Negotiating industrial heritage and regional identity in three Australian regions
- Authors: Eklund, Erik
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Public Historian Vol. 39, no. 4 (2017), p. 44-64
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- Description: This article investigates the relationship between industrial heritage and regional identity during deindustrialization in three Australian regions. Newcastle, in the state of New South Wales (NSW), was a coal-mining and steel-production center located north of Sydney. Wollongong, also in NSW, was a coal-mining and steelproduction region centered around Port Kembla, near the town of Wollongong. The Latrobe Valley was a brown coal-mining and electricity-production center east of Melbourne. All regions display a limited profile for industrial heritage within their formal policies and representations. In Newcastle and Wollongong, the adoption of the language of the postindustrial city has limited acknowledgement of the industrial past, while the Latrobe Valley's industrial heritage is increasingly framed by concerns over current economic challenges and climate change. © 2017 by The Regents of the University of California and the National Council on Public History. All rights reserved.
'Do you love the town you live in?' : narratives of place from Australian mining towns
- Authors: Eklund, Antoinette , Eklund, Erik
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Vol. 3, no. 7 (2008), p. 53-58
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- Description: This article combines the authors' disciplinary locations in history and literary studies, exploring personal narratives as revealed in oral history from residents of Australian mining towns. These narratives operate as a kind of counter or vernacular history, presenting hidden stories not well represented in Australian national history and culture. We argue that regional vernacular knowledge, borne of local experience and culture some distance from the major cities, is somewhat difficult to access through predominantly city-based, profesional academic networks.