Place Making: the Social Construction of Newcastle

Abstract

The city of Newcastle has experienced significant transformations of identity. The city's contemporary reconstruction is a deliberate shift from industrial to post‐industrial identity. An industrial identity is now held to be debilitating for places, while a post‐industrial vision proffers an impression of improvement. The notion that places are constructed, symbolically as well as materially, allows us to problematise the identity of place, and to expose the ideologies and the actors behind such (re)constructions. Creative literature, media comment and autobiographical material provide insight into the landscapes and discourses of the city's changing identity, and into persisting patriarchal ideology, Anglo‐centrism and elitism.

Tamworth, Australia's ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions

“…These findings show similar trends: that there is a strong link between class and musical tastes, with manual workers and labourers more likely to prefer country music over other music styles; while sales, clerical and professionals are least likely to prefer country music (see also Bourdieu, 1984). Place marketing and entrepreneurial governance have been noted as often favouring elites in the selection of images, thus silencing and displacing other groups (Dunn et al, 1995). The place marketing of Tamworth does not exactly follow this trend, as country music traditionally invokes rural imagery and appeals to 'roots'.…”

“…It has been discussed elsewhere largely in terms of the rise of entrepreneurial governance, neoliberal ideology, impacts on economically vulnerable populations and, more discursively, as texts that variously commodify or contradict notions of place and identity stemming from working class consciousness and from cultural diversity (for example, see Dunn, et al, 1995;Winchester, et al, 1996;O'Connor, 1998;Hall and Hubbard, 1996). Place marketing is not new: colonialism involved extensive campaigns aimed at enticing 'free settlers' to Australia in order to establish rural growth industries, fill certain shortfalls of skills and encourage entrepreneurial activities in the newly conquered territory.…”

Beyond Bluff oysters? Place identity and ethnicity in a peripheral coastal setting

“…In the first case, a rich and diverse literature documents how places are both experienced and strategically constructed or marketed. These works highlight everyday experiences of place as well as showing how meanings and power relations are implicated in struggles over place (Dunn et al, 1995;Massey, 1991Massey, , 1993Tuan, 1974). Tuan (1974Tuan ( , 1991 foreshadowed more recent analyses of place-making by proposing that the studies of symbols, histories, names and narratives were all integral strategies.…”

“…In the latter case, the purposeful construction and marketing of place identity sheds light on power relations and internal conflicts that are played out in specific places. For instance, in Australian, Irish and French settings, Dunn et al (1995) and Kneafsey (2000) argue that the commodification of place and the promotion of selected place identities involves the representation of partial histories, silencing certain groups and events. In some cases this occurs to balance periods of decline or generate new economic development and cultural or tourist activities (Dunn et al, 1995;Hubbard and Lilley, 2000;Paddison, 1993).…”

Searching for place identity in Singapore

“…This has prompted others to recast planning analysis of the culture-economy dichotomy into a cultural political economy of urban identities and places (Dunn, McGuirk, & Winchester, 1995;Jacobs & Fincher, 1998;Sandercock, 1998). Yet others advocate policy attention should be given to place-based planning (Baum, Stimson, Mullins, & O'Conner, 2000;Joshi, 2001).…”