their identity online” (“Exploring”). Her focus is on adult vloggers who consent to their activities. Jacob’s automedia is constructed collaboratively with his parents, and it is unclear how much awareness he has of himself as an automedia creator. However, if we don’t afford Jacob the same consideration as we afford adult autobiographers, that the depiction of his life is his own, we will reduce his identity performance to pure artifice or advertisement. The questions Jacob’s videos raise around agency, consent, and creativity are important here. Sidonie Smith asks “Can there be a free, agentic space; and if so, where in the world can it be found?” (Manifesto 188). How much agency does Jacob have? Is there a liberating aspect in the act of putting personal technology into the hands of a child who can record his life, himself? And finally, how would an adult Jacob feel about his childhood self advertising these products online? Is this really automediality if Jacob does not fully understand what it means to publicly tell a mediated life story?These queries lead to concerns over child social media influence with regard to legal protection, marketing ethics, and user consent. The rise of “fan marketing” presents a nexus of stealth marketing to children by other children. Stealth marketing involves participants, in this case, fans, who do not know they are involved in an advertising scheme. For instance, the popular Minecon Minecraft conference event sessions have pushed their audience to develop the skills to become advocates and advertisers of their products, for example by showing audiences how to build a YouTube channel and sharing tips for growing a community. Targeting children in marketing ploys seems insidious. Marketing analyst Sandy Fleisher describes the value of outsourcing marketing to fan labourers:while Grand Theft Auto spent $120 million on marketing its latest release, Minecraft fans are being taught how to create and market promotional content themselves. One [example] is Minecraft YouTuber, SkydoesMinecraft. His nearly 7 million strong YouTube army, almost as big as Justin Bieber’s, means his daily videos enjoy a lot of views; 1,419,734,267 to be precise. While concerns about meaningful consent that practices like this raise have led some government bodies, and consumer and child protection groups to advocate restrictions for children, other critics have questioned the limits placed on children’s free expression by such restrictions. Tech commentator Larry Magid has written that, “In the interest of protecting children, we sometimes deny them the right to access material and express themselves.” Meghan M. Sweeney notes that “the surge in collaborative web models and the emphasis on interactivity—frequently termed Web 2.0—has meant that children are not merely targets of global media organizations” but have “multiple opportunities to be active, critical, and resistant producers”...and ”may be active agents in the production and dissemination of information” (68). Nevertheless, writes Sweeney, “corporate entities can have restrictive effects on consumers” (68), by for example, limiting imaginative play to the choices offered on a Disney website, or limiting imaginative topics to commercial products (toys, video games etc), as in YouTube review videos. Automedia is an important site from which to consider young children’s online practices in public spheres. Jacob’s performance is indeed meant to influence the choice to buy a toy, but it is also meant to influence others in knowing Jacob as an identity. He means to share and circulate his self. Julie Rak recalls Paul John Eakin’s claims about life-writing that the “process does not even occur at the level of writing, but at the level of living, so that identity formation is the result of narrative-building.” We view Jacob’s performance along these lines. Kinder Playtime offers him a constrained, parent-sanctioned (albeit commercialised) space for role-playing, a practice bound up with identity-formation in the life of most children. To think through the legality of recognising Jacob’s automedial content as his life, Rak is also useful: “In Eakin’s work in particular, we can see evidence of John Locke’s contention that identity is the expression of consciousness which is continuous over time, but that identity is also a product, one’s own property which is a legal entity”. We have argued that children are often caught in the paradox that defines them either as literate digital creators composing and circulating their online selves or as subjectified personas caught up in commercial advertising practices that use their lives for commercial gain. However, through close observation of individual children, one who we met and questioned in our study, Cayden, the other who we met through his mediated, commercialized, and circulated online persona, Jacob, we argue that child social influencers need consideration as autobiographical agents expressing themselves through automediality. As children create, edit, and grow digital traces of their lives and selves, how these texts are framed becomes increasingly important, in part because their future adult selves have such a stake in the matter: they are being formed through automedia. Moreover, these children’s coming of age may bring legal questions about the ownership of their automedial products such as YouTube videos, an enduring legacy they are leaving behind for their adult selves. 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