Place-‐Attachment in Heritage Theory and Practice
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Place-attachment in heritage theory and practice: a personal and ethnographic study Steve Brown A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Sydney 2015 i Old Currango homestead, Kosciuszko National Park. (Photo credit: Allan McLean, 2012.) Declaration This thesis contains no material that has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any tertiary institution. To the best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. Stephen Hepburn Brown 25 July 2015 ii For David and June Brown … attached for 60 years … (Kitale Catholic Church, 5 February 1955) I have been burdened always with too much affection for people, places and things. Passionate love of relatives, of friends, of the ranges, the streams, the trees, horses, cats, of the beauty in the dawns and sunsets and starry nights – a multitude of experiences that other people take more mildly. (Miles Franklin 1963. Childhood at Brindabella, page 140) iii Thesis summary Former pastoral station owner Pam Ponder’s sense of belonging was entwined with her homestead garden. The garden was uprooted after the National Parks and Wildlife Service acquired the property. It was this act of wilful destruction and the consequences for Pam’s wellbeing that sparked my interest in place-attachment. The thesis is a critical study of the concept of place-attachment in Australian heritage practice and its application in this field. Place-attachment is typically characterised as a form of intangible heritage arising from interactions between people and place. I trace how this meaning borrows from concepts in psychology and geography and argue that the idea of place-attachment is often applied uncritically in heritage conservation because the field lacks a body of discipline-specific theory. It is my thesis that place-attachment can be conceptualised in a way that is more amenable to effective heritage management practice than is currently the case. I construct a concept of place-attachment that draws on a notion of intra-action and theories of attachment, agency and affect. I define place-attachment as a distributed phenomenon that emerges through the entanglements of individuals or groups, places and things. This meaning is interrogated via four case studies – each centred on a home and garden (including my own) and Anglo-Australians – by applying a methodology that is primarily self-referential and auto-ethnographic. Topics that emerge from the field data, including life stages (i.e., childhood/adulthood attachment), generational transfer and experiential understanding, are examined and shown to offer support for a concept of place-attachment as entanglement. The thesis findings have implications for heritage practice. A framework of entanglement over interaction calls for recognition of intra-active assemblages in preference to intangible meanings; dynamism and multi-temporality over stasis and a distant past; the power of personal heritage alongside authorised, collective forms; and situated, relational ethics together with place-centred values. Thus by entwining matter with meaning, care with respect, Pam Ponder’s garden becomes inseparable from Pam in the work of heritage management. iv Contents Declaration ii Dedication iii Thesis summary iv List of figures vi List of tables vii Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations xiv Chapter 1 Belonging and baskets 2 PART ONE PLACING ATTACHMENT Chapter 2 Backgrounding belonging 14 Chapter 3 A problem of detachment 38 Chapter 4 Rethinking place-attachment 60 PART TWO PRACTICING ATTACHMENT Chapter 5 Field research: methods and anxieties 92 Chapter 6 85 Fairview Street: an auto-ethnography of attachment 118 Chapter 7 Darcoola Station: fondness, family and friends 146 Chapter 8 Glen Eden: reunions, story-telling and generations 178 Chapter 9 Old Currango: life-stages and absent things 212 PART THREE RE-PLACING ATTACHMENT Chapter 10 Re-framing place-attachment 254 Chapter 11 Place-attachment in heritage practice 280 References 294 v List of figures Inside cover: Old Currango homestead ii Dedication: David and June Brown iii 1.1 Pêche des Sauvages du Cap de Diemen, 1817 1 1.2 Fibre object woven-into-being by author 10 2.1 At Dales Gorge, 1983 13 3.1 Byerawering homestead and surrounds 37 4.1 Performing cloudswing, Melbourne, 1998 59 4.2 Place-attachment: heritage model 63 4.3 Place-attachment: tripartite model 65 4.4 Self as distributed 71 4.5 Place as unbounded 77 4.6 Place-attachment as entanglement 86 5.1 Yellow everlastings 91 5.2 Field study sites: locations 102 6.1 ‘85 Fairview Street’ (June Brown) 117 6.2 85 Fairview Street: favourite things 121 7.1 Darcoola Station: entrance 145 7.2 Brenda Weir at Bishop’s Lodge, 1998 148 7.3 Darcoola Station homestead and garden 156 7.4 Darcoola Station homestead garden: geraniums 157 7.5 Darcoola Station homestead garden: roses 157 7.6 ‘Hay Trees on Farms’ stall at Maude Fair, 1993 163 7.7 Brenda Weir inspects black box seedling, 1993 163 7.8 Plaque on memorial seat, Bishop’s Lodge 175 8.1 Glen Eden: waiting for the cousins 177 8.2 Reakes family tree 180 8.3 Glen Eden: family get-together, 2012 182 8.4 Albert Reakes with ‘Peter Pan’ at Glen Eden 190 8.5 Florence Reakes with ‘Paddy’ the sheep 190 8.6 At Glen Eden, 1920s 190 8.7 Newspaper article, Lithgow Mercury, 1928 192 8.8 ‘Jack Reakes in front of Tarana Pub about 1930’ 192 8.9 Florence Reakes and grandchildren, 1930s 195 8.10 Swimming in the Fish River, 1930s 195 vi 8.11 Family gathering at Evaline Street, Campsie, 1928 197 9.1 Old Currango: first impressions 211 9.2 Old Currango: magazine picture on living room wall 214 9.3 Old Currango, circa 1910 215 9.4 Thelma and Dorothy Reid at Old Currango 220 9.5 Eric and Thelma Reid with sunflowers 220 9.6 Dorothy Constance with childhood tea set 222 9.7 ‘Little Red Riding Hood’: a childhood gift 222 9.8 Old Currango, 1973 225 9.9 David Mitchell with parents, Cessnock, c.1964 227 9.10 Old Currango: drawn by Aaron Mitchell at age 10 233 10.1 Old Currango: reflections 253 11.1 Assemblage of things, thinking and thesis 279 List of tables 4.1 Place-attachment: contrasting vocabularies 87 5.1 Scales and place-attachment: a preliminary framework 95 5.2 Field study sites: summary data 103 5.3 Field study sites: dates and data collection 107 5.4 Field study sites: socio-demographic characteristics 109 vii Acknowledgements The PhD research project, excepting the occasional anxiety, has been a pleasure to undertake. At the commencement in 2010, I had not imagined the extent to which this might be the case. My conversations, both formal and casual, with numerous people regarding their entanglements with places and things have been overwhelmingly positive. To be immersed in a topic dominated by feelings of happiness, joy and pleasure, where even sadness is intertwined with warmth and beauty, has been inspiring and sustaining, indeed nourishing to the soul. I thank all those who contributed to the work by enchanting me with wonderful, diverse and intimate stories, emotions and feelings of place-attachment. I begin by expressing my unbounded gratitude to my PhD supervisors, Annie Clarke and Denis Byrne. You have been the most encouraging of mentors. Your scholarship in the fields of archaeology and heritage has inspired me over many decades. Thank you for so generously sharing knowledge and providing sage advice with good (and bad) humour throughout the development, undertaking and finalising of the thesis. I express my deepest and most heartfelt appreciation to you. The PhD project was undertaken through Heritage Studies, Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney. I thank Lesley Beaumont, Ian Johnstone, Martin Gibbs, Alison Betts and Peter Hiscock for providing discussion and feedback at the annual PhD review meetings. I benefited from attending, as well as presenting at, the University of Sydney Archaeology Seminar Series. In particular, I thank Sarah Colley and fellow PhD candidate Jillian Comber for feedback on my research design presentation. I acknowledge receipt of funding for field research provided by the University of Sydney through the Carlyle Greenwell Research Fund (2012 and 2013). The Postgraduate Research Support Scheme provided funds to support my attendance at the Contemporary Historical Archaeology Theory (CHAT) group annual meeting (London, December 2012). My research project was undertaken in accordance with Protocol No. 14026 (University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee). viii For four years (2010-2013) of the PhD research project, I was a full-time employee of the Office of Environment and Heritage (NSW). I thank the department for granting public service study leave entitlements. Over this period I worked in the now deceased Cultural Heritage Research Section. The section was an intellectually stimulating, supportive and collegiate research hub. I thank the doctors - Denis Byrne, Emma Dortins and Caroline Ford - for their friendship, feedback and discussion on various draft chapters of the thesis. I also thank work colleagues Alex Roberts, Chanelle Burman and Bronwyn Batten for commenting on parts of the thesis. Thanks also to Emma Dortins for providing comments on Chapters 1-4 at the near-completion stage of the thesis. I am grateful to the many people who assisted me in undertaking and contributing to the case studies. Test pit excavations carried out at 85 Fairview Street, my home, were undertaken as part of the research project though little of this material has made its way directly into the final version of the thesis. Nevertheless, I thank the many people who assisted me in the work.