Transience, memory and induced amnesia: The re-imagining of Darwin

Journal of Australian Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 51-62

  Roberts, Julie ^a,b   Young, Martin ^a,b  

^a MONASH UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

^b CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Darwin; Memory; Mobility; Place; Transience

Indexed keywords

EID: 61549090052     PISSN: 14443058     EISSN: 18356419     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14443050801993818     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. We use the colloquial term intentionally to impart the character of the Northern Territory, which because of its relatively high proportion of Indigenous people (around 29%) is distinctive for its marking out of 'blackfella,' 'whitefella' and 'yellowfella' populations.
2. Michele Langfield, 'Peopling the Northern Territory part 1: a white elephant in white Australia? The Northern Territory, 1901-1920,' Journal of Northern Territory History, no. 12, 2001, pp. 1-15.
3. Langfield, 'Peopling the Northern Territory.'.
4. Langfield, 'Peopling the Northern Territory,' p. 4.
5. David Carment, 'The Northern Territory's past: public history, public memory and cultural heritage tourism,' in Xavier Pons (ed.), Departures: How Australia Reinvents Itself, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2002, p. 55.
6. The Northern Territory experiences an extraordinarily high rate of population turnover. Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data reveal that approximately one quarter of the Territory's resident population in 2001 had lived somewhere elsewhere five years earlier, compared to less than 10% for most other states. This reasons for this 'churn' is the focus of a current Australian Research Council project involving the authors titled 'Causes and Consequences of Population Turnover in the Northern Territory' project no. LP0562191.
7. Tess Lea, quoted in Tony Clifton, 'Lilypad of the Arafura,' The Monthly, December_January, 2006, p. 54.
8. Julie Roberts and Sylvia Kleinert, Edge: The Liminal Zone, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, 2004, p. 4.
9. Ernestine Hill quoted in Eric W. Sager, Discovering Darwin: the 1930s in memory and history, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 1993, p 5.
10. It is the non-Indigenous populations who are the subject of this paper. Indigenous people, we acknowledge, construct a different sense of place of Darwin and as non-Indigenous we do not presume to represent Indigenous people in this discussion. In addition, while the Indigenous population is also highly mobile within the Northern Territory, they are, in a migratory sense, far less mobile between states and territories and the reasons for this mobility are quite distinct from those of the non-Indigenous population in general. Also much is already known about the nature and extent of Indigenous mobility, see, for instance, John Taylor and Martin Bell (eds), Population Mobility and Indigenous peoples in Australia and North America, Routledge, London, 2004.
11. Mickey Dewar, 'Frontier theory and the construction of meaning in Northern Territory writing,' Journal of Northern Territory History, no. 7, 1996, p. 21.
12. We are anxious not to pre-empt findings, nor make unsubstantiated claims, but in seven in-depth interviews undertaken by author Julie Roberts in June 2006, each person interviewed claimed that a desire to experience what Darwin had to offer in terms of an encounter with an environment not available elsewhere, combined with the potential to improve their employment status or security, drove their decision to relocate to Darwin.
13. Clifton, 'Lilypad of the Arafura,' p. 56.
14. The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 Census data revealed that nearly 30% of Darwin's population was employed in 'clerical, sales and service' positions.
15. 20% as 'professionals'.
16. 15. 4% as 'associate professionals'.
17. 12% as 'tradespersons'.
18. Around 6% as, 'production and transport' and 'labourers' respectively. Figures drawn from Darwin City Council website, n. d. accessed 21 March 2006, http://www. il. com. au/darwin/commprofile/default. asp.
19. Northern Territory Library website, n. d. accessed 21 March 2006, http://www. ntlib. nt. gov. au/tracy/ad-vanced/Post. html.
20. Interview 10 October 2002, Julie Roberts. June 2006.
21. James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory: New Perspectives on the Past, Blackwell, Oxford, 1992, p. 25.
22. Michael. Irwin, Charles Tolbert and & Thomas Lyson 'There's no place like home: nonmigration and civic engagement,' Environment and Planning A, vol. 31, no. 12, 1999, pp. 2223-38.
23. Wendy Stone, Matthew Gray and Jody Hughes, Social Capital at Work: How Family, Friends and Civic Ties Relate to Labour Market Outcomes, Research Paper No 31, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne, 2003, p. 34.
24. Lucy Lippard, The Lure of the Local, The New Press, New York, 1997, p. 9.
25. Address by Elliot McAdam on behalf of Clare Martin to the Australasian Study of Parliament Group, 'Listening to the past to build our future,' Australasian Parliamentary Review, vol. 19, no. 1, 2004, p. 43.
26. McAdam on behalf of Martin, 'Listening to the past,' p. 46.
27. McAdam on behalf of Martin, 'Listening to the past,' p. 46.
28. Northern Territory News, 7 September 1985, cited in Carment, 'Unfurling the flag,' p. 32.
29. In addition to figures being difficult to obtain, individuals have become 'lost' in accounts of the devastation. For instance, a colleague of the first author, Rodney Forbes, lost his sister Avril Forbes in the cyclone and while she is listed in official records, she has never been referred to in any of the numerous books or articles about the cyclone.
30. Brad West, 'Mythologising a natural disaster in post-industrial Australia: the incorporation of Cyclone Tracy within Australian national identity,' Vision Splendid, Australia's Public Intellectual Forum, no. 66, 2000, pp. 198-204.
31. The Age, 28 December 1974, p 9, cited in West, 'Mythologizing a natural disaster,' p. 198.
32. Northern Territory Library website, n. d. accessed 21 March 2006, http://www. ntlib. nt. gov. au/tracy/ad-vanced/Post. html.
33. Peter Read, Returning to nothing: the meaning of lost places, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996, p. 167.
34. Read, Returning to nothing.
35. Maria Tumarkin,' Someplace Else,' Meanjin, vol. 58, 2000, p. 29.
36. ABC News Online, 'Council hesitant over permanent Cyclone Tracy memorial,' accessed 16 March 2004, http://www. abc. net. au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly. pl?http://www. abc. net. au/news.
37. Tumarkin, 'Someplace Else,' p. 29.
38. Ms Carol Phayer, in discussion with author Julie Roberts, June 2006. Ms Phayer was discussing the loss of significant sites in Darwin and stated 'We need our anchors. Our Memories. It's not that we're against development. It's just that we don't want to lose our anchors. Like the bougainvillea at the Victoria Hotel_it was over 100 years old_and they cut it down. That's my memory gone.'.
39. Read, Returning to nothing. p. 170.
40. Kristy Stinson, 'Historic sites and developmentalism: a study of the Country Liberal Party's policy on the development of Darwin,' Journal of Northern Territory History, no. 13, p. 17.
41. Stinson, 'Historic sites and developmentalism.'.
42. Stinson, 'Historic sites and developmentalism,' p. 18.
43. Stinson, 'Historic sites and developmentalism,' p. 20.
44. Darwin City Council, 'New WWII signage at East Point takes you there as it happened,' Media Release, 6 March 2006.
45. Northern Territory Tourist Commission (2006) Darwin Tourism Region. NTTC, Darwin.
46. Carment,' The Northern Territory's past.' p. 58.
47. Darwin City Council, 'City remembers civilian effort and hardship during the bombing of Darwin in '42,' Media Release, 15 June 2005.
48. Darwin City Council, 'City remembers civilian effort.'.
49. Peter Stanley, 'Threat made manifest,' Griffith Review, no. 9, 2005, p. 20.
50. This is a clever play on one of the best known stories of the frontier-territory, Aeneas Gunn's We of the Never Never, 1908.
51. Northern Territory Tourism website, n. d. accessed 5 May 2006, http://www. travelnt. com/regions/dar-win/region_darwin_sur. htm.
52. Clifton, 'Lilypad of the Arafura,' p. 54.
53. John Urry, The Tourist Gaze, Sage, London, 1990.
54. Patrick Mullins, 'Tourism urbanisation,' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, no. 15, 1991, pp. 326-42.
55. Marc Guillaume, 'Metamorphosis of epidermia' in Michel Feher and Sanford Kwinter (eds), Zone1/2: The Contemporary City, MIT Press, Cambridge and New York, 1986.
56. The impact of mobile professional groups is a question being explored as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage project referred to above.