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Assessing Stories Before Sites Identifying The Tangible From The Intangible PDF
Assessing Stories Before Sites Identifying The Tangible From The Intangible PDF
Assessing Stories Before Sites Identifying The Tangible From The Intangible PDF
Celmara Pocock*
Introduction
The recognition of intangible heritage is an important development in a eld of practice that has heavily emphasised materiality. Efforts to redress this imbalance, have
led to a marked division between intangible and material or tangible aspects of heritage. However, the intersection between the tangible and intangible is critical to
effective management. While it is increasingly recognised that conservation of material heritage must consider intangible values, it is equally true that the continuity of
intangible heritage frequently depends on access to material resources and spaces.
Despite this, many practices and procedures in the identication and management of
heritage remain unchanged, and fail to effectively integrate these two sets of values.
The conservation of heritage sites continues to be dominated by a process that
rst identies a physical site and then identies the associated values that comprise
its signicance. In this paper, we suggest that a reversal of this process might offer a
more effective means to identify and manage heritage. We suggest that the identication of stories as a form of intangible heritage might form an alternative mechanism for identifying signicant heritage places. Using the example of Australian
government policies related to Aboriginal segregation and assimilation, this paper
demonstrates how national stories might be used to identify representative sites. We
*Corresponding author. Email: Celmara.Pocock@usq.edu.au
2015 Celmara Pocock, David Collett and Linda Baulch
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have chosen an example from Australian Aboriginal history for two related reasons.
Firstly, Aboriginal heritage does not always manifest with the kinds of monumental
sites that are most commonly identied as heritage. Secondly, Aboriginal perspectives and participation has been deliberately obscured in much of Australias history,
including through the policies of segregation and assimilation that explicitly sought
to deny an Aboriginal presence. The public recognition of Aboriginal people in
national narratives thus remains an important project for Aboriginal people and
heritage managers in Australia.
Sites before stories: material and the intangible
The process of signicance assessment almost inevitably commences with a known
heritage site. Signicant sites are thus identied ahead of formal assessment, and to
some extent predetermine which sites will be recognised. This partly reects the way
in which heritage listing is a consequence of immediate or impending threat. While
an important mechanism for the protection of signicant heritage in the face of rapid
and expanding development impacts, this approach does not necessarily bring about
a representative or comprehensive list of heritage sites. Rather, it produces heritage
lists that are somewhat ad hoc. Heritage assessments that commence with known
physical sites can thus produce lists with little coherence, duplication and gaps.
Many heritage registers in Australia are the product of such ad hoc listing. These
inventories provide a useful resource for day-to-day planning and decision-making
where it is useful to know a full range of heritage sites in a given area, regardless of
their particular level of signicance. However, such listing processes become more
problematic where listing seeks not only to manage cultural resources at risk, but
also seeks to produce an exemplary suite of sites or to illustrate a particular theme,
such as the World Heritage List, and states that seek to represent a particular culture
or nation.
One such example is the Australian National Heritage List, which explicitly
seeks to use public nominations to develop a list of exceptional natural and cultural places that contribute to Australias national identity (Australian Government
and Department of Environment 2015). Listing provides Australian Government
protection for heritage values of the place if they are threatened by development,
it provides national recognition, and may confer an advantage if Australian
Government funds for conservation and interpretation are sought for the site. In
deciding what will be included on this list, sites are assessed against established
criteria and must meet the National Heritage List threshold of holding outstanding heritage value to the nation (Australian Government 2010). To determine
whether a site meets this threshold it is compared to other, similar types of
places. to determine if one place is more or less signicant compared to
other similar places, or if it is unique. In other words, the possible sites of signicance are the starting point for the assessment. Even though these might be compared to other similar sites, the comparison is made between known physical
heritage sites (cf. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004, 57).
The Burra Charter a well-respected cornerstone of Australian heritage management that has been translated and exported to heritage management elsewhere in the
world (for example, Altenburg and Sullivan 2012; Qian 2007; Taylor 2004, 428)
demonstrates clearly how sites are identied prior to assessment. The diagrammatic
representation in the 2009 version of the Charter indicates that the rst step in
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conservation is to Identify Place and Associations Secure the place and make it
safe (Australia ICOMOS 1999, 10) while the more recent iteration suggests that the
rst step is to Understand the place: dene the place and its extent. Investigate the
place: its history, use, associations, fabric (Australia ICOMOS 2013, 9). There is little to indicate how such places have been identied. Rather the site itself is dened
as the starting point and all subsequent sections of the document assume that a
known place or physical entity is to be assessed and managed.
The process whereby sites are rst identied and then assessed for signicance
inevitably favours the more obvious and apparent forms of built or physical heritage
sites. There is a growing recognition that the focus on material heritage can neglect
some types of sites and values. Internationally this problem has been addressed by
the UNESCO adoption of the 2003 Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage (Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, ICHC). This convention seeks, in part, to redress the bias created by the World Heritage Convention that
sees a predominance of monumental, often Western European, built heritage in the
World Heritage List. While intangible heritage is not recognised through the same
kinds of mechanisms that World Heritage is, the ICHC is regarded as an important
step towards the acknowledgement and recognition of non-Western heritage practices (Smith and Akagawa 2009, 1). To this extent the greater recognition of intangible heritage is regarded by some as a means towards achieving a decolonial heritage
practice, and it has been argued that its relevance is greatest for Asian, African,
South American and Indigenous heritage (Aikawa-Faure 2009). Despite a number of
emergent issues with regard to the politicisation of intangible heritage and the continued marginalisation of minority groups (Aykan 2013), intangible heritage extends
the range of heritage considered signicant, both in terms of regional representation
and types of heritage practices and expressions.
While Australia is not a signatory to the ICHC, since its inception the Burra
Charter has positioned meaning and community value as central to heritage signcance (Taylor 2004, 425426), and has recently been updated to more explicitly
include intangible values (Ahmad 2006, 297). It is also arguable that issues
addressed in the Australian context have been highly inuential in these international developments. New understandings of heritage as comprising more than European built heritage has been strongly inuenced by Australian Aboriginal
perspectives. An oft-cited example is the World Heritage Listing of Uluru-Kata
Tjuta. First inscribed in 1987 under natural criteria, the site was listed in 1994 for its
cultural criteria, in recognition of its signicance to the Anangu Aboriginal people
(Layton and Titchen 1995; Pocock 1997). This is regarded as something of a
groundbreaking case that set a precedent for the recognition of the rights of local
communities (Jokilehto 2011, 228229). The case forms part of a broader recognition of the arbitrary split between cultural and natural heritage that is in many
instances irreconcilable with non-Western, but particularly Indigenous perspectives
(for example, Byers, Cunliffe, and Hudak 2001; Dudley 2011; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
2004, 5253; Taylor and Lennon 2011). Preceding the ICHC by more than a decade,
these and other local Australian issues forced a reconceptualisation of what constitutes heritage.
Nevertheless a remaining focus on built or physical heritage continues to diminish balance and representativeness in Australian heritage registers. In the Australian
context, Aboriginal sites are poorly represented relative to European built heritage.
Partly in response to this inequity, Byrne, Brayshaw, and Ireland (2001) advocated a
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perceived and constructed from multiple viewpoints and at different times, he does
not provide any means to compare or rank particular narratives. This makes it difcult to understand how it might be used in a management context (cf. Taylor 2004,
427). Ranking of signicance is an integral aspect of heritage management. Either
when managers seek to determine which sites should be conserved or protected, or
when trying to determine sites that are best able to represent a theme or topic. The
latter is the case in listing of World Heritage sites that seek to be exemplary in the
global context, and are equally signicant in the case of trying to represent sites of
national signicance. Despite the importance of reconceptualising heritage as more
than monumental physical manifestations, these new approaches remain difcult to
implement in day-to-day heritage management. This is at least partly a methodological issue with regard to how to assess and compare these alternative forms of heritage (Pocock 2002a; Smith and Akagawa 2009, 3). Consequently, there remain
signicant inequities in site registers despite the advances made through recent
debates about intangible heritage and social signicance.
One of the key issues appears to be that heritage listing is primarily driven by
impending threat, and those types of threat are commonly ones of physical alteration
and change. Heritage listing by its nature is either a response to, or brings about,
responsibilities for the management and protection of physical cultural resources.
While social signicance is regarded as one of the several possible criteria to assess
heritage sites, intangible heritage is assessed in isolation from physical- or spacebased elements of heritage. The focus on an isolated or discrete intangible heritage
creates a somewhat articial division between intangible and material or tangible
aspects of heritage (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004, 5253). Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
(2004, 60) sums this up in stating that, tangible heritage, without intangible heritage, is a mere husk or inert matter and intangible heritage, it is not only embodied, but also inseparable from the material and social worlds of persons. Without
recognition of social or intangible values, sites can be misrepresented or misunderstood and therefore fail to be adequately managed and protected, as the work of
Byrne, Brayshaw and Ireland suggests. On the other hand, the effective continuity
of practices and knowledge that constitute intangible heritage is dependent on the
availability of material resources and spaces. The intersections between the tangible
and intangible are therefore interdependent, and the challenge is to sustain an integrated system (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004, 53). However, many procedures for the
identication and management of heritage do not effectively (re)integrate or relate
these to one another. Rather, the recognition of intangible values has effectively created a separate and equally biased list for heritage that is marginalised by World
Heritage processes (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004, 59).
With the exception of the international convention to recognise intangible heritage, and certainly in the context of day-to-day cultural resource management in
Australia, heritage assessments inevitably commence with a physical site rather than
with signicance. Even the narrative approach suggested by Walter is one centred
on known or pre-established physical heritage sites. In other words, despite suggesting a very different means through which to understand the meaning of heritage,
heritage remains primarily dened by known physical entities that are predetermined
as signicant. The fact that most heritage signicance assessments commence with a
prescribed site, is so ingrained that it largely goes unrecognised. To suggest the
opposite that signicance should be assessed before sites are identied, may therefore appear impossible. However, this paper argues that such a shift is necessary if
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to the overall story and representation of the Australian nation. Three broad storylines were identied with a number of subthemes as outlined in Table 1.
A number of sites previously listed on the National Heritage List and several
others under assessment could be related to these themes. However, some themes
were difcult to illustrate through known sites, while there were an overwhelming
number of potential sites for other themes. The Commonwealth Government therefore commissioned a study to trial a new approach for the identication of sites that
could assist in understanding the theme, From Segregation to Assimilation (Pocock
2008).
The approach suggested by the brief and implemented for this study, marks a
subtle but important distinction from many heritage assessments. The approach rst
identies the narratives that make up the theme From Segregation to Assimilation.
By rst focusing on stories rather than sites, it is possible for less obvious or less
apparent qualities to be recognised as signicant. Rather than pre-selecting a number
of known heritage sites, the project explores the stories associated with the theme.
The project was undertaken through a literature review of published sources
documenting the histories of government policies of segregation and assimilation.
These policies incorporate a range of legislation and practices that characterised race
relations in nineteenth and twentieth century Australia. The research was facilitated
by a substantial scholarly literature relevant to the theme, including a number of
comprehensive histories for Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and
Western Australia (see, for examples, Broome 2005; Doukakis 2006; Haebich 2000,
2008; Reid 2006; Reynolds 1995, 2005; Ryan 1996). Despite some diversity in the
depth and geographic range of published sources it was possible to chronicle key
events, legislation and policies of each jurisdiction, and to begin to develop a
national picture. This was initially developed as a summary and timeline, before
moving to identify a number of key narratives.
Narratives are commonly dictated by chronologies, and this traditional structure
is appealing because it is familiar and relatively simple. It is arguably also the only
way in which any narrative can make sense (Sternberg 1990). Time is also an important element in how landscapes are modied (Johnson 1999, 204). However, overly
Table 1. Storylines and themes for Australian Indigenous Heritage.
Storyline
Theme
Peopling of Australia by
Aboriginals
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simple chronologies can be unengaging, and seldom draw new insights (Stell,
Pocock, and Ballantyne 2007; Sternberg 1990). Established chronologies tend to
privilege histories that are already recorded while oral histories, social histories
including undocumented and personal Aboriginal experiences may be invisible in
these. Chronology is further problematised by different cultural conceptualisations
of time (Johnson 1999; Munn 1992). The spatiotemporal complexity of Aboriginal
society is especially challenging for heritage assessments that are primarily constructed on chronologies because Aboriginal formulations of the (ancestral) pastpresent cannot be readily conceptualised or represented by non-Aboriginal people
(Munn 1992, 113114). While the policies of segregation and assimilation had different intentions, many of the effects on peoples lives were similar and, as discussed below, the experiences under these different interventions are not necessarily
distinguished in Aboriginal accounts. Treating segregation and assimilation sequentially would thus mask the inter-related nature of the two policies and fail to demonstrate the shared stories central to the overall theme.
The study deliberately focused on stories in an effort to focus on values that
might be described as intangible. It was nevertheless important to ensure that key
elements of the histories were not overlooked. The complexity of the histories and
the particularities of regional variation, made it necessary to initially work through
the organising structure of the timeline and summary histories, and then to crossreference these with the personal experiences and stories that had been recounted by
Aboriginal people to produce a narrative framework (Pocock 2008).
The literature was therefore analysed to identify stories that illustrated the theme
in engaging and thought provoking ways. This gave priority to Aboriginal voices
that recounted direct experiences or recalled the impact on others. An invaluable
addition to the scholarly literature is a number of rst-hand accounts by Aboriginal
people. These include extensive quotes and edited testimony in book publications
(for example, Bird 1998; Read 2006), as well as collections authored by Aboriginal
writers (such as Langford 1988; Morgan, Mia, and Kwaymullina 2007). Testimony
obtained through government inquiries into the removal of Aboriginal children from
their families provided further resources through which to understand the impact on
Aboriginal lives (for example, Wilson and HREOC 1997).1 These deeply moving
and often heart-breaking personal stories provide insights that help to enrich our
knowledge and nd narratives that illustrate the theme.
Segregation to assimilation: a narrative framework
The rst reading of the literature produced a suite of narratives that illustrated the
theme. Three types of narratives were identied; those of intent, effect and experience. Narratives of intent largely represent ofcial views used to justify and implement the policies and practices. The study further recognised themes of effect the
intended and unintended consequences of the policies. And lastly, and arguably most
signicantly, the study revealed a number of narratives related to Aboriginal experiences of those policies (Table 2).
The stories were teased out to produce a list of evocative and emotionally engaging themes by trying to focus on those elements of narrative that were most moving
and poignant (Pocock 2008). These were analysed and grouped to move the collection of stories into a more systematic group of narratives. (We distinguish between
stories as the recollections, memories and shared experiences of individuals, and
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Effect
Experience
Protection
Conversion
Labour
A Dying Race
Assimilation Practices
Assimilation Policy
Disruption
Colour
Coercion
Deception
Failure
Adaptation
Disadvantage
Gender
Institutionalisation
Home
Protest
The narrative of control is the most pervasive element of both segregation and
assimilation in terms of intent, experience and effect. It is arguably the single strongest narrative, crossing all policies, eras and jurisdictions. It also intersects with the
other themes. It is anticipated that any site identied as signicant in the theme
From Segregation to Assimilation will reect this narrative. When Aboriginal people
speak about their experiences it becomes very clear how every facet of their lives
was monitored and controlled under both policies.
The policies and practices of segregation were strongly oriented to the restricting
contact between settler society and Aborigines. Control of Aboriginal people in this
era framed in terms of protecting Aborigines from inuences of European society.
The aim was to civilise Aboriginal people. Segregation practices were oriented
towards people of full descent, while assimilation was targeted almost entirely
towards people of mixed descent. The forcible assimilation of Aboriginal people into
white society was orchestrated through an extraordinary range of interventionist
powers.
Central to the control of Aboriginal people throughout both eras was restrictions
and controls on peoples movements.
I ended up joining the army in 1951. but there was a problem because as a state
ward I wasnt allowed to go beyond the borders of Western Australia. They never let
Aboriginal people move anywhere in those days without someone in authority being
involved. (Colbung 2007, 71)
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Race
Nineteenth century ideas of race underpinned the policies and practices of segregation and assimilation.2 It was the widely held belief in these principles that allowed
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European settlers to ignore or justify the inhumane and prejudicial treatment of Aborigines. An early and long-lasting denition of Aboriginality separated and excluded
people of mixed descent from those of full-descent. As a consequence there developed separate administrative regimes for people of full and mixed descent.
Under segregationist policies Aboriginal people were thought to be evolutionarily disadvantaged and a doomed race. The intention of segregation policies was to
separate Aboriginal people from European society in order to sooth their demise.
The idea that Aboriginal people were a dying race allowed many violent acts and
atrocities to go unreported and unpunished. It also underpinned a number of national
myths. By casting the extinction of Aboriginal people as inevitable and natural, the
idea that Australia was settled without violence, and was a new country without an
indigenous or black problem were able to be perpetuated. However, a growing
population of Aboriginal people of mixed descent undermined the White Australia
policy. Authorities were determined to control the miscegenation, and thus they
intervened in the most personal relationships:
They even had their say over who you could marry. That happened twice in my family.
(Taylor 2007, 97)
My maternal grandfather had granted my parents permission to marry. But permission
had to be obtained from the Catholic Bishop of the Kimberley because being an Aborigine my mother was a ward of the state Permission was denied because my father
was a Muslim. (Bin-Sallik 2007, 118)
Colonial ideas of race were highly skewed towards skin colour, and under assimilation policies skin colour came to be the dening element of Aboriginality. The
control of marriage was seen as crucial to the eradication of Aboriginal people:
The Chief Protector of Aborigines, A.O. Neville, had been very angry when Mum married Dad, because at that time a woman was supposed to marry someone lighter in colour than she was. The Aborigines Department was trying to breed out our colour so
we wouldnt exist anymore. (Winch 2007, 83)
Skin colour, more than family kinship, education or skill determined where and
how Aboriginal people would be treated in the system.
Even though I was born at the Moore River Native Settlement, I never stayed there
permanently because I was the wrong colour. as it turned out I was too light for
Moore River, so they shoved me off to Sister Kates Home in Queens Park. Mr Neville
liked the lighter coloured kids to go there hoping that theyd turn out white in their
ways so they would t right in to white society. (Colbung 2007, 6869)
Concepts of race were redened and Aboriginal people of mixed descent were
sometimes classied as non-Aboriginal to exclude them from government responsibility. This has had long-term consequences for Aboriginal people, including confusion about identity, loss of family and cultural connections, inequality in education
and employment, and signicant poverty. Skin colour continues to be misused to
judge whether or not Aboriginal people are authentic and hence eligible for
support.
Religion
Where skin colour was used to ameliorate the physical presence of Aboriginal
people, religion was a marker of cultural and moral integration:
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When I was ten years old and my sister Patsy was eight, we were placed in Nazareth
House, a home run by Roman Catholic nuns. Religion was strongly taught and
mass was said every day. (Bacon 2007, 157)
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people. Kidnapping of women and children for sexual and labour exploitation was
widespread. Aboriginal men and women worked for little pay or meagre rations
directly proting pastoralists and landowners:
We have heard there is going to be very strict rules on the station and those rules will
be too much for us, it seems we are going to be treated like slaves, far as we heard of
it We wish to ask those Manager of the station Did we steal anything out of the colony or murdered anyone or are we prisoners or convict. We should think we are all
free as any white man of the colony. (Coranderrk Aborigines, Argus 1882 quoted in
Haebich 2000, 166)
Most wages were paid to the state rather than directly to Aboriginal workers,
and thus the state beneted directly from large amounts of capital that was rarely
paid to Aboriginal workers (Kidd 2007). Agricultural crops produced by Aboriginal
people were sold to raise funds to run the institutions that incarcerated them, while
Aboriginal residents continued to suffer hunger and malnutrition. The practice of
withholding wages, further reduced the life-skills available to Aboriginal people.
They had little knowledge of how to earn and manage their own affairs:
they couldnt cope. I mean they werent taught how to manage money or even to
live in white society, because all they only knew was how to live the way they had
lived at Lake Tyers. (Wilson and HREOC 1997, 63)
Despite the protability of the mission and reserve system for governments and
industries, public expenditure on Aboriginal people was begrudging and inadequate.
Governments made inadequate provision for housing, education and health care.
Conditions on missions and reserves directly contributed to long-term poverty and
ill health among Aboriginal populations.
The constant pressure to reduce expenditure on Aboriginal people saw the emergence of some of the most controversial and divisive practices and policies. Aboriginal people of mixed descent were reclassied as non-Aboriginal. This was done
explicitly to limit the number of people on government reserves and to reduce
government responsibility for Aboriginal rations.
Identication of places
These deeply emotional and moving stories are told by people throughout Australia,
and while recounted by particular individuals in relation to particular experiences,
times and places, there are strong similarities and connections that transcended these
spatiotemporal distinctions. While this is an overwhelmingly bleak history, some
stories run counter to the dominant narratives and reveal small joys and pleasures
despite the system, and resistance and resilience in the face of oppression. While
such narratives appear to run counter to the core themes, they are signicant in
recognising how these policies produced unintended consequences. Notably, government policies often led to public protest, and hence segregation to assimilation can
be linked to the struggle for Aboriginal rights (see Table 1).
While heritage listing has multiple purposes and functions, and lists are often an
inexpensive and ineffectual means to safeguard heritage, there remains an underlying conservation ethos to retain and maintain sites that represent elements of the
past. This study would not have been undertaken if the Australian government was
not intent on recognising and conserving some aspects of Australian heritage. The
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next step in the project was therefore to identify sites where these evocative, shared
stories were manifest.
After identifying the core narratives, the project set about identifying locations
where the stories were centred. Physical sites, as suggested, are always at the forefront of any heritage management agency agenda, and the Commonwealth government had already commissioned an internal report to identify known heritage sites
with links to the segregationassimilation theme (Baulch 2004). These known sites
were cross-referenced to the narrative framework to identify those most capable of
illustrating the broader narratives. It identied places that might best demonstrate
core narratives and critical aspects of the story. Particular emphasis was given to
sites that could demonstrate multiple aspects of the story, unique aspect(s) of the
story, stories shared across space and time, regional and cultural diversity, the
distinct administrative and policy frameworks, and chronological change and
continuity.
In addition, there were a number of narratives from Aboriginal people that
related to times and spaces that were unknown in the list of heritage sites or known
sites. This was particularly the case for those histories where Aboriginal people had
resisted the system and developed networks invisible to the state. For instance, there
are powerful stories about homes where Aboriginal children were well treated and
networks of houses in neighbourhoods where children who escaped from state
institutions could seek assistance. These types of sites may no longer have a physical presence or be immediately apparent in suburban landscapes, but their stories
suggest they have a powerful place in a national history.
The impact of this approach on the actual listing of heritage sites remains to be
seen. While the study was commissioned by the Commonwealth Government in an
attempt to build a more representative National List, long-standing practices and
policies in heritage management will require signicant effort to change. Nevertheless, the National Heritage Assessment for the Aboriginal nominated Coranderrk
Reserve (Australian Government 2011a) was partly informed by this new process.
This is reected in the narratives in the summary statement of signicance about
control, the calculus of skin colour in the removal of children and the public interest
generated by the economic circumstances of the reserve. The natural nomination of
the West Kimberley region (Australian Government 2011b) also makes reference to
the theme of segregation. However, ofcial processes remain constrained by the
needs of a bureaucracy which requires simple unemotional descriptions of the
importance of a place, as reected in the assessment for Coranderrk. These lack
the emotional connection invoked by stories of people affected by the policies.
Despite this, the statement for the rarity criterion for Coranderrk succinctly captures
a century of Aboriginal struggle, and reects the kind of counter-narrative that may
not have been recognised without rst identifying stories:
Coranderrk is of outstanding heritage value as the place associated with an uncommon
and unusually early (18601869) system for managing Aboriginal people on reserves
that provided for Aboriginal autonomy and self-determination rather than paternalistic
control and direction. Similar levels of autonomy were not experienced by Indigenous people again until the 1970s. (Australian Government 2011a)
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listing processes (Jokilehto 2011; Meskell 2012), albeit on a smaller scale, and
includes a jostling of political, ministerial, economic, development and community interests. Consequently, many decisions about heritage listing remain somewhat ad hoc. However, amendments to the EPBC Act in February 2007
established a more strategic and streamlined process for listing national heritage
places (Australian Government 2015; see also Australian Heritage Council
2009). As part of these changes the Minister has the option of identifying a
theme as the basis of new assessment cycles. While the narrative approach suggested is well aligned with this process, methods of assessment remain at the
discretion of government ofcials and agencies, and the value-based approaches
of the Burra Charter are strongly entrenched.
Despite some uncertainty with regard to the nal implementation of this
story-based approach, this study suggests it has considerable potential to bring
practice into line with critical approaches to heritage. Positioning stories at the
forefront of heritage assessment is a simple if radical one that might equally
address other long-term problems with heritage listing. This is perhaps most
obvious in relation to consultation with communities of interest. This trial project was undertaken through existing literature made possible by the richness of
resources related to the theme. A relatively recent public enquiry into the stolen
generation not only generated a public record of rst person testament, but
inspired a number of Aboriginal authors to publish their own accounts. These,
together with a strong body of academic research, provided a wealth of information that may not be available to other studies. However, some of the stories
with greatest interest emerged over years of working with different Aboriginal
communities, rather than from the resources available to project. Many of these
stories remain undocumented and this is likely to be the case for any assessments that may seek to use this approach. Where there is no existing body of
oral history, assessments will require a substantial process of community engagement to elicit personal stories and come to understand core narratives. While
some may regard this as time consuming and inefcient, it will invert the usual
process of rst identifying a site for listing and then seeking community support.
By placing Aboriginal people at the forefront of heritage assessment processes,
communities are empowered to determine which stories might be told, how they
are related, and to whom. Rather than being drawn reluctantly into a listing process where the outcome is largely predetermined, communities will be able to
shape heritage assessments and listing outcomes. To this extent, the process
echoes and supports the push to empower local communities and make heritage
listing a more democratic process.
The narrative approach may also provide an opportunity to increase the visibility
of forms of heritage that are invisible. For instance, the sites and places that may
now have no physical trace, or appear to be an ordinary suburban home, could be
marked by commemorative plaques and linked through interpretive heritage trails.
This is a successful practice in many cities and regions, and has been especially useful in representing groups who are marginalised or underrepresented by monumental
heritage (see for example, Morris 1997, 1999). It may also provide a mechanism
through which stories are told, the past remembered and heritage maintained without
reference to lists (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004, 5556).
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Conclusion
Accepted industry practice, as suggested by documents such as the Burra Charter,
tends to follow a procedure of identifying a range of different values for heritage
sites (see also, Walter 2013). This recognises that each site or space can have multiple associations and meanings for different groups of people and for different heritage traditions. However, the process rests on a presumption about heritage sites
and that is that a level of signicance has already been decided before an assessment
process commences.
Thinking about national history at a broad scale is an important part of being
able to identify themes and narratives that are signicant to the nation. These may
include dominant tropes, but can also include histories and narratives that are
deliberately obscured from ofcial records. These stories comprise an intangible
heritage that may be unrecognised in dominant histories and conventional lists of
heritage sites, which are often based on the physically obvious and visually
spectacular (Pocock 2002b).
The method proposed through this study focuses rst on stories, then on signicance and lastly focuses on places. Through association with the key stories, particular localities and sites emerge as signicant. The focus on narratives offers an
alternative approach to decisions about signicance, by shifting the focus of assessment to the dynamic story. Heritage managers can thus refocus their decisions about
signicance to values rather than sites.
By commencing with stories that are meaningful to people they are associated
with emotion, and meaning becomes central to every stage of the process. This
enables stories to be drawn together across time and space to allow an assessment of
the collective, rather than dissociated individual meanings. These hermeneutic circles of stories and value-laden places, ensure that values rather than materiality is
always at the forefront of decisions about signicance.
Acknowledgements
The research for this paper was supported by the Australian Department of the Environment
and Water Resources. We would like to acknowledge the Aboriginal people family, friends,
colleagues and acquaintances who have shared their stories and life experiences with us
over many years. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive
criticism.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Since the original project more personal testimony has become available including video
recordings made available on the internet. See for example. Stolen Generations Testimonies Foundation (2014).
2. Despite recent critiques of the concept of race and its limited value in a biological context, race evolved to become a means of social organisation, and this has had long-term
social implications for people dened by racial stereotypes, resulting in unequal treatment and access (Jablonski 2012; Smedley and Smedley 2005; Wade 2002).
978
C. Pocock et al.
Notes on contributors
Celmara Pocock is a senior lecturer in Anthropology and Australian Indigenous Studies at
the University of Southern Queensland.
David Collett is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Queensland and former
Director of Indigenous Heritage in the Commonwealth Department of Environment.
Linda Baulch is a member of the Gulidjan community and a PhD Candidate at the University
of Southern Queensland. She was a former senior manager in the Heritage Division of the
Commonwealth Department of Environment.
ORCID
Celmara Pocock
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3257-9689
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