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.
Inaugurated during World War I, Vaucluse House museum aimed to educate visitors of the work of nineteenth century parliamentarian William Charles Wentworth, in particular his role in the installation of responsible government in New South Wales, indeed his writing of the first Constitution, for this and other Wentworth projects were among those which underpinned twentieth century democracy. This article uses museum theory concerning the character of the modern disciplinary museum, and also the tendency of that institution to shape knowledge, to investigate the experience offered to audiences at Vaucluse House over the museum’s first curatorial period. It argues that, in the context of war and an official need to press empire nationalist identity, particular curatorial practices and museological assumptions shaped the themes available and assumed certain audience responses. In the absence of any contemporary methods for assessing museum work in detail, the decision to install a major thematic display of constitutional history intermingled with a house museum interpretation produced mixed messages. Unexpected new evidence and ingenuous curatorial expansion of the rooms available for inspection soon produced unintended consequences. In a changing historical and cultural context, the major theme and rationale of the museum began to be undermined and the house museum interpretation began to dominate. It was this focus which was finally and belatedly endorsed by the museum Trustees in the mid 1950s.
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