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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Selected Works

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2012

Chris Gibson

Country

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Country That Makes Things?, Christopher Gibson, Chantel Carr, Andrew Warren Sep 2012

A Country That Makes Things?, Christopher Gibson, Chantel Carr, Andrew Warren

Chris Gibson

The announcement in August 2011 that BlueScope Steel was about to close one of its Port Kembla blast furnaces and cease steel exports quickly spurred public debate, not just about steel but about the very future of manufacturing in Australia. With an elevated Australian dollar, job losses have followed in garment-making, car manufacturing and aluminium smelting. Even the iconic Australian fly-spray Mortein is now heading for offshore production. Australian Workers’ Union National Secretary Paul Howes thus suggested: ‘The question the Australian community needs to ask itself*is do we want to be a country that still makes things? Do we want …


Chilling Out In The Country? Interrogating Daylesford As A 'Gay/Lesbian Rural Idyll', Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt, Christopher Gibson Sep 2012

Chilling Out In The Country? Interrogating Daylesford As A 'Gay/Lesbian Rural Idyll', Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt, Christopher Gibson

Chris Gibson

Recent scholarship suggests that the gay/lesbian idyllisation of rural places is an urban construct, constituted through metropolitan sensibilities, communities and imaginaries. We extend this work through examining the construction of Daylesford, Victoria, as a ‘gay/lesbian rural idyll’. Daylesford annually hosts ChillOut, Australia’s largest rural gay/lesbian festival, which underpins its idyllisation. Utilising data drawn from fieldwork conducted at the 2006 festival and commentaries circulated in the gay/lesbian media, we argue that not only is Daylesford idyllised in the Australian gay/lesbian imaginary, but that rurality and urbanity are hybridised in its framing as a ‘gay/lesbian rural idyll’. This is manifested in several …


Chilling Out In 'Cosmopolitan Country': Urban/Rural Hybridity And The Construction Of Daylesford As A 'Lesbian And Gay Rural Idyll', Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt, Chris Gibson Sep 2012

Chilling Out In 'Cosmopolitan Country': Urban/Rural Hybridity And The Construction Of Daylesford As A 'Lesbian And Gay Rural Idyll', Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt, Chris Gibson

Chris Gibson

This paper advances scholarship on 'lesbian and gay rural idylls'. A growing literature examines how 'lesbian and gay rural idylls' are not only produced in opposition to the urban, but are themselves urban constructs. We extend these contentions by exploring the processes of idyllisation suffusing lesbian and gay festival tourism in Daylesford, a town in non-metropolitan Victoria, Australia. We find that Daylesford's idyllisation by the lesbian and gay tourism industry blurs the urban/rural binary, and instead hybridises rurality and urbanity in the tourism images and practices of 'cosmopolitan country' associated with the town. Research findings from Daylesford are analysed to …


Interrogating The Politics Of Gay/Lesbian Belonging In An Australian Country Town: A Case Study Of Daylesford, Victoria, And Local Responses To The Chillout Festival, Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt, Christopher Gibson Sep 2012

Interrogating The Politics Of Gay/Lesbian Belonging In An Australian Country Town: A Case Study Of Daylesford, Victoria, And Local Responses To The Chillout Festival, Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt, Christopher Gibson

Chris Gibson

This paper examines the nature of gasy/lesbian belonging in Daylesford, an Australian country town, contributing to work on both gay/lesbian rural geographies and the politics of belonging. Daylesford hosts ChillOut, Australia's largest rural gay/lesbian festival, thus providing an apt lens for investigating gay/lesbian belonging in rural Australia. The festival, per se, is not analyzed, but instead local responses to ChillOut are interrogated below, particularly certain outcomes and debates following the 2006 festival. This paper begins with a discussion of the notions of belonging and the politics of belonging, and how these relate to gay/lesbian lives. This is followed by …