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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Spiral Gallery: Non-Market Creativity And Belonging In An Australian Country Town, Gordon Waitt, Chris Gibson Nov 2013

The Spiral Gallery: Non-Market Creativity And Belonging In An Australian Country Town, Gordon Waitt, Chris Gibson

Chris Gibson

This paper seeks to explore creative practice in an Australian country town, and in so doing, to unsettle market-orientated interpretations of creativity that privilege the urban. Instead of focusing on creative practice as a means to develop industries, we focus on how creativity is a means to establish a cooperative gallery space that helps to sustain a sense of self in an otherwise antithetical social and cultural context. The example we discuss is The Spiral Gallery, a women's co-operative arts space established in the 1990s in the small (but somewhat iconic) country town of Bega - in a place where …


The 'Cultural Turn' In Australian Regional Economic Development Discourse: Neoliberalising Creativity?, Chris Gibson, Natascha Klocker Nov 2013

The 'Cultural Turn' In Australian Regional Economic Development Discourse: Neoliberalising Creativity?, Chris Gibson, Natascha Klocker

Chris Gibson

Regional economic policy-makers are increasingly interested in the contribution of creativity to the economic performance of regions and, more generally, in its power to transform the images and identities of places. This has constituted a 'cultural turn', of sorts, away from an emphasis on macro-scale projects and employment schemes, towards an interest in the creative industries, entrepreneurial culture and innovation. This paper discusses how recent discourses of the role of 'creativity' in regions have drawn upon, and contributed to, particular forms of neoliberalisation. Its focus is the recent application of a statistical measure - Richard Florida's (2002) 'creativity index' - …


Manufacturing On The Move? Beyond The High Dollar In The Debate About Making Things In Australia - The Case Of The Australian Surfboard Industry - Ausccer Discussion Paper No. 2012/2, Andrew Warren, Chris Gibson Jul 2012

Manufacturing On The Move? Beyond The High Dollar In The Debate About Making Things In Australia - The Case Of The Australian Surfboard Industry - Ausccer Discussion Paper No. 2012/2, Andrew Warren, Chris Gibson

Chris Gibson

In October 2011 surfboard manufacturer BASE abruptly closed its factory on the Gold Coast resulting in the direct loss of 50 jobs. A few days later, nearby D’Arcy Surfboards also announced it was shedding workers and downsizing from a state-of-the art purpose built factory into a backyard workshop. Each business exported surfboards internationally and employed some of Australia’s best known surfboard-makers. The troubles facing these workshops added to those brewing at the very same in Australia’s steel, aluminium, automotive and garment industries. With renewed public debate and media commentary on the future of manufacturing, we now face a crisis in …