Zelmarie Cantillon

Zines have recently emerged as methodological tools in qualitative research seeking to deploy arts-based approaches that foreground agency, collaboration, creativity, affect and critique. This article reflects on the use of zine-making as method in a project focused on Kingston and Arthur's Vale Historic Area, Norfolk Island. The article analyses seven methods used in making zine content: sticky notes, memory prompts, story completion, letter writing, interpretive text, conversations and participatory mapping. The article positions the project's multi-method approach to zine-making as a form of critical cultural justice inquiry. We discuss zine-making in terms of its sociable qualities, as well as its capacity to support representational belonging and a sense of ownership among participants over project outputs. As part of critical cultural justice inquiry, zine-making can enable ‘doing research otherwise’ – resisting extractivism and instead emphasising building relationships, engaging in dialogue and co-creating resources for hope and action.

The beach has long been considered a geographically and symbolically liminal space, strongly associated with relaxation, escapism, and hedonism. Entire cities, islands, and regions have been intensively developed as beachside resorts that facilitate these experiences via ‘sun, sand, and sex’ mass tourism. In recent years, many resorts have been diversifying their branding and infrastructure to include more cultural and heritage experiences. This chapter explores this shift through an examination of how histories related to tourism and beach culture are being mobilized as heritage. Drawing on the case study of the Gold Coast, Australia, the chapter discusses in situ and ex situ examples of tourism heritage, including in the city’s local heritage register, heritage walks, and museums and galleries. The chapter explores how this heritage speaks to a sense of place and lifestyle for residents at the same time that it evokes a sense of continuity for visitors. The chapter also questions how the heritage of mass tourism variously disrupts and reinforces traditional heritage values.

Informed by critical cultural justice inquiry, this article reflects on participatory mapping activities undertaken on Norfolk Island that were aimed at capturing practices, routes, and emotions associated with Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area. We discuss how participants understood the parameters of mapping tasks; adapted and individualized activities; engaged in collaborative practice; and exercised reflexivity. The article finds that participatory mapping captures variances in how participants relate to and engage with Kingston. The article emphasizes the importance of recording conversations during participatory mapping to offer greater nuance and insight into visual data recorded on the maps.

Popular music and its heritage increasingly feature as a component of creative city strategies and urban regeneration agendas. However, local governments of small cities face challenges in replicating the cultural policies and strategies popularised by big cities. Focusing on two Australian small cities – Wollongong, New South Wales and Redcliffe, Queensland – this article draws on examples of popular music heritage activity including the Bee Gees Way and Steel City Sound. What emerges is a discussion of the different ways in which these small cities have leveraged their music histories as cultural infrastructure as well as the disparity of support between the two cases from respective local governments. The case studies demonstrate the need for local governments to adopt approaches that cut across the continuum of heritage practice – bringing together unauthorised, self-authorised and authorised discourses and activities that foster passion and support from a range of stakeholders of popular music’s past. The article highlights that capitalising on and sharing resources, expertise and networks, and a commitment to continued investment by local government and the wider community, is essential for creating sustainable cultural infrastructure in small cities.

Sport mega-events have the capacity to transform host cities both materially and symbolically. This article explores the urban reimaging potentials of mega-event legacies through a case study of the 2018 Commonwealth Games held on the Gold Coast, Australia. For the Gold Coast, one of the desired outcomes of the Commonwealth Games and its legacies was to aid in reorienting the city’s identity from a beachside resort to a mature, sophisticated, world-class city. Drawing on observational fieldwork and literature research, the article considers a particular legacy project – the Commonwealth Walkway, a self-guided heritage walk – to analyze how heritage initiatives factor into strategies for urban reimaging. The article finds that although the Commonwealth Walkway may enhance a sense of continuity in a city usually marked by impermanence, its sanitized, celebratory approach to the city’s colonial past and present undermines both claims of sophistication and intended legacies for social justice.