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Description
In a theatre of its own design, history's drama unfolds; the historian is an impartial onlooker, simply repeating what happened ... the historian does not order the facts, he conforms to them. Such history is a fabric of self-reinforcing illusions. (1)
In The Road to Botany Bay Paul Carter discusses the western tradition of perceiving and recording history in which the representation of places or people through writing is understood to be a true and objective repetition of events. Carter emphasises that 'the real mythologising which occurs here is in the invention of a point of view, a panoramic eye before whose gaze the historical facts unfold again exactly as before'. (2) Carter further argues that 'the gaze of most historians has been comparably partial'. (3) For postcolonial countries such as Australia, where history as part of the Eurocentric legacy of colonialism is an inherited cultural discourse, the realisation that history is influenced by the perspective and vision of the historiographer gives grounds for a re-evaluation of accepted historic 'facts'. This essay argues that tourist culture has continued and refocused postcolonial debates about power over historical representations. I further suggest that Australian literature on the subject of tourism offers a platform from which to contest historical perspectives and review not only accounts of past events, but contemporary representations as well.
Recycled debates
In 1993, Priscilla Boniface and Peter J Fowler described the representation of the 'Indigenous/colonial relationship' as 'one of the key issues in the tourism debate'. (4) One reason for this is that Indigenous cultures have become an important resource as the tourist industry continues to exhibit interest in different cultural heritages. Australia is no exception. 'Since the 1980s', observes Jane Jacobs,
the Australian Tourist Commission has been actively engaged in overseas promotion ... Even in advertising which does not explicitly put Aboriginal Australia in the foreground, the graphics and music scores may be inspired by Aboriginal culture. (5)
Dot-paintings and didgeridoos have arguably become as recognisable a metonym for Australia as has the Sydney Opera House. While Boniface and Fowler observe that representations of the Indigenous/colonial relationship have become a key issue in tourism, the debate is not only centred on a re-evaluation of the history of that relationship but also the continued tension surrounding the issue in postcolonial countries. Advertisements, such as those mentioned by Jacobs, raise questions about settler societies imposing a dominant culture on Indigenous inhabitants and simultaneously invite analysis of contemporary instances of appropriation and exploitation. Bella Dicks argues that the opportunity to display cultural heritage for the tourist gaze 'potentially encourages groups of all kinds to think of their own cultural "roots" as statements about their selves and, hence, their identity'. (6) Displays that rely on history and heritage therefore become potential sites of struggle for control over historical representations as well as control over contemporary narratives.
Toni Birch examines a historically rooted conflict that tourism has been instrumental in turning into a contemporary debate. In 1989, the Victorian Minister for Tourism, Steve Crabb, announced that the Grampians mountain ranges would revert to their Aboriginal appellation of Guriward (although this was later altered to Gariwerd). This move was met with a great deal of opposition from both the local Koori community, which had not been consulted about the change, and from the general population. (7) The 'restoration' was motivated by a recognition of the area's potential as a tourist attraction in which its Koori heritage was arguably a key component, given that tourists were increasingly interested in experiencing non-western cultures. Yet Birch reports that 'the Grampians District Tourist Association strongly opposed the name restoration proposal' even while the association 'supported the upgrading of the rock art sites'. (8) The suggested Koori names would not be acceptable to the Tourist Association unless they were altered to be more easily pronounced and recognised--in fact, anglicised. Birch contends, with reason, that this example 'illustrates the attitude of many tourist operators, who regard Koori culture as a product that can be altered and represented in an acceptable form, as a commodity, but has little or no intrinsic value'. (9)
Whether because of the clumsy execution of the term 'restoration' or because of its contentious nature, the project engendered a lively debate. By not consulting with the local Koori community, which at the time was engaged in its own tourist endeavour, establishing the Brambuk Living Cultural Centre, the minister relegated an Aboriginal presence in Victoria to a silent past whilst concurrently appropriating its language. The Koori community saw this as a clear-cut example of the exploitation of Indigenous heritage for the economic benefit of a dominant culture. Members of the area's general community, on the other hand, argued that the restoration erased colonial history along with place names, thus 'tak[ing] away that heritage'. (10) The dispute did not significantly alter the minister's resolve, and on 15 October 1991, forty-nine name restorations were announced. This suggests that the project was motivated less by concern for either the past or the future of Indigenous and colonial heritage and more by a desire to make aspects of Koori culture more visible to a growing, and potentially profitable, industry.
In the Gariwerd/Grampians case, place names were shown to be inextricably linked to history and heritage. Postcolonial theorists argue that the inscription of names on colonised space is an act of confirming possession. Carter argues that 'by the act of place-naming, space is transformed symbolically into a place, that is, a space with a history'. (11) Naming represents the appropriation of 'empty' space, turning it into a culturally significant and signified place. Places and their cultural significance are thus products of language; the culture that articulates a place commands discursive power over it. As Dell Upton puts it, '[landscapes] have no inherent "traditional", or modern, identities or meanings. They are products of multiple, and only partially overlapping, circles or realms of knowledge, practice and significance'. (12) In this case, the realms of knowledge were represented by different historical discourses identified by different languages--of coloniser and colonised--and these discourses clashed rather than overlapped. The dominance and legitimacy of colonial history was called into question by an attempt to recognise and reinscribe an earlier history, even though Indigenous activists did not instigate the name restoration. In an attempt to create space for both histories in/on the same place, geographical features were finally given dual names in Koori and English. If anything, this has served to accentuate the subjugation of one history and the dominance of another, because the English name officially comes first. As Birch comments, 'the Koori name is therefore linguistically subordinated, "handcuffed" in parentheses'. (13) The national park is officially known as The Grampians (Gariwerd).
Academic distinctions?
The careful distinction between 'place' and 'space' in the discussions of Carter and Birch sets off the apparent conflation of the terms 'history' and 'heritage' in the same dialogue. Birch uses the two concepts almost interchangeably: the erasing/reinscribing of history erases/reinscribes heritage. This lack of distinction is surprisingly often the case at tourist sites; heritage trails lead to historic sites or vice versa without any indication as to what the difference (if any) might be. In academia, the tendency has been to differentiate between history and heritage along the lines of Frans Schouten, in whose view 'heritage is not the same as history. Heritage is history processed through mythology, ideology, nationalism, local pride, romantic ideas or just plain marketing, into a commodity'. (14) The... |
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