Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef explores how visitor encounters have shaped the history and heritage of the Reef. Moving beyond the visual aesthetic significance, the book highlights the importance of multi-sensuous experiences in understanding the region as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, the book describes how visitors have experienced the Great Barrier Reef through personal embodied encounters and the mechanisms they have used to understand, access and share these experiences with others. Illustrating how such experiences contribute to a knowledge of place, Pocock also explores the vital role of reproduction and photography in sharing experiences with those who have never been there. The second part of the book analyses visitor experiences and demonstrates how they underpin three key frames through which the Reef is understood and valued: the islands as paradise, the underwater coral gardens, and the singular Great Barrier Reef. Acknowledging that these constructs are increasingly removed from human experience, Pocock demonstrates that they are nevertheless integral to recognition of the region as a World Heritage Site. Demonstrating how experiences of the Reef have changed over time, Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef should be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of heritage studies, history and tourism. It should also be of interest to heritage practitioners working around the globe.
By:
Celmara Pocock
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781138049918
ISBN 10: 1138049913
Series: Routledge Studies in Heritage
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 23 August 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
,
A / AS level
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Chapter 1 Introduction World Heritage Values New directions in heritage The cultural bias and potential of aesthetic value Aesthetics as Senses and Place Visitor experience References PART I: VISITOR EXPERIENCES OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF Chapter 2 Orientation, wayfinding and cartographic knowledge of the Reef * Disorientation and Danger Controlling Danger: orientation and mapping Science, tourism and navigation Visitor Traditions of Orientation In the Footsteps of the Navigators Disorientation Orientation: Continuity and Change References * Chapter 3 Visitors’ Sensuous Experiences at the Reef Seeing the Reef Feeling the Reef Fossicking Heat Sea Water Insects Reef Sounds Sighing She-Oaks Birds Whistling Sand Smelling the Reef Tasting the Reef Turtle Tropical flavours Merging Senses and Movement References Chapter 4 Sharing Experience of the Reef with the World Contact and Copy The Means of Capture Verbal and Written Description Collections Images Transmission of Experience The Panoramic View The Underwater World Representing a Multi-Sensuous Reef References PART II – CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF Chapter 5 Reef Islands as Signifiers of Paradise Australian Landscapes of the Great Barrier Reef Australian Bush as the Everyday In Pursuit of Paradise The Coconut Palm as Signifier of Paradise Found The Coconut Palm and Local Knowledge A Tourist Gaze for Australian Visitors References Chapter 6 Controlling the Underwater Reef through Cultivation of Coral Gardens Cartographic Mimesis: Control Over the Other Out of Control: A Return to Otherness Seeking Similitude: Coral Gardens Aquariums as controlled gardens Immersion and loss of control Coral gardens as imagery References Chapter 7 The Great Barrier Reef as Hyperreality and World Heritage The Simulacra of a Single Natural Reef Hyper-Reality at ReefWorld Loss of Place Conservation of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Listing Postscript References Index
Celmara Pocock is Director of the Centre for Heritage and Culture and Associate Professor in Anthropology and Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Southern Queensland. Her research interests encompass human relationships with the environment, including senses of place; social value and community heritage; and the intersections between heritage and tourism.
