Northern Belongings: Frontiers, Fences, and Identities in Australia's Urban North

Lesley Instone
Additional contact information
Lesley Instone: School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia

Environment and Planning A, 2009, vol. 41, issue 4, 827-841

Abstract: The importance of the frontier in shaping northern Australia continues to arouse interest and debate among scholars. This paper contributes to this scholarship through the exploration of the mutual constitution of frontier and belonging in suburban backyards in Australia's urban north. The focus of the paper is the angry and indignant resistance to the introduction of mandatory pool fencing in the Northern Territory in 2002–04. Adopting an attitude of ‘witnessing’ small and ordinary happenings, I explore the spontaneous outbursts of identity and belonging expressed by antifence residents of Darwin, with particular emphasis on their creative enactment of frontier tropes of freedom, vigilance, risk, and self-reliance in defence of unfenced pools. By exploring an apparently ordinary event I reflect on the unconscious, subtle, and pervasive reach of the frontier in shaping performances of belonging in the urban north.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a41168 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:41:y:2009:i:4:p:827-841

DOI: 10.1068/a41168

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().