Australian Beach Cultures

Australians are surrounded by beaches. But this enclosure is more than a geographical fact for the inhabitants of an island continent; the beach is an integral part of the cultural envelope. This work analyzes the history of the beach as an integral aspect of Australian culture.

This book explores the ever-changing relationships between bodies, oceans, beaches and tourism. Drawing on feminist scholarship, the book focuses on the emergence of Australian beach cultures beyond metropolitan centres from the early 19th century to the early 20th century on the Illawarra beaches, some 80 kilometres south of Sydney.

Writing the Australian Beach is the first book in fifteen years to explore creative and cultural representations of this iconic landscape, and how writers and scholars have attempted to understand and depict it. Although the content chiefly focuses on Australia, the beach as both a location and idea resonates deeply with readers around the world. This edited collection includes three sections. Forms of Beach Writing examines the history of beach writing in Australia and in a number of forms: screenwriting, social media writing, and food writing. In turn, Multiplicities of Australian Beach Writing examines how forms of writing—poetry, travel writing, horror film, and memoir—engage with some specific beaches in Australia. And, finally, Reading the Beach as a Text considers how the beach itself functions in cultural narratives: how we walk the beach; the revealing story of beach soccer; and the design and use of ocean baths. Given its scope, the collection offers a unique resource for scholars of Australian culture and creative writing, and for all those interested in Australian beaches.

Images of 'the beach' pervade Australian popular culture. However the deeper significance of the experience of 'the beach', and its influence on Australian culture generally, have not yet been seriously explored. How, why and when did the beach become part of the Australian way of life? In Sand in our Souls Leone Huntsman describes the forces and pressures that encouraged or impeded Australians' enjoyment of sand and surf, from early enjoyment of bathing, through nearly a century of repressive restrictions, to freedom won in the face of drawn-out opposition. The ways in which artists, writers, film-makers and the advertising industry have depicted the beach are examined for the light they throw on the beach's significance. She traces the development of a distinctively Australian way-of-being-at-the-beach, suggesting that the beach experience has been absorbed into our emerging culture and continues to shape it in subtle ways. Huntsman's provocative arguments will stimulate debate on the concept of 'national identity' appropriate for a new Australian century, and promote a deeper understanding of an aspect of life in Australia that is cherished by many of those who live here.

This work is based on extensive research. It involves a synthesis of material that distils a diverse variety of socio-cultural principles into a succinct argument. In doing so, it challenges the traditional view that Australia is a place dominated by a culture of the bush. It presents a series of papers that suggest that Australia is now a ......

'A fascinating and charming book. I especially loved the autobiography of a beach...' -Elizabeth Farrelly, Author of Killing Sydney (2021) 'More than a history of Bondi, Booth's Bondi Beach: Representations of an Iconic Australian is an autobiography of Australia's most famous beach. Drawing together meticulous research, this thought-provoking account takes readers on a fascinating journey which culminates in an entrancing account of Bondi Beach from a fresh new perspective.' -Dr. Caroline Ford, Principal Policy Officer, Aboriginal Cultural Heritage at Heritage NSW, Australia 'Bondi is sacred to many Australians. It is a mecca for international tourists, but how well do we know its history? Professor Doug Booth has comprehensively provided an account of how this beach and its suburb has evolved. It is a remarkable story of struggles to regain beach access for all and to ensure it stays an iconic public asset forever.' -Emeritus Professor Bruce Thom, University of Sydney, Australia Bondi Beach is a history of an iconic place. It is a big history of geological origins, management by Aboriginal people, environmental despoliation by white Australians, and the formation of beach cultures. It is also a local history of the name Bondi, the origins of the big rock at Ben Buckler, the motives of early land holders, the tragedy known as Black Sunday, the hostilities between lifesavers and surfers, and the hullabaloos around the Pavilion. Pointing to a myriad of representations, author Douglas Booth shows that there is little agreement about the meaning of Bondi. Booth resolves these representations with a fresh narrative that presents the beach's perspective of a place under siege. Booth's creative narrative conveys important lessons about our engagement with the physical world.

Shark attacks and sewage slicks, lifesavers and surfers, amusement parks and beach camps – the beach is Sydney’s most iconic landscape feature. From Palm Beach in the north to Cronulla in the south, Sydney’s coastline teems with life. People from around the city escape to the beaches to swim, surf, play and lie in the sun. Sydney Beaches tells the story of how Sydneysiders developed their love of the beach, from 19th century picnickers to the surfing and sun-baking pioneers a century later. But Sydney’s beaches have another history, one that is lesser known and more intriguing. Our world-famous beach culture only exists because the first beachgoers demanded important rights. This book is also the story of these battles for the beach. Accompanied by vibrant images of Sydney’s surf, sand and sun worship, this expansive and delightful book is the story of how a city developed a relationship with its ocean coast, and how a nation created a culture.

For many Australians, the beach is the place where summer weekends begin and end, where meditative winter walks provide sanctuary from the hustle and bustle, and where families, friends and lovers gather to picnic, watch the sunset or walk the dog. In The Beach, award-winning artist Brian Simmonds explores the beauty and diversity of our coastline, and its role in Australian life. Simmonds's evocative pastel and pencil illustrations, accompanied by poetry and prose from well-known Australian writers, makes for the perfect gift book for locals and tourists alike.

The author of Dirt Music and The Riders captures the urgency of memory and the way an entire life can be shaped by one event from the past in this capsule of connected stories set on the coast of Western Australia. Tim Winton's stunning collection of connected stories is about turnings of all kinds—changes of heart, slow awakenings, nasty surprises and accidents, sudden detours, resolves made or broken. Brothers cease speaking to each other, husbands abandon wives and children, grown men are haunted by childhood fears. People struggle against the weight of their own history and try to reconcile themselves to their place in the world. With extraordinary insight and tenderness, Winton explores the demons and frailties of ordinary people whose lives are not what they had hoped.

The White Possessive explores the links between race, sovereignty, and possession through themes of property: owning property, being property, and becoming propertyless. Focusing on the Australian Aboriginal context, Aileen Moreton-Robinson questions current race theory in the first world and its preoccupation with foregrounding slavery and migration. The nation, she argues, is socially and culturally constructed as a white possession. Moreton-Robinson reveals how the core values of Australian national identity continue to have their roots in Britishness and colonization, built on the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty. Whiteness studies literature is central to Moreton-Robinson’s reasoning, and she shows how blackness works as a white epistemological tool that bolsters the social production of whiteness—displacing Indigenous sovereignties and rendering them invisible in a civil rights discourse, thereby sidestepping thorny issues of settler colonialism. Throughout this critical examination Moreton-Robinson proposes a bold new agenda for critical Indigenous studies, one that involves deeper analysis of how the prerogatives of white possession function within the role of disciplines.