272

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

doi 101111j1745-5871200600389x

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Original Acticle

MW ROFE and S OAKLEY

Constructing the Port

Constructing the Port External Perceptions and Interventions in the Making of Place in Port Adelaide South Australia

MATTHEW W ROFE

1

and SUSAN OAKLEY

2

1

School of Natural and Built Environments University of South Australia South Australia 5000 Australia

2

School of Social Sciences University of Adelaide South Australia Australia Corresponding author Email matthewrofeunisaeduau

Received 16 June 2005 Revised 4 November 2005 Accepted 6 January 2006

Abstract

Port Adelaide South Australia has been stigmatised as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo for overone hundred and fifty years The origins of this stigmatised discourse can betraced prior to actual colonisation having their genesis in wide political debatesThis reflects the complex and contested nature of landscape revealing that lsquoPortMiseryrsquo constitutes a powerful meta-narrative that has been projected onto PortAdelaide by powerful and often external actors This stigmatising discourse maylie dormant for prolonged periods of time only to be remobilised to servespecific political social and economic objectives Recently the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse has been remobilised to justify the redevelopment of Port Adelaidefrom an industrial to a post-industrial landscape

KEY WORDS

Port Adelaide Port Misery discourse landscape revitalisation

Introduction

Port Adelaide South Australia is a contestedlandscape From its European settlement in1836 to the present day the Port has been thesite of competing and often contrasting dis-courses

1

These discourses are both externaland internal in origin Externally the Port isstigmatised as a dirty industrial area sufferingfrom long-term social and economic decrepitudeOpposing this discourse are the voices of manylocal residents who speak of the Port with aconsiderable sense of civic pride Seemingly atodds both these discourses speak of the samespace yet they each construct a different senseof place for Port Adelaide This paper criticallyengages with the discursive construction of PortAdelaide arguing that throughout its Europeanhistory powerful external groups have shapedPort Adelaidersquos discourse The imposition of anexternal discourse has stigmatised the Port as a

place apart from the privileged and purportedcivility of Adelaide (Figure 1) So powerful isthis external discourse that it has assumed theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative Weargue that this meta-narrative may lie dormantfor prolonged periods of time only to re-emergeat various strategic times to serve the interestsof powerful external groups Through this pro-cess Port Adelaide is treated as an object devoidof socio-political agency The alternate place nameof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo encapsulates the negative andstigmatising essence of the dominant identityprojected onto Port Adelaide The overwhelminglogic of this meta-narrative is that the Port is aplace either to be shunned by decent people ormore recently a space that requires externalintervention to reclaim its squandered potential

The fundamental premise of this paper is thatlandscapes are not passive Rather they are sociallyconstructed and socially mediated amalgams of

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

273

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

meaning value and memory solidified in thebuilt environment In short the landscapelsquo stretches the imaginationrsquo (Zukin 1991 16)In these few words Zukin alerts us to thechallenge of landscape analysis this being thatunderstanding the entwining of the physicaland the symbolic that constitutes landscape is ademanding and challenging task A number ofexemplary works have accepted this challengeand provide a theoretical and methodologicaltemplate that informs this paper (see Lewis1979 Meinig 1979 Pocock 1981 Duncan andDuncan 1988 Zukin 1991 Barnes and Duncan1992 Rose 2002 Mitchell 2003) The essenceof this theoretical foundation is to reveal whatKobayashi and Peake (1994) call the lsquounnaturaldiscoursersquo of socially constructed and mediatedidentities Allied to this theoretical context are a

number of important papers that criticallyanalyse the complexity of landscapes in transitionand the economic and social narratives they bothembody and communicate Here the works ofDunn

et al

(1995) on the changing identity ofNewcastle are most instructive (see also McGuirk

et al

1996 Winchester

et al

1996a 1996bRofe 2004) Tracing the changing natureand fortunes of Newcastle longitudinallyWinchester

et al

(1996b 75) reveal Newcastle tobe a city lsquo redolent with imagesrsquo These imagesrepresent the restructuring of identity over timeforming the palimpsest of landscape

The processes of identity construction andreconstruction active within Port Adelaide areextremely similar to those evident within otherAustralian cities However while other industrialcities within Australia have in their past been

Figure 1 Study site map

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Geographical Research

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September 2006

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44(3)272ndash284

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celebrated as places of industrial productivityand economic vitality Port Adelaide has sufferedfrom an externally imposed stigmatising discoursefor its entire European history Whereas otherplaces have suffered social decline and anerosion of identity due to the collapse of heavyindustry (Dunn

et al

1995 Rofe 2004) in PortAdelaide the social standing of residents speci-fically and the identity of the area generallywere vilified long before industrial declinecommenced

The research presented in this paper drawsupon a variety of textual sources Here lsquotextrsquo isused to describe forms of information that seekto encapsulate and communicate the essence ofthe Port Text then encompasses a diversity ofcommunication forms ranging from the formalsuch as government reports and media documentsto the seemingly informal such as personaljournals and advertising materials It is importantto critically engage with texts as texts do notsimply lsquomirrorrsquo the world they are active in itscreation (Rose 2001) At the heart of this is thefunction of authorship According to Barnes andDuncan (1992 3) authorship or lsquo writing isconstitutive not simply reflective new worldsare created out of old texts and old worlds are thebasis of new textsrsquo In tracing the constitutivenature of Port Adelaide as Port Misery textualmaterial was sourced from State and otherarchives Ogborn (2004 105) notes that lsquo[a]rchives are the sites of memory where people canbegin to construct accounts of the pastrsquo How-ever it must be noted that as lsquosites of memoryrsquoarchives are partial as the decision to retainspecific sources and materials is selective Thisechoes Bakerrsquos (1997) assertion that historicanalysis is constrained by the survival ofprimary source material In the case of thisresearch the extensive historical collectionsdocumenting the colonising of South Australiawere most fortuitous Consequently originalprimary materials including official colonialcorrespondence and documents Colonial Lightrsquospersonal journal and the

South AustralianGazette and Colonial Register

were availablefor analysis These sources were further supple-mented with the inclusion of a number of originalpublished social commentaries and emigrationguides (for example James 1838 Hailes 1843Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer 1882)These historic materials offered insight into thecreation of the lsquonew worldrsquo of Port Misery andenabled the tracing of the Port Misery discoursethrough the lsquonew textsrsquo of the early twentieth

century and particularly with reference to thecurrent revitalisation of the Port

Employing deconstructive research techniquesit is possible to reveal the discourse that theaforementioned texts construct and communicateabout the nature of Port Adelaide Discourse asdefined by Punch (1998 226) lsquorefers to the framework within which ideas are formulatedrsquoYet discourse is not just about the sterile framingof ideas it is about the creation and communi-cation of knowledge that is highly fertile AsDoel (2004 508) observes lsquo discourse is aspecific constellation of knowledge and practicethrough which a way of life is given materialexpressionrsquo The power of discourse then restsin its ability to appear natural and hence toremain unquestioned Thus like landscape dis-course is not natural Rather it is constructedwithin and through the dynamics of power Thelanguage including images of texts then do notlsquo merely convey social experience but [also]play some major part in constituting socialsubjects their relations and the fields in whichthey existrsquo (Purvis and Hunt 1993 474) Herethe lsquofieldrsquo of Port Adelaide may be thought of asits landscape as communicated through a varietyof texts and perpetuated within wider societalattitudes to that geographic place Howeverdespite offering lsquorichrsquo insights into the socialworld discourse analysis can be lsquoambiguousand messyrsquo at times (Crang 2005 231 alsoCrang 2002 2003 Lees 2004) FollowingRose (2001 135ndash186) two entwined foci ofdiscourse analysis were utilised in this researchRose (2001) refers to these as discourse analysesI and II The first explored the constitutivenature of the knowledge produced by and com-municated thorough those texts analysed Herethe constructed meaning of Port Adelaide asPort Misery was examined The second delvedbeyond the texts themselves and engaged withthe actors involved in the creation of those textsanalysed Here emphasis was placed uponrevealing the ways key individuals and groupshave orchestrated and manipulated the PortMisery discourse to serve their own politicalaims Thus a critical engagement with variousrepresentations of the Port and its variouslandscape changes over time reveals the actionsof powerful external actors as central in con-structing the Portrsquos identity

Unravelling landscape

Social scientists are increasingly recognisingthat landscapes are not passive (for example

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

275

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

Barnes and Duncan 1992 Rose 2001) Thisrealisation has revolutionised the way we perceivebuilt environments and the theories we constructto explain changing perceptions of the humanenvironment Central to this transition wasPocockrsquos (1981 342) assertion that places lsquohave long been recognized as possessing per-sonalityrsquo The lsquopersonalityrsquo possessed by a placeis mediated by and reciprocally mediates humanagency Thus landscapes are social construc-tions reflecting the multiplicity of intersectingdiscourses that constitute our social structuresHowever place has traditionally been consideredas a geographic reality According to Zukin(1991 12) lsquo[w]e are used to thinking of placeas a geographic location a point on a well-bounded maprsquo As a bounded location placeconstitutes a definable and hence knowableterritory This view has been reinforced bycartographic representations which depict placesas discrete spatial units or regions Allied to thisearly concepts of place constructed them asthe physical containers of specific and distinctcommunities

The genesis of more critical finely nuancedtheories of place as complex and contestedlandscapes emerged during the late 1970s Thepublication of

Interpretations of Ordinary Land-scapes Geographical Essays

edited by DonaldMeinig (1979) represented a conceptualwatershed in landscape studies Meinig (19793) defined place as being contingent lsquo uponsome public agreement as to name location andcharacter some legibility some identity com-monly understoodrsquo Yet Meinig and his fellowcontributors to this text did not equate thisnotion of place with an unassailable ontologicalreality Emphasising this Lewis (1979 12)identified the fundamental principle of thenew cultural approach to landscapes as lsquo

allhuman landscape has cultural meanin

grsquo (originalemphasis) This principle firmly shifted analyticalfocus from the landscape to the meaningsinscribed upon the landscape and more impor-tantly to the struggles over these meanings Akey element of this is what John Eyles (1985)later referred to as a lsquosense of placersquo ForMeinig (1979 1ndash6 33ndash48) a sense of place isrelated to experience of and the value attachedto landscape which combined shape perceptionHence our sense of place

is unique to each of us in its contentand in the way it relates to general socialdefinitions of place Thus each of us creates

and accumulates places out of livingwhenever we pierce the infinite blur of theworld and fix a piece of our environment assomething distinct and memorable (Meinig1979 3)

Implicit in this is the realisation that firstlyplaces are not discrete bounded localities andsecondly that places are more than an assembl-age of physical structures As Doreen Massey(1992 11) asserts

place is formed in part out of the particularset of social relations which interact at aparticular location And the singularity of anyindividual place is formed in part out of thespecificity of the interactions which occur atthat location

Drawing upon social construction theory Masseyreveals that places are complex social construc-tions This explodes ontological notions of placeRather landscape constitutes lsquo ritualisedplace[s] of performance and social congressrsquo(Osborne 1998 452) The implications of sucha perspective for how we perceive a givenlandscape is staggering Once considered thelsquomediumrsquo upon which human agency wasperformed landscape becomes the amalgam ofsocial agency and physicality

While landscapes are inherently fluidattempts are constantly being made to fix theirmeaning or identity Crump (1999) argues thatthe ability to fix the meaning or identity oflandscape is related to power Those individualsand groups with greater access to power are ableto more effectively lsquo stamp their vision

into

the landscapersquo (Crump 1999 20) (emphasisadded) The notion of stamping vision

into

rather than

onto

the landscape is important andilluminates the process of discursive authorityover place To stamp vision

into

is to deeplyimbed a given discourse within a place so thatthat discourse assumes a naturalised positionThis is most evident through state sanctionedprojects such as the erection of monumentsMemorial landscapes to military endeavour forexample seek to fix and communicate a specificdiscourse of national identity in space (Jeans1988) However memorial landscapes are highlycontested spaces as they simultaneously includesome groups and exclude others Landscapeanalysis then reveals not only dominant inscrip-tions but also alerts us to the undermining ofthese inscriptions (Rose 2002 458) For Mitchell(2003) the identification of symbolic struggles

276

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within the landscape sheds light on a morepressing project that being active involvementin the struggle for landscapes of justice

Thus landscapes can be lsquoreadrsquo as social textsrevealing shifting power relations Duncan andDuncan (1988) proposed that the ability to readlandscapes as a semiotic text requires possessionof the correct contextual keys The ultimateproject of such an undertaking is to reveal thepower structures and ideological values repres-ented through the landscape However readingthe landscape can be fraught with tensionsForemost amongst these is the ability to ade-quately identify and accurately decode themeanings encapsulated in the landscape Thecomplexity of this task is multiplied as land-scapes are multifaceted simultaneously lsquo apanorama a composition a palimpsestrsquo (Zukin1991 17) Alternatively these tensions can beemployed creatively to better understand thesocial construction of landscapes This can beachieved through the recognition of and a criticalengagement with the competing voices thatwrestle over the discursive form of the landscapeAs Walton (1995 62) reminds us

Accepting landscape as lsquotextrsquo (in the contem-porary sense of the term) implies that we canknow it is not a given universal lsquoauthenticrsquoworld but an epistemologically mediatedreality constructed linguistically as well asmaterially

Thus the landscape of Port Adelaide is neithernatural nor benign Rather it is a sociallyconstructed landscape rich in a site-specificvernacular that is both semiotic and materialUnderstanding the development of this vernacularrequires both an understanding of the discoursesencoded into the Port Adelaide landscape andhow these have shifted over time

Creating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide is derogatively referred to as lsquoPortMiseryrsquo The origins of this name are entrenchedin complex political feuding that emergedprior to European colonisation thus emphasisingthe longevity of the Portrsquos stigmatisation Theemergence of the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse revealsa complex interplay of political forces andsocial perceptions that were projected upon thephysical landscape of Port Adelaide Under-standing the interplay of these factors requiresan examination of the political precursors toand pressures experienced during the initialcolonisation of South Australia

South Australia unlike preceding colonies inAustralia was conceived as a utopian settlementfree from the stain of convict transportation

2

Declared the Province of South Australia in1834 the irony was that none of the colonyrsquosprinciple architects had ever physically beenthere In the truest sense then the establishmentof South Australia was a speculative ventureLand allotments were sold to prospective middleclass immigrants recruited through a series ofnewsletters and pamphlets extolling the virtuesof the emergent colony However adequateforward planning was somewhat lacking andoften based upon unrealistic political andeconomic expectations The complex politicaldimensions prior to actual colonisation are nomore readily apparent than in the identificationof potential sites for the establishment of thecolonial capital

Politicising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Site selection for the new colonial capital wasmired in bitter political and personal debate Thetwo main protagonists in this debate were thecolonial surveyor Colonial William Light andthe appointed Governor John Hindmarsh Lightwas charged with the unrealistic task of chartingin detail some 1500 km of coast selectingsurveying and founding the colonial capital andtime permitting surveying as many secondarysettlements as possible The two-months Lightwas given to acquit these tasks prior to the firstwave of colonists arriving highlights the impos-sible nature of Lightrsquos task It was believed thatMatthew Flindersrsquo 1802 survey of the coastlinehad already identified several suitable sites forthe colonial capital Essential to the success ofthe prospective capital was fresh water and asafe harbour Pouring over Flindersrsquo charts inEngland Hindmarsh placed great hope uponPort Lincoln as the site of the future colonialcapital However Light remained uncommitted tomaking a speculative decision to the infuriationof Hindmarsh Light was aware that only athorough firsthand survey would yield a rationaldecision Hindmarsh frustrated by his lack ofcontrol and what he perceived as insubordina-tion by a man he considered his social andprofessional inferior

3

proved obstinate in hisopinion Hindmarsh fermented this feud publiclyand privately questioning Lightrsquos lsquoRoyal Pre-rogativersquo to select the colonial capital (Mayo1937 131) This emerging conflict in Englandwas bitterly played out over the initial years ofthe colony between Light and Hindmarsh and

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

277

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

resulted in the stigmatisation of Port Adelaide asa place of inferior physical quality and socialcharacter

The selection of the site of Adelaide and PortAdelaide by Light is matter of historical recordWhile Light praised the Adelaide plains as alsquolittle paradisersquo (Light cited in Whitelock 19858) the site was landlocked Light proposed thatestablishing a second settlement some 14 kmto the northwest of the colonial capital couldsuitably accommodate the requirements for asafe port Lightrsquos plan displayed exceptionalforesight for it was his intention that in thewords of assistant surveyor Finnis (1837 cited inWhitelock 1985 28) lsquo as wealth and popu-lation increased Adelaide would soon approachnearer the harbour than six miles Those mileswould then become a vast suburb studded withshops and warehousesrsquo Foreshadowing thisfuture urban agglomeration Light named theproposed harbour Port Adelaide

This plan met fierce opposition from Hind-marsh and his supporters Hindmarsh remainedresolute in his preference for Port LincolnHowever Light rejected Port Lincoln becauseits harbour was lsquoironboundrsquo with dangerousshoals while the surrounding hinterland wasextremely arid (Light 1839 49) InfuriatedHindmarsh withdrew from the Adelaide siteand sought unsuccessfully to overrule LightHowever aided by George Stevenson the editorof the colonyrsquos first newspaper the

South Aus-tralian Gazette and Colonial Register

Hindmarshwas extremely successful in fermenting descentconcerning Lightrsquos choice for the colonialcapital Through the

Gazette

in particular theyquestioned the physical suitability of theharbour while mounting a parallel argumentthat denigrated the social conditions emerging atPort Adelaide as unfitting the utopian vision forthe colony The public nature of this debate ismost significant as it demonstrates that socialcommentary on South Australia in general andPort Adelaide specifically was enmeshed inwider political and personal agendas Thisemphasises that knowledge is never neutral it isalways strategic and inherently political Indicativeof the strategic and political nature of socialcommentary are the writings particularly of THJames (1838) but equally of Nathaniel Hailes(1843) Robert Harrison (1862) William Harcus(1876) and Alexander Tolmer (1882)

The works of the aforementioned authorswere cast in the vein of authoritative textsproviding advice to prospective middle class

immigrants to South Australia Indicative ofthis Jamesrsquo (1838) preface establishes his bookas a lsquo timely true and impartial account ofthe New Colony by an eyewitnessrsquo Here Jamesdraws around his work the credibility of objec-tivity founded upon the authority of directobservation and experience These claims arerendered spurious as a close reading of the textreveals James to be a staunch supporter ofHindmarsh concerning the preferred locationof the colonial capital Openly declaring hispolitical affiliation James (1838 8) states thatPort Lincoln was where

the capital City was intended to have beenestablished and it is a thousand pities thatthe Commissionersrsquo instructions in thismatter were not complied with because inthe absence of any other Port nothing canprevent this magnificent harbour from beingsooner or later the emporium of the newColony

Emphasising the folly of Lightrsquos site selectionJames (1838 8) refers to Port Lincoln as lsquo oneof the finest harbour in the world far superior[even] to Portsmouth Plymouth CromartyCork or Milford in Great Britainrsquo The use ofestablished and influential British ports as asymbolic foil for the qualities of Port Lincolnentrenches the political intent of the text in thereaderrsquos pre-existing knowledge By comparisonPort Adelaide was a wholly unsuitable harboura lsquo narrow dirty ditchrsquo that was hazardous tonavigate due to a treacherous bar irregular tidesand unpredictable winds (James 1838 24ndash26)Consequently James (1838 10) asserted thatPort Adelaide while lsquo well enough for smallervessels is totally unfit for general purposes ofcommerce and will never come to anythingrsquoThus Port Adelaide was considered to be onlya temporary measure until sanity prevailed andHindmarsh was able to relocate the colonialcapital to Port Lincoln

James was extremely cautious in openlycriticising Light With reference to the personaldebate over the settlement site between Lightand Hindmarsh James (1838 10) tactfully noteslsquo[i]t is very disagreeable to be compelled tospeak of the unsuitableness of Port Adelaidebecause it seems to imply a censure upon ColonelLightrsquo Despite this protest James (1838 10)felt obliged to lsquo speak the truth in order thatany impediments to the prosperity of the Colonybe remedied if not removedrsquo Once in the open asan opponent of Light and his choice of settlement

278

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

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casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

273

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

meaning value and memory solidified in thebuilt environment In short the landscapelsquo stretches the imaginationrsquo (Zukin 1991 16)In these few words Zukin alerts us to thechallenge of landscape analysis this being thatunderstanding the entwining of the physicaland the symbolic that constitutes landscape is ademanding and challenging task A number ofexemplary works have accepted this challengeand provide a theoretical and methodologicaltemplate that informs this paper (see Lewis1979 Meinig 1979 Pocock 1981 Duncan andDuncan 1988 Zukin 1991 Barnes and Duncan1992 Rose 2002 Mitchell 2003) The essenceof this theoretical foundation is to reveal whatKobayashi and Peake (1994) call the lsquounnaturaldiscoursersquo of socially constructed and mediatedidentities Allied to this theoretical context are a

number of important papers that criticallyanalyse the complexity of landscapes in transitionand the economic and social narratives they bothembody and communicate Here the works ofDunn

et al

(1995) on the changing identity ofNewcastle are most instructive (see also McGuirk

et al

1996 Winchester

et al

1996a 1996bRofe 2004) Tracing the changing natureand fortunes of Newcastle longitudinallyWinchester

et al

(1996b 75) reveal Newcastle tobe a city lsquo redolent with imagesrsquo These imagesrepresent the restructuring of identity over timeforming the palimpsest of landscape

The processes of identity construction andreconstruction active within Port Adelaide areextremely similar to those evident within otherAustralian cities However while other industrialcities within Australia have in their past been

Figure 1 Study site map

274

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

celebrated as places of industrial productivityand economic vitality Port Adelaide has sufferedfrom an externally imposed stigmatising discoursefor its entire European history Whereas otherplaces have suffered social decline and anerosion of identity due to the collapse of heavyindustry (Dunn

et al

1995 Rofe 2004) in PortAdelaide the social standing of residents speci-fically and the identity of the area generallywere vilified long before industrial declinecommenced

The research presented in this paper drawsupon a variety of textual sources Here lsquotextrsquo isused to describe forms of information that seekto encapsulate and communicate the essence ofthe Port Text then encompasses a diversity ofcommunication forms ranging from the formalsuch as government reports and media documentsto the seemingly informal such as personaljournals and advertising materials It is importantto critically engage with texts as texts do notsimply lsquomirrorrsquo the world they are active in itscreation (Rose 2001) At the heart of this is thefunction of authorship According to Barnes andDuncan (1992 3) authorship or lsquo writing isconstitutive not simply reflective new worldsare created out of old texts and old worlds are thebasis of new textsrsquo In tracing the constitutivenature of Port Adelaide as Port Misery textualmaterial was sourced from State and otherarchives Ogborn (2004 105) notes that lsquo[a]rchives are the sites of memory where people canbegin to construct accounts of the pastrsquo How-ever it must be noted that as lsquosites of memoryrsquoarchives are partial as the decision to retainspecific sources and materials is selective Thisechoes Bakerrsquos (1997) assertion that historicanalysis is constrained by the survival ofprimary source material In the case of thisresearch the extensive historical collectionsdocumenting the colonising of South Australiawere most fortuitous Consequently originalprimary materials including official colonialcorrespondence and documents Colonial Lightrsquospersonal journal and the

South AustralianGazette and Colonial Register

were availablefor analysis These sources were further supple-mented with the inclusion of a number of originalpublished social commentaries and emigrationguides (for example James 1838 Hailes 1843Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer 1882)These historic materials offered insight into thecreation of the lsquonew worldrsquo of Port Misery andenabled the tracing of the Port Misery discoursethrough the lsquonew textsrsquo of the early twentieth

century and particularly with reference to thecurrent revitalisation of the Port

Employing deconstructive research techniquesit is possible to reveal the discourse that theaforementioned texts construct and communicateabout the nature of Port Adelaide Discourse asdefined by Punch (1998 226) lsquorefers to the framework within which ideas are formulatedrsquoYet discourse is not just about the sterile framingof ideas it is about the creation and communi-cation of knowledge that is highly fertile AsDoel (2004 508) observes lsquo discourse is aspecific constellation of knowledge and practicethrough which a way of life is given materialexpressionrsquo The power of discourse then restsin its ability to appear natural and hence toremain unquestioned Thus like landscape dis-course is not natural Rather it is constructedwithin and through the dynamics of power Thelanguage including images of texts then do notlsquo merely convey social experience but [also]play some major part in constituting socialsubjects their relations and the fields in whichthey existrsquo (Purvis and Hunt 1993 474) Herethe lsquofieldrsquo of Port Adelaide may be thought of asits landscape as communicated through a varietyof texts and perpetuated within wider societalattitudes to that geographic place Howeverdespite offering lsquorichrsquo insights into the socialworld discourse analysis can be lsquoambiguousand messyrsquo at times (Crang 2005 231 alsoCrang 2002 2003 Lees 2004) FollowingRose (2001 135ndash186) two entwined foci ofdiscourse analysis were utilised in this researchRose (2001) refers to these as discourse analysesI and II The first explored the constitutivenature of the knowledge produced by and com-municated thorough those texts analysed Herethe constructed meaning of Port Adelaide asPort Misery was examined The second delvedbeyond the texts themselves and engaged withthe actors involved in the creation of those textsanalysed Here emphasis was placed uponrevealing the ways key individuals and groupshave orchestrated and manipulated the PortMisery discourse to serve their own politicalaims Thus a critical engagement with variousrepresentations of the Port and its variouslandscape changes over time reveals the actionsof powerful external actors as central in con-structing the Portrsquos identity

Unravelling landscape

Social scientists are increasingly recognisingthat landscapes are not passive (for example

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

275

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

Barnes and Duncan 1992 Rose 2001) Thisrealisation has revolutionised the way we perceivebuilt environments and the theories we constructto explain changing perceptions of the humanenvironment Central to this transition wasPocockrsquos (1981 342) assertion that places lsquohave long been recognized as possessing per-sonalityrsquo The lsquopersonalityrsquo possessed by a placeis mediated by and reciprocally mediates humanagency Thus landscapes are social construc-tions reflecting the multiplicity of intersectingdiscourses that constitute our social structuresHowever place has traditionally been consideredas a geographic reality According to Zukin(1991 12) lsquo[w]e are used to thinking of placeas a geographic location a point on a well-bounded maprsquo As a bounded location placeconstitutes a definable and hence knowableterritory This view has been reinforced bycartographic representations which depict placesas discrete spatial units or regions Allied to thisearly concepts of place constructed them asthe physical containers of specific and distinctcommunities

The genesis of more critical finely nuancedtheories of place as complex and contestedlandscapes emerged during the late 1970s Thepublication of

Interpretations of Ordinary Land-scapes Geographical Essays

edited by DonaldMeinig (1979) represented a conceptualwatershed in landscape studies Meinig (19793) defined place as being contingent lsquo uponsome public agreement as to name location andcharacter some legibility some identity com-monly understoodrsquo Yet Meinig and his fellowcontributors to this text did not equate thisnotion of place with an unassailable ontologicalreality Emphasising this Lewis (1979 12)identified the fundamental principle of thenew cultural approach to landscapes as lsquo

allhuman landscape has cultural meanin

grsquo (originalemphasis) This principle firmly shifted analyticalfocus from the landscape to the meaningsinscribed upon the landscape and more impor-tantly to the struggles over these meanings Akey element of this is what John Eyles (1985)later referred to as a lsquosense of placersquo ForMeinig (1979 1ndash6 33ndash48) a sense of place isrelated to experience of and the value attachedto landscape which combined shape perceptionHence our sense of place

is unique to each of us in its contentand in the way it relates to general socialdefinitions of place Thus each of us creates

and accumulates places out of livingwhenever we pierce the infinite blur of theworld and fix a piece of our environment assomething distinct and memorable (Meinig1979 3)

Implicit in this is the realisation that firstlyplaces are not discrete bounded localities andsecondly that places are more than an assembl-age of physical structures As Doreen Massey(1992 11) asserts

place is formed in part out of the particularset of social relations which interact at aparticular location And the singularity of anyindividual place is formed in part out of thespecificity of the interactions which occur atthat location

Drawing upon social construction theory Masseyreveals that places are complex social construc-tions This explodes ontological notions of placeRather landscape constitutes lsquo ritualisedplace[s] of performance and social congressrsquo(Osborne 1998 452) The implications of sucha perspective for how we perceive a givenlandscape is staggering Once considered thelsquomediumrsquo upon which human agency wasperformed landscape becomes the amalgam ofsocial agency and physicality

While landscapes are inherently fluidattempts are constantly being made to fix theirmeaning or identity Crump (1999) argues thatthe ability to fix the meaning or identity oflandscape is related to power Those individualsand groups with greater access to power are ableto more effectively lsquo stamp their vision

into

the landscapersquo (Crump 1999 20) (emphasisadded) The notion of stamping vision

into

rather than

onto

the landscape is important andilluminates the process of discursive authorityover place To stamp vision

into

is to deeplyimbed a given discourse within a place so thatthat discourse assumes a naturalised positionThis is most evident through state sanctionedprojects such as the erection of monumentsMemorial landscapes to military endeavour forexample seek to fix and communicate a specificdiscourse of national identity in space (Jeans1988) However memorial landscapes are highlycontested spaces as they simultaneously includesome groups and exclude others Landscapeanalysis then reveals not only dominant inscrip-tions but also alerts us to the undermining ofthese inscriptions (Rose 2002 458) For Mitchell(2003) the identification of symbolic struggles

276

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

within the landscape sheds light on a morepressing project that being active involvementin the struggle for landscapes of justice

Thus landscapes can be lsquoreadrsquo as social textsrevealing shifting power relations Duncan andDuncan (1988) proposed that the ability to readlandscapes as a semiotic text requires possessionof the correct contextual keys The ultimateproject of such an undertaking is to reveal thepower structures and ideological values repres-ented through the landscape However readingthe landscape can be fraught with tensionsForemost amongst these is the ability to ade-quately identify and accurately decode themeanings encapsulated in the landscape Thecomplexity of this task is multiplied as land-scapes are multifaceted simultaneously lsquo apanorama a composition a palimpsestrsquo (Zukin1991 17) Alternatively these tensions can beemployed creatively to better understand thesocial construction of landscapes This can beachieved through the recognition of and a criticalengagement with the competing voices thatwrestle over the discursive form of the landscapeAs Walton (1995 62) reminds us

Accepting landscape as lsquotextrsquo (in the contem-porary sense of the term) implies that we canknow it is not a given universal lsquoauthenticrsquoworld but an epistemologically mediatedreality constructed linguistically as well asmaterially

Thus the landscape of Port Adelaide is neithernatural nor benign Rather it is a sociallyconstructed landscape rich in a site-specificvernacular that is both semiotic and materialUnderstanding the development of this vernacularrequires both an understanding of the discoursesencoded into the Port Adelaide landscape andhow these have shifted over time

Creating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide is derogatively referred to as lsquoPortMiseryrsquo The origins of this name are entrenchedin complex political feuding that emergedprior to European colonisation thus emphasisingthe longevity of the Portrsquos stigmatisation Theemergence of the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse revealsa complex interplay of political forces andsocial perceptions that were projected upon thephysical landscape of Port Adelaide Under-standing the interplay of these factors requiresan examination of the political precursors toand pressures experienced during the initialcolonisation of South Australia

South Australia unlike preceding colonies inAustralia was conceived as a utopian settlementfree from the stain of convict transportation

2

Declared the Province of South Australia in1834 the irony was that none of the colonyrsquosprinciple architects had ever physically beenthere In the truest sense then the establishmentof South Australia was a speculative ventureLand allotments were sold to prospective middleclass immigrants recruited through a series ofnewsletters and pamphlets extolling the virtuesof the emergent colony However adequateforward planning was somewhat lacking andoften based upon unrealistic political andeconomic expectations The complex politicaldimensions prior to actual colonisation are nomore readily apparent than in the identificationof potential sites for the establishment of thecolonial capital

Politicising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Site selection for the new colonial capital wasmired in bitter political and personal debate Thetwo main protagonists in this debate were thecolonial surveyor Colonial William Light andthe appointed Governor John Hindmarsh Lightwas charged with the unrealistic task of chartingin detail some 1500 km of coast selectingsurveying and founding the colonial capital andtime permitting surveying as many secondarysettlements as possible The two-months Lightwas given to acquit these tasks prior to the firstwave of colonists arriving highlights the impos-sible nature of Lightrsquos task It was believed thatMatthew Flindersrsquo 1802 survey of the coastlinehad already identified several suitable sites forthe colonial capital Essential to the success ofthe prospective capital was fresh water and asafe harbour Pouring over Flindersrsquo charts inEngland Hindmarsh placed great hope uponPort Lincoln as the site of the future colonialcapital However Light remained uncommitted tomaking a speculative decision to the infuriationof Hindmarsh Light was aware that only athorough firsthand survey would yield a rationaldecision Hindmarsh frustrated by his lack ofcontrol and what he perceived as insubordina-tion by a man he considered his social andprofessional inferior

3

proved obstinate in hisopinion Hindmarsh fermented this feud publiclyand privately questioning Lightrsquos lsquoRoyal Pre-rogativersquo to select the colonial capital (Mayo1937 131) This emerging conflict in Englandwas bitterly played out over the initial years ofthe colony between Light and Hindmarsh and

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

277

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

resulted in the stigmatisation of Port Adelaide asa place of inferior physical quality and socialcharacter

The selection of the site of Adelaide and PortAdelaide by Light is matter of historical recordWhile Light praised the Adelaide plains as alsquolittle paradisersquo (Light cited in Whitelock 19858) the site was landlocked Light proposed thatestablishing a second settlement some 14 kmto the northwest of the colonial capital couldsuitably accommodate the requirements for asafe port Lightrsquos plan displayed exceptionalforesight for it was his intention that in thewords of assistant surveyor Finnis (1837 cited inWhitelock 1985 28) lsquo as wealth and popu-lation increased Adelaide would soon approachnearer the harbour than six miles Those mileswould then become a vast suburb studded withshops and warehousesrsquo Foreshadowing thisfuture urban agglomeration Light named theproposed harbour Port Adelaide

This plan met fierce opposition from Hind-marsh and his supporters Hindmarsh remainedresolute in his preference for Port LincolnHowever Light rejected Port Lincoln becauseits harbour was lsquoironboundrsquo with dangerousshoals while the surrounding hinterland wasextremely arid (Light 1839 49) InfuriatedHindmarsh withdrew from the Adelaide siteand sought unsuccessfully to overrule LightHowever aided by George Stevenson the editorof the colonyrsquos first newspaper the

South Aus-tralian Gazette and Colonial Register

Hindmarshwas extremely successful in fermenting descentconcerning Lightrsquos choice for the colonialcapital Through the

Gazette

in particular theyquestioned the physical suitability of theharbour while mounting a parallel argumentthat denigrated the social conditions emerging atPort Adelaide as unfitting the utopian vision forthe colony The public nature of this debate ismost significant as it demonstrates that socialcommentary on South Australia in general andPort Adelaide specifically was enmeshed inwider political and personal agendas Thisemphasises that knowledge is never neutral it isalways strategic and inherently political Indicativeof the strategic and political nature of socialcommentary are the writings particularly of THJames (1838) but equally of Nathaniel Hailes(1843) Robert Harrison (1862) William Harcus(1876) and Alexander Tolmer (1882)

The works of the aforementioned authorswere cast in the vein of authoritative textsproviding advice to prospective middle class

immigrants to South Australia Indicative ofthis Jamesrsquo (1838) preface establishes his bookas a lsquo timely true and impartial account ofthe New Colony by an eyewitnessrsquo Here Jamesdraws around his work the credibility of objec-tivity founded upon the authority of directobservation and experience These claims arerendered spurious as a close reading of the textreveals James to be a staunch supporter ofHindmarsh concerning the preferred locationof the colonial capital Openly declaring hispolitical affiliation James (1838 8) states thatPort Lincoln was where

the capital City was intended to have beenestablished and it is a thousand pities thatthe Commissionersrsquo instructions in thismatter were not complied with because inthe absence of any other Port nothing canprevent this magnificent harbour from beingsooner or later the emporium of the newColony

Emphasising the folly of Lightrsquos site selectionJames (1838 8) refers to Port Lincoln as lsquo oneof the finest harbour in the world far superior[even] to Portsmouth Plymouth CromartyCork or Milford in Great Britainrsquo The use ofestablished and influential British ports as asymbolic foil for the qualities of Port Lincolnentrenches the political intent of the text in thereaderrsquos pre-existing knowledge By comparisonPort Adelaide was a wholly unsuitable harboura lsquo narrow dirty ditchrsquo that was hazardous tonavigate due to a treacherous bar irregular tidesand unpredictable winds (James 1838 24ndash26)Consequently James (1838 10) asserted thatPort Adelaide while lsquo well enough for smallervessels is totally unfit for general purposes ofcommerce and will never come to anythingrsquoThus Port Adelaide was considered to be onlya temporary measure until sanity prevailed andHindmarsh was able to relocate the colonialcapital to Port Lincoln

James was extremely cautious in openlycriticising Light With reference to the personaldebate over the settlement site between Lightand Hindmarsh James (1838 10) tactfully noteslsquo[i]t is very disagreeable to be compelled tospeak of the unsuitableness of Port Adelaidebecause it seems to imply a censure upon ColonelLightrsquo Despite this protest James (1838 10)felt obliged to lsquo speak the truth in order thatany impediments to the prosperity of the Colonybe remedied if not removedrsquo Once in the open asan opponent of Light and his choice of settlement

278

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

274

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

celebrated as places of industrial productivityand economic vitality Port Adelaide has sufferedfrom an externally imposed stigmatising discoursefor its entire European history Whereas otherplaces have suffered social decline and anerosion of identity due to the collapse of heavyindustry (Dunn

et al

1995 Rofe 2004) in PortAdelaide the social standing of residents speci-fically and the identity of the area generallywere vilified long before industrial declinecommenced

The research presented in this paper drawsupon a variety of textual sources Here lsquotextrsquo isused to describe forms of information that seekto encapsulate and communicate the essence ofthe Port Text then encompasses a diversity ofcommunication forms ranging from the formalsuch as government reports and media documentsto the seemingly informal such as personaljournals and advertising materials It is importantto critically engage with texts as texts do notsimply lsquomirrorrsquo the world they are active in itscreation (Rose 2001) At the heart of this is thefunction of authorship According to Barnes andDuncan (1992 3) authorship or lsquo writing isconstitutive not simply reflective new worldsare created out of old texts and old worlds are thebasis of new textsrsquo In tracing the constitutivenature of Port Adelaide as Port Misery textualmaterial was sourced from State and otherarchives Ogborn (2004 105) notes that lsquo[a]rchives are the sites of memory where people canbegin to construct accounts of the pastrsquo How-ever it must be noted that as lsquosites of memoryrsquoarchives are partial as the decision to retainspecific sources and materials is selective Thisechoes Bakerrsquos (1997) assertion that historicanalysis is constrained by the survival ofprimary source material In the case of thisresearch the extensive historical collectionsdocumenting the colonising of South Australiawere most fortuitous Consequently originalprimary materials including official colonialcorrespondence and documents Colonial Lightrsquospersonal journal and the

South AustralianGazette and Colonial Register

were availablefor analysis These sources were further supple-mented with the inclusion of a number of originalpublished social commentaries and emigrationguides (for example James 1838 Hailes 1843Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer 1882)These historic materials offered insight into thecreation of the lsquonew worldrsquo of Port Misery andenabled the tracing of the Port Misery discoursethrough the lsquonew textsrsquo of the early twentieth

century and particularly with reference to thecurrent revitalisation of the Port

Employing deconstructive research techniquesit is possible to reveal the discourse that theaforementioned texts construct and communicateabout the nature of Port Adelaide Discourse asdefined by Punch (1998 226) lsquorefers to the framework within which ideas are formulatedrsquoYet discourse is not just about the sterile framingof ideas it is about the creation and communi-cation of knowledge that is highly fertile AsDoel (2004 508) observes lsquo discourse is aspecific constellation of knowledge and practicethrough which a way of life is given materialexpressionrsquo The power of discourse then restsin its ability to appear natural and hence toremain unquestioned Thus like landscape dis-course is not natural Rather it is constructedwithin and through the dynamics of power Thelanguage including images of texts then do notlsquo merely convey social experience but [also]play some major part in constituting socialsubjects their relations and the fields in whichthey existrsquo (Purvis and Hunt 1993 474) Herethe lsquofieldrsquo of Port Adelaide may be thought of asits landscape as communicated through a varietyof texts and perpetuated within wider societalattitudes to that geographic place Howeverdespite offering lsquorichrsquo insights into the socialworld discourse analysis can be lsquoambiguousand messyrsquo at times (Crang 2005 231 alsoCrang 2002 2003 Lees 2004) FollowingRose (2001 135ndash186) two entwined foci ofdiscourse analysis were utilised in this researchRose (2001) refers to these as discourse analysesI and II The first explored the constitutivenature of the knowledge produced by and com-municated thorough those texts analysed Herethe constructed meaning of Port Adelaide asPort Misery was examined The second delvedbeyond the texts themselves and engaged withthe actors involved in the creation of those textsanalysed Here emphasis was placed uponrevealing the ways key individuals and groupshave orchestrated and manipulated the PortMisery discourse to serve their own politicalaims Thus a critical engagement with variousrepresentations of the Port and its variouslandscape changes over time reveals the actionsof powerful external actors as central in con-structing the Portrsquos identity

Unravelling landscape

Social scientists are increasingly recognisingthat landscapes are not passive (for example

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

275

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

Barnes and Duncan 1992 Rose 2001) Thisrealisation has revolutionised the way we perceivebuilt environments and the theories we constructto explain changing perceptions of the humanenvironment Central to this transition wasPocockrsquos (1981 342) assertion that places lsquohave long been recognized as possessing per-sonalityrsquo The lsquopersonalityrsquo possessed by a placeis mediated by and reciprocally mediates humanagency Thus landscapes are social construc-tions reflecting the multiplicity of intersectingdiscourses that constitute our social structuresHowever place has traditionally been consideredas a geographic reality According to Zukin(1991 12) lsquo[w]e are used to thinking of placeas a geographic location a point on a well-bounded maprsquo As a bounded location placeconstitutes a definable and hence knowableterritory This view has been reinforced bycartographic representations which depict placesas discrete spatial units or regions Allied to thisearly concepts of place constructed them asthe physical containers of specific and distinctcommunities

The genesis of more critical finely nuancedtheories of place as complex and contestedlandscapes emerged during the late 1970s Thepublication of

Interpretations of Ordinary Land-scapes Geographical Essays

edited by DonaldMeinig (1979) represented a conceptualwatershed in landscape studies Meinig (19793) defined place as being contingent lsquo uponsome public agreement as to name location andcharacter some legibility some identity com-monly understoodrsquo Yet Meinig and his fellowcontributors to this text did not equate thisnotion of place with an unassailable ontologicalreality Emphasising this Lewis (1979 12)identified the fundamental principle of thenew cultural approach to landscapes as lsquo

allhuman landscape has cultural meanin

grsquo (originalemphasis) This principle firmly shifted analyticalfocus from the landscape to the meaningsinscribed upon the landscape and more impor-tantly to the struggles over these meanings Akey element of this is what John Eyles (1985)later referred to as a lsquosense of placersquo ForMeinig (1979 1ndash6 33ndash48) a sense of place isrelated to experience of and the value attachedto landscape which combined shape perceptionHence our sense of place

is unique to each of us in its contentand in the way it relates to general socialdefinitions of place Thus each of us creates

and accumulates places out of livingwhenever we pierce the infinite blur of theworld and fix a piece of our environment assomething distinct and memorable (Meinig1979 3)

Implicit in this is the realisation that firstlyplaces are not discrete bounded localities andsecondly that places are more than an assembl-age of physical structures As Doreen Massey(1992 11) asserts

place is formed in part out of the particularset of social relations which interact at aparticular location And the singularity of anyindividual place is formed in part out of thespecificity of the interactions which occur atthat location

Drawing upon social construction theory Masseyreveals that places are complex social construc-tions This explodes ontological notions of placeRather landscape constitutes lsquo ritualisedplace[s] of performance and social congressrsquo(Osborne 1998 452) The implications of sucha perspective for how we perceive a givenlandscape is staggering Once considered thelsquomediumrsquo upon which human agency wasperformed landscape becomes the amalgam ofsocial agency and physicality

While landscapes are inherently fluidattempts are constantly being made to fix theirmeaning or identity Crump (1999) argues thatthe ability to fix the meaning or identity oflandscape is related to power Those individualsand groups with greater access to power are ableto more effectively lsquo stamp their vision

into

the landscapersquo (Crump 1999 20) (emphasisadded) The notion of stamping vision

into

rather than

onto

the landscape is important andilluminates the process of discursive authorityover place To stamp vision

into

is to deeplyimbed a given discourse within a place so thatthat discourse assumes a naturalised positionThis is most evident through state sanctionedprojects such as the erection of monumentsMemorial landscapes to military endeavour forexample seek to fix and communicate a specificdiscourse of national identity in space (Jeans1988) However memorial landscapes are highlycontested spaces as they simultaneously includesome groups and exclude others Landscapeanalysis then reveals not only dominant inscrip-tions but also alerts us to the undermining ofthese inscriptions (Rose 2002 458) For Mitchell(2003) the identification of symbolic struggles

276

Geographical Research

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44(3)272ndash284

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within the landscape sheds light on a morepressing project that being active involvementin the struggle for landscapes of justice

Thus landscapes can be lsquoreadrsquo as social textsrevealing shifting power relations Duncan andDuncan (1988) proposed that the ability to readlandscapes as a semiotic text requires possessionof the correct contextual keys The ultimateproject of such an undertaking is to reveal thepower structures and ideological values repres-ented through the landscape However readingthe landscape can be fraught with tensionsForemost amongst these is the ability to ade-quately identify and accurately decode themeanings encapsulated in the landscape Thecomplexity of this task is multiplied as land-scapes are multifaceted simultaneously lsquo apanorama a composition a palimpsestrsquo (Zukin1991 17) Alternatively these tensions can beemployed creatively to better understand thesocial construction of landscapes This can beachieved through the recognition of and a criticalengagement with the competing voices thatwrestle over the discursive form of the landscapeAs Walton (1995 62) reminds us

Accepting landscape as lsquotextrsquo (in the contem-porary sense of the term) implies that we canknow it is not a given universal lsquoauthenticrsquoworld but an epistemologically mediatedreality constructed linguistically as well asmaterially

Thus the landscape of Port Adelaide is neithernatural nor benign Rather it is a sociallyconstructed landscape rich in a site-specificvernacular that is both semiotic and materialUnderstanding the development of this vernacularrequires both an understanding of the discoursesencoded into the Port Adelaide landscape andhow these have shifted over time

Creating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide is derogatively referred to as lsquoPortMiseryrsquo The origins of this name are entrenchedin complex political feuding that emergedprior to European colonisation thus emphasisingthe longevity of the Portrsquos stigmatisation Theemergence of the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse revealsa complex interplay of political forces andsocial perceptions that were projected upon thephysical landscape of Port Adelaide Under-standing the interplay of these factors requiresan examination of the political precursors toand pressures experienced during the initialcolonisation of South Australia

South Australia unlike preceding colonies inAustralia was conceived as a utopian settlementfree from the stain of convict transportation

2

Declared the Province of South Australia in1834 the irony was that none of the colonyrsquosprinciple architects had ever physically beenthere In the truest sense then the establishmentof South Australia was a speculative ventureLand allotments were sold to prospective middleclass immigrants recruited through a series ofnewsletters and pamphlets extolling the virtuesof the emergent colony However adequateforward planning was somewhat lacking andoften based upon unrealistic political andeconomic expectations The complex politicaldimensions prior to actual colonisation are nomore readily apparent than in the identificationof potential sites for the establishment of thecolonial capital

Politicising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Site selection for the new colonial capital wasmired in bitter political and personal debate Thetwo main protagonists in this debate were thecolonial surveyor Colonial William Light andthe appointed Governor John Hindmarsh Lightwas charged with the unrealistic task of chartingin detail some 1500 km of coast selectingsurveying and founding the colonial capital andtime permitting surveying as many secondarysettlements as possible The two-months Lightwas given to acquit these tasks prior to the firstwave of colonists arriving highlights the impos-sible nature of Lightrsquos task It was believed thatMatthew Flindersrsquo 1802 survey of the coastlinehad already identified several suitable sites forthe colonial capital Essential to the success ofthe prospective capital was fresh water and asafe harbour Pouring over Flindersrsquo charts inEngland Hindmarsh placed great hope uponPort Lincoln as the site of the future colonialcapital However Light remained uncommitted tomaking a speculative decision to the infuriationof Hindmarsh Light was aware that only athorough firsthand survey would yield a rationaldecision Hindmarsh frustrated by his lack ofcontrol and what he perceived as insubordina-tion by a man he considered his social andprofessional inferior

3

proved obstinate in hisopinion Hindmarsh fermented this feud publiclyand privately questioning Lightrsquos lsquoRoyal Pre-rogativersquo to select the colonial capital (Mayo1937 131) This emerging conflict in Englandwas bitterly played out over the initial years ofthe colony between Light and Hindmarsh and

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

277

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

resulted in the stigmatisation of Port Adelaide asa place of inferior physical quality and socialcharacter

The selection of the site of Adelaide and PortAdelaide by Light is matter of historical recordWhile Light praised the Adelaide plains as alsquolittle paradisersquo (Light cited in Whitelock 19858) the site was landlocked Light proposed thatestablishing a second settlement some 14 kmto the northwest of the colonial capital couldsuitably accommodate the requirements for asafe port Lightrsquos plan displayed exceptionalforesight for it was his intention that in thewords of assistant surveyor Finnis (1837 cited inWhitelock 1985 28) lsquo as wealth and popu-lation increased Adelaide would soon approachnearer the harbour than six miles Those mileswould then become a vast suburb studded withshops and warehousesrsquo Foreshadowing thisfuture urban agglomeration Light named theproposed harbour Port Adelaide

This plan met fierce opposition from Hind-marsh and his supporters Hindmarsh remainedresolute in his preference for Port LincolnHowever Light rejected Port Lincoln becauseits harbour was lsquoironboundrsquo with dangerousshoals while the surrounding hinterland wasextremely arid (Light 1839 49) InfuriatedHindmarsh withdrew from the Adelaide siteand sought unsuccessfully to overrule LightHowever aided by George Stevenson the editorof the colonyrsquos first newspaper the

South Aus-tralian Gazette and Colonial Register

Hindmarshwas extremely successful in fermenting descentconcerning Lightrsquos choice for the colonialcapital Through the

Gazette

in particular theyquestioned the physical suitability of theharbour while mounting a parallel argumentthat denigrated the social conditions emerging atPort Adelaide as unfitting the utopian vision forthe colony The public nature of this debate ismost significant as it demonstrates that socialcommentary on South Australia in general andPort Adelaide specifically was enmeshed inwider political and personal agendas Thisemphasises that knowledge is never neutral it isalways strategic and inherently political Indicativeof the strategic and political nature of socialcommentary are the writings particularly of THJames (1838) but equally of Nathaniel Hailes(1843) Robert Harrison (1862) William Harcus(1876) and Alexander Tolmer (1882)

The works of the aforementioned authorswere cast in the vein of authoritative textsproviding advice to prospective middle class

immigrants to South Australia Indicative ofthis Jamesrsquo (1838) preface establishes his bookas a lsquo timely true and impartial account ofthe New Colony by an eyewitnessrsquo Here Jamesdraws around his work the credibility of objec-tivity founded upon the authority of directobservation and experience These claims arerendered spurious as a close reading of the textreveals James to be a staunch supporter ofHindmarsh concerning the preferred locationof the colonial capital Openly declaring hispolitical affiliation James (1838 8) states thatPort Lincoln was where

the capital City was intended to have beenestablished and it is a thousand pities thatthe Commissionersrsquo instructions in thismatter were not complied with because inthe absence of any other Port nothing canprevent this magnificent harbour from beingsooner or later the emporium of the newColony

Emphasising the folly of Lightrsquos site selectionJames (1838 8) refers to Port Lincoln as lsquo oneof the finest harbour in the world far superior[even] to Portsmouth Plymouth CromartyCork or Milford in Great Britainrsquo The use ofestablished and influential British ports as asymbolic foil for the qualities of Port Lincolnentrenches the political intent of the text in thereaderrsquos pre-existing knowledge By comparisonPort Adelaide was a wholly unsuitable harboura lsquo narrow dirty ditchrsquo that was hazardous tonavigate due to a treacherous bar irregular tidesand unpredictable winds (James 1838 24ndash26)Consequently James (1838 10) asserted thatPort Adelaide while lsquo well enough for smallervessels is totally unfit for general purposes ofcommerce and will never come to anythingrsquoThus Port Adelaide was considered to be onlya temporary measure until sanity prevailed andHindmarsh was able to relocate the colonialcapital to Port Lincoln

James was extremely cautious in openlycriticising Light With reference to the personaldebate over the settlement site between Lightand Hindmarsh James (1838 10) tactfully noteslsquo[i]t is very disagreeable to be compelled tospeak of the unsuitableness of Port Adelaidebecause it seems to imply a censure upon ColonelLightrsquo Despite this protest James (1838 10)felt obliged to lsquo speak the truth in order thatany impediments to the prosperity of the Colonybe remedied if not removedrsquo Once in the open asan opponent of Light and his choice of settlement

278

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

275

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

Barnes and Duncan 1992 Rose 2001) Thisrealisation has revolutionised the way we perceivebuilt environments and the theories we constructto explain changing perceptions of the humanenvironment Central to this transition wasPocockrsquos (1981 342) assertion that places lsquohave long been recognized as possessing per-sonalityrsquo The lsquopersonalityrsquo possessed by a placeis mediated by and reciprocally mediates humanagency Thus landscapes are social construc-tions reflecting the multiplicity of intersectingdiscourses that constitute our social structuresHowever place has traditionally been consideredas a geographic reality According to Zukin(1991 12) lsquo[w]e are used to thinking of placeas a geographic location a point on a well-bounded maprsquo As a bounded location placeconstitutes a definable and hence knowableterritory This view has been reinforced bycartographic representations which depict placesas discrete spatial units or regions Allied to thisearly concepts of place constructed them asthe physical containers of specific and distinctcommunities

The genesis of more critical finely nuancedtheories of place as complex and contestedlandscapes emerged during the late 1970s Thepublication of

Interpretations of Ordinary Land-scapes Geographical Essays

edited by DonaldMeinig (1979) represented a conceptualwatershed in landscape studies Meinig (19793) defined place as being contingent lsquo uponsome public agreement as to name location andcharacter some legibility some identity com-monly understoodrsquo Yet Meinig and his fellowcontributors to this text did not equate thisnotion of place with an unassailable ontologicalreality Emphasising this Lewis (1979 12)identified the fundamental principle of thenew cultural approach to landscapes as lsquo

allhuman landscape has cultural meanin

grsquo (originalemphasis) This principle firmly shifted analyticalfocus from the landscape to the meaningsinscribed upon the landscape and more impor-tantly to the struggles over these meanings Akey element of this is what John Eyles (1985)later referred to as a lsquosense of placersquo ForMeinig (1979 1ndash6 33ndash48) a sense of place isrelated to experience of and the value attachedto landscape which combined shape perceptionHence our sense of place

is unique to each of us in its contentand in the way it relates to general socialdefinitions of place Thus each of us creates

and accumulates places out of livingwhenever we pierce the infinite blur of theworld and fix a piece of our environment assomething distinct and memorable (Meinig1979 3)

Implicit in this is the realisation that firstlyplaces are not discrete bounded localities andsecondly that places are more than an assembl-age of physical structures As Doreen Massey(1992 11) asserts

place is formed in part out of the particularset of social relations which interact at aparticular location And the singularity of anyindividual place is formed in part out of thespecificity of the interactions which occur atthat location

Drawing upon social construction theory Masseyreveals that places are complex social construc-tions This explodes ontological notions of placeRather landscape constitutes lsquo ritualisedplace[s] of performance and social congressrsquo(Osborne 1998 452) The implications of sucha perspective for how we perceive a givenlandscape is staggering Once considered thelsquomediumrsquo upon which human agency wasperformed landscape becomes the amalgam ofsocial agency and physicality

While landscapes are inherently fluidattempts are constantly being made to fix theirmeaning or identity Crump (1999) argues thatthe ability to fix the meaning or identity oflandscape is related to power Those individualsand groups with greater access to power are ableto more effectively lsquo stamp their vision

into

the landscapersquo (Crump 1999 20) (emphasisadded) The notion of stamping vision

into

rather than

onto

the landscape is important andilluminates the process of discursive authorityover place To stamp vision

into

is to deeplyimbed a given discourse within a place so thatthat discourse assumes a naturalised positionThis is most evident through state sanctionedprojects such as the erection of monumentsMemorial landscapes to military endeavour forexample seek to fix and communicate a specificdiscourse of national identity in space (Jeans1988) However memorial landscapes are highlycontested spaces as they simultaneously includesome groups and exclude others Landscapeanalysis then reveals not only dominant inscrip-tions but also alerts us to the undermining ofthese inscriptions (Rose 2002 458) For Mitchell(2003) the identification of symbolic struggles

276

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

within the landscape sheds light on a morepressing project that being active involvementin the struggle for landscapes of justice

Thus landscapes can be lsquoreadrsquo as social textsrevealing shifting power relations Duncan andDuncan (1988) proposed that the ability to readlandscapes as a semiotic text requires possessionof the correct contextual keys The ultimateproject of such an undertaking is to reveal thepower structures and ideological values repres-ented through the landscape However readingthe landscape can be fraught with tensionsForemost amongst these is the ability to ade-quately identify and accurately decode themeanings encapsulated in the landscape Thecomplexity of this task is multiplied as land-scapes are multifaceted simultaneously lsquo apanorama a composition a palimpsestrsquo (Zukin1991 17) Alternatively these tensions can beemployed creatively to better understand thesocial construction of landscapes This can beachieved through the recognition of and a criticalengagement with the competing voices thatwrestle over the discursive form of the landscapeAs Walton (1995 62) reminds us

Accepting landscape as lsquotextrsquo (in the contem-porary sense of the term) implies that we canknow it is not a given universal lsquoauthenticrsquoworld but an epistemologically mediatedreality constructed linguistically as well asmaterially

Thus the landscape of Port Adelaide is neithernatural nor benign Rather it is a sociallyconstructed landscape rich in a site-specificvernacular that is both semiotic and materialUnderstanding the development of this vernacularrequires both an understanding of the discoursesencoded into the Port Adelaide landscape andhow these have shifted over time

Creating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide is derogatively referred to as lsquoPortMiseryrsquo The origins of this name are entrenchedin complex political feuding that emergedprior to European colonisation thus emphasisingthe longevity of the Portrsquos stigmatisation Theemergence of the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse revealsa complex interplay of political forces andsocial perceptions that were projected upon thephysical landscape of Port Adelaide Under-standing the interplay of these factors requiresan examination of the political precursors toand pressures experienced during the initialcolonisation of South Australia

South Australia unlike preceding colonies inAustralia was conceived as a utopian settlementfree from the stain of convict transportation

2

Declared the Province of South Australia in1834 the irony was that none of the colonyrsquosprinciple architects had ever physically beenthere In the truest sense then the establishmentof South Australia was a speculative ventureLand allotments were sold to prospective middleclass immigrants recruited through a series ofnewsletters and pamphlets extolling the virtuesof the emergent colony However adequateforward planning was somewhat lacking andoften based upon unrealistic political andeconomic expectations The complex politicaldimensions prior to actual colonisation are nomore readily apparent than in the identificationof potential sites for the establishment of thecolonial capital

Politicising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Site selection for the new colonial capital wasmired in bitter political and personal debate Thetwo main protagonists in this debate were thecolonial surveyor Colonial William Light andthe appointed Governor John Hindmarsh Lightwas charged with the unrealistic task of chartingin detail some 1500 km of coast selectingsurveying and founding the colonial capital andtime permitting surveying as many secondarysettlements as possible The two-months Lightwas given to acquit these tasks prior to the firstwave of colonists arriving highlights the impos-sible nature of Lightrsquos task It was believed thatMatthew Flindersrsquo 1802 survey of the coastlinehad already identified several suitable sites forthe colonial capital Essential to the success ofthe prospective capital was fresh water and asafe harbour Pouring over Flindersrsquo charts inEngland Hindmarsh placed great hope uponPort Lincoln as the site of the future colonialcapital However Light remained uncommitted tomaking a speculative decision to the infuriationof Hindmarsh Light was aware that only athorough firsthand survey would yield a rationaldecision Hindmarsh frustrated by his lack ofcontrol and what he perceived as insubordina-tion by a man he considered his social andprofessional inferior

3

proved obstinate in hisopinion Hindmarsh fermented this feud publiclyand privately questioning Lightrsquos lsquoRoyal Pre-rogativersquo to select the colonial capital (Mayo1937 131) This emerging conflict in Englandwas bitterly played out over the initial years ofthe colony between Light and Hindmarsh and

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

277

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

resulted in the stigmatisation of Port Adelaide asa place of inferior physical quality and socialcharacter

The selection of the site of Adelaide and PortAdelaide by Light is matter of historical recordWhile Light praised the Adelaide plains as alsquolittle paradisersquo (Light cited in Whitelock 19858) the site was landlocked Light proposed thatestablishing a second settlement some 14 kmto the northwest of the colonial capital couldsuitably accommodate the requirements for asafe port Lightrsquos plan displayed exceptionalforesight for it was his intention that in thewords of assistant surveyor Finnis (1837 cited inWhitelock 1985 28) lsquo as wealth and popu-lation increased Adelaide would soon approachnearer the harbour than six miles Those mileswould then become a vast suburb studded withshops and warehousesrsquo Foreshadowing thisfuture urban agglomeration Light named theproposed harbour Port Adelaide

This plan met fierce opposition from Hind-marsh and his supporters Hindmarsh remainedresolute in his preference for Port LincolnHowever Light rejected Port Lincoln becauseits harbour was lsquoironboundrsquo with dangerousshoals while the surrounding hinterland wasextremely arid (Light 1839 49) InfuriatedHindmarsh withdrew from the Adelaide siteand sought unsuccessfully to overrule LightHowever aided by George Stevenson the editorof the colonyrsquos first newspaper the

South Aus-tralian Gazette and Colonial Register

Hindmarshwas extremely successful in fermenting descentconcerning Lightrsquos choice for the colonialcapital Through the

Gazette

in particular theyquestioned the physical suitability of theharbour while mounting a parallel argumentthat denigrated the social conditions emerging atPort Adelaide as unfitting the utopian vision forthe colony The public nature of this debate ismost significant as it demonstrates that socialcommentary on South Australia in general andPort Adelaide specifically was enmeshed inwider political and personal agendas Thisemphasises that knowledge is never neutral it isalways strategic and inherently political Indicativeof the strategic and political nature of socialcommentary are the writings particularly of THJames (1838) but equally of Nathaniel Hailes(1843) Robert Harrison (1862) William Harcus(1876) and Alexander Tolmer (1882)

The works of the aforementioned authorswere cast in the vein of authoritative textsproviding advice to prospective middle class

immigrants to South Australia Indicative ofthis Jamesrsquo (1838) preface establishes his bookas a lsquo timely true and impartial account ofthe New Colony by an eyewitnessrsquo Here Jamesdraws around his work the credibility of objec-tivity founded upon the authority of directobservation and experience These claims arerendered spurious as a close reading of the textreveals James to be a staunch supporter ofHindmarsh concerning the preferred locationof the colonial capital Openly declaring hispolitical affiliation James (1838 8) states thatPort Lincoln was where

the capital City was intended to have beenestablished and it is a thousand pities thatthe Commissionersrsquo instructions in thismatter were not complied with because inthe absence of any other Port nothing canprevent this magnificent harbour from beingsooner or later the emporium of the newColony

Emphasising the folly of Lightrsquos site selectionJames (1838 8) refers to Port Lincoln as lsquo oneof the finest harbour in the world far superior[even] to Portsmouth Plymouth CromartyCork or Milford in Great Britainrsquo The use ofestablished and influential British ports as asymbolic foil for the qualities of Port Lincolnentrenches the political intent of the text in thereaderrsquos pre-existing knowledge By comparisonPort Adelaide was a wholly unsuitable harboura lsquo narrow dirty ditchrsquo that was hazardous tonavigate due to a treacherous bar irregular tidesand unpredictable winds (James 1838 24ndash26)Consequently James (1838 10) asserted thatPort Adelaide while lsquo well enough for smallervessels is totally unfit for general purposes ofcommerce and will never come to anythingrsquoThus Port Adelaide was considered to be onlya temporary measure until sanity prevailed andHindmarsh was able to relocate the colonialcapital to Port Lincoln

James was extremely cautious in openlycriticising Light With reference to the personaldebate over the settlement site between Lightand Hindmarsh James (1838 10) tactfully noteslsquo[i]t is very disagreeable to be compelled tospeak of the unsuitableness of Port Adelaidebecause it seems to imply a censure upon ColonelLightrsquo Despite this protest James (1838 10)felt obliged to lsquo speak the truth in order thatany impediments to the prosperity of the Colonybe remedied if not removedrsquo Once in the open asan opponent of Light and his choice of settlement

278

Geographical Research

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September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

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September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

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September 2006

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44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

276

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

within the landscape sheds light on a morepressing project that being active involvementin the struggle for landscapes of justice

Thus landscapes can be lsquoreadrsquo as social textsrevealing shifting power relations Duncan andDuncan (1988) proposed that the ability to readlandscapes as a semiotic text requires possessionof the correct contextual keys The ultimateproject of such an undertaking is to reveal thepower structures and ideological values repres-ented through the landscape However readingthe landscape can be fraught with tensionsForemost amongst these is the ability to ade-quately identify and accurately decode themeanings encapsulated in the landscape Thecomplexity of this task is multiplied as land-scapes are multifaceted simultaneously lsquo apanorama a composition a palimpsestrsquo (Zukin1991 17) Alternatively these tensions can beemployed creatively to better understand thesocial construction of landscapes This can beachieved through the recognition of and a criticalengagement with the competing voices thatwrestle over the discursive form of the landscapeAs Walton (1995 62) reminds us

Accepting landscape as lsquotextrsquo (in the contem-porary sense of the term) implies that we canknow it is not a given universal lsquoauthenticrsquoworld but an epistemologically mediatedreality constructed linguistically as well asmaterially

Thus the landscape of Port Adelaide is neithernatural nor benign Rather it is a sociallyconstructed landscape rich in a site-specificvernacular that is both semiotic and materialUnderstanding the development of this vernacularrequires both an understanding of the discoursesencoded into the Port Adelaide landscape andhow these have shifted over time

Creating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide is derogatively referred to as lsquoPortMiseryrsquo The origins of this name are entrenchedin complex political feuding that emergedprior to European colonisation thus emphasisingthe longevity of the Portrsquos stigmatisation Theemergence of the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse revealsa complex interplay of political forces andsocial perceptions that were projected upon thephysical landscape of Port Adelaide Under-standing the interplay of these factors requiresan examination of the political precursors toand pressures experienced during the initialcolonisation of South Australia

South Australia unlike preceding colonies inAustralia was conceived as a utopian settlementfree from the stain of convict transportation

2

Declared the Province of South Australia in1834 the irony was that none of the colonyrsquosprinciple architects had ever physically beenthere In the truest sense then the establishmentof South Australia was a speculative ventureLand allotments were sold to prospective middleclass immigrants recruited through a series ofnewsletters and pamphlets extolling the virtuesof the emergent colony However adequateforward planning was somewhat lacking andoften based upon unrealistic political andeconomic expectations The complex politicaldimensions prior to actual colonisation are nomore readily apparent than in the identificationof potential sites for the establishment of thecolonial capital

Politicising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Site selection for the new colonial capital wasmired in bitter political and personal debate Thetwo main protagonists in this debate were thecolonial surveyor Colonial William Light andthe appointed Governor John Hindmarsh Lightwas charged with the unrealistic task of chartingin detail some 1500 km of coast selectingsurveying and founding the colonial capital andtime permitting surveying as many secondarysettlements as possible The two-months Lightwas given to acquit these tasks prior to the firstwave of colonists arriving highlights the impos-sible nature of Lightrsquos task It was believed thatMatthew Flindersrsquo 1802 survey of the coastlinehad already identified several suitable sites forthe colonial capital Essential to the success ofthe prospective capital was fresh water and asafe harbour Pouring over Flindersrsquo charts inEngland Hindmarsh placed great hope uponPort Lincoln as the site of the future colonialcapital However Light remained uncommitted tomaking a speculative decision to the infuriationof Hindmarsh Light was aware that only athorough firsthand survey would yield a rationaldecision Hindmarsh frustrated by his lack ofcontrol and what he perceived as insubordina-tion by a man he considered his social andprofessional inferior

3

proved obstinate in hisopinion Hindmarsh fermented this feud publiclyand privately questioning Lightrsquos lsquoRoyal Pre-rogativersquo to select the colonial capital (Mayo1937 131) This emerging conflict in Englandwas bitterly played out over the initial years ofthe colony between Light and Hindmarsh and

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

277

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

resulted in the stigmatisation of Port Adelaide asa place of inferior physical quality and socialcharacter

The selection of the site of Adelaide and PortAdelaide by Light is matter of historical recordWhile Light praised the Adelaide plains as alsquolittle paradisersquo (Light cited in Whitelock 19858) the site was landlocked Light proposed thatestablishing a second settlement some 14 kmto the northwest of the colonial capital couldsuitably accommodate the requirements for asafe port Lightrsquos plan displayed exceptionalforesight for it was his intention that in thewords of assistant surveyor Finnis (1837 cited inWhitelock 1985 28) lsquo as wealth and popu-lation increased Adelaide would soon approachnearer the harbour than six miles Those mileswould then become a vast suburb studded withshops and warehousesrsquo Foreshadowing thisfuture urban agglomeration Light named theproposed harbour Port Adelaide

This plan met fierce opposition from Hind-marsh and his supporters Hindmarsh remainedresolute in his preference for Port LincolnHowever Light rejected Port Lincoln becauseits harbour was lsquoironboundrsquo with dangerousshoals while the surrounding hinterland wasextremely arid (Light 1839 49) InfuriatedHindmarsh withdrew from the Adelaide siteand sought unsuccessfully to overrule LightHowever aided by George Stevenson the editorof the colonyrsquos first newspaper the

South Aus-tralian Gazette and Colonial Register

Hindmarshwas extremely successful in fermenting descentconcerning Lightrsquos choice for the colonialcapital Through the

Gazette

in particular theyquestioned the physical suitability of theharbour while mounting a parallel argumentthat denigrated the social conditions emerging atPort Adelaide as unfitting the utopian vision forthe colony The public nature of this debate ismost significant as it demonstrates that socialcommentary on South Australia in general andPort Adelaide specifically was enmeshed inwider political and personal agendas Thisemphasises that knowledge is never neutral it isalways strategic and inherently political Indicativeof the strategic and political nature of socialcommentary are the writings particularly of THJames (1838) but equally of Nathaniel Hailes(1843) Robert Harrison (1862) William Harcus(1876) and Alexander Tolmer (1882)

The works of the aforementioned authorswere cast in the vein of authoritative textsproviding advice to prospective middle class

immigrants to South Australia Indicative ofthis Jamesrsquo (1838) preface establishes his bookas a lsquo timely true and impartial account ofthe New Colony by an eyewitnessrsquo Here Jamesdraws around his work the credibility of objec-tivity founded upon the authority of directobservation and experience These claims arerendered spurious as a close reading of the textreveals James to be a staunch supporter ofHindmarsh concerning the preferred locationof the colonial capital Openly declaring hispolitical affiliation James (1838 8) states thatPort Lincoln was where

the capital City was intended to have beenestablished and it is a thousand pities thatthe Commissionersrsquo instructions in thismatter were not complied with because inthe absence of any other Port nothing canprevent this magnificent harbour from beingsooner or later the emporium of the newColony

Emphasising the folly of Lightrsquos site selectionJames (1838 8) refers to Port Lincoln as lsquo oneof the finest harbour in the world far superior[even] to Portsmouth Plymouth CromartyCork or Milford in Great Britainrsquo The use ofestablished and influential British ports as asymbolic foil for the qualities of Port Lincolnentrenches the political intent of the text in thereaderrsquos pre-existing knowledge By comparisonPort Adelaide was a wholly unsuitable harboura lsquo narrow dirty ditchrsquo that was hazardous tonavigate due to a treacherous bar irregular tidesand unpredictable winds (James 1838 24ndash26)Consequently James (1838 10) asserted thatPort Adelaide while lsquo well enough for smallervessels is totally unfit for general purposes ofcommerce and will never come to anythingrsquoThus Port Adelaide was considered to be onlya temporary measure until sanity prevailed andHindmarsh was able to relocate the colonialcapital to Port Lincoln

James was extremely cautious in openlycriticising Light With reference to the personaldebate over the settlement site between Lightand Hindmarsh James (1838 10) tactfully noteslsquo[i]t is very disagreeable to be compelled tospeak of the unsuitableness of Port Adelaidebecause it seems to imply a censure upon ColonelLightrsquo Despite this protest James (1838 10)felt obliged to lsquo speak the truth in order thatany impediments to the prosperity of the Colonybe remedied if not removedrsquo Once in the open asan opponent of Light and his choice of settlement

278

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

277

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

resulted in the stigmatisation of Port Adelaide asa place of inferior physical quality and socialcharacter

The selection of the site of Adelaide and PortAdelaide by Light is matter of historical recordWhile Light praised the Adelaide plains as alsquolittle paradisersquo (Light cited in Whitelock 19858) the site was landlocked Light proposed thatestablishing a second settlement some 14 kmto the northwest of the colonial capital couldsuitably accommodate the requirements for asafe port Lightrsquos plan displayed exceptionalforesight for it was his intention that in thewords of assistant surveyor Finnis (1837 cited inWhitelock 1985 28) lsquo as wealth and popu-lation increased Adelaide would soon approachnearer the harbour than six miles Those mileswould then become a vast suburb studded withshops and warehousesrsquo Foreshadowing thisfuture urban agglomeration Light named theproposed harbour Port Adelaide

This plan met fierce opposition from Hind-marsh and his supporters Hindmarsh remainedresolute in his preference for Port LincolnHowever Light rejected Port Lincoln becauseits harbour was lsquoironboundrsquo with dangerousshoals while the surrounding hinterland wasextremely arid (Light 1839 49) InfuriatedHindmarsh withdrew from the Adelaide siteand sought unsuccessfully to overrule LightHowever aided by George Stevenson the editorof the colonyrsquos first newspaper the

South Aus-tralian Gazette and Colonial Register

Hindmarshwas extremely successful in fermenting descentconcerning Lightrsquos choice for the colonialcapital Through the

Gazette

in particular theyquestioned the physical suitability of theharbour while mounting a parallel argumentthat denigrated the social conditions emerging atPort Adelaide as unfitting the utopian vision forthe colony The public nature of this debate ismost significant as it demonstrates that socialcommentary on South Australia in general andPort Adelaide specifically was enmeshed inwider political and personal agendas Thisemphasises that knowledge is never neutral it isalways strategic and inherently political Indicativeof the strategic and political nature of socialcommentary are the writings particularly of THJames (1838) but equally of Nathaniel Hailes(1843) Robert Harrison (1862) William Harcus(1876) and Alexander Tolmer (1882)

The works of the aforementioned authorswere cast in the vein of authoritative textsproviding advice to prospective middle class

immigrants to South Australia Indicative ofthis Jamesrsquo (1838) preface establishes his bookas a lsquo timely true and impartial account ofthe New Colony by an eyewitnessrsquo Here Jamesdraws around his work the credibility of objec-tivity founded upon the authority of directobservation and experience These claims arerendered spurious as a close reading of the textreveals James to be a staunch supporter ofHindmarsh concerning the preferred locationof the colonial capital Openly declaring hispolitical affiliation James (1838 8) states thatPort Lincoln was where

the capital City was intended to have beenestablished and it is a thousand pities thatthe Commissionersrsquo instructions in thismatter were not complied with because inthe absence of any other Port nothing canprevent this magnificent harbour from beingsooner or later the emporium of the newColony

Emphasising the folly of Lightrsquos site selectionJames (1838 8) refers to Port Lincoln as lsquo oneof the finest harbour in the world far superior[even] to Portsmouth Plymouth CromartyCork or Milford in Great Britainrsquo The use ofestablished and influential British ports as asymbolic foil for the qualities of Port Lincolnentrenches the political intent of the text in thereaderrsquos pre-existing knowledge By comparisonPort Adelaide was a wholly unsuitable harboura lsquo narrow dirty ditchrsquo that was hazardous tonavigate due to a treacherous bar irregular tidesand unpredictable winds (James 1838 24ndash26)Consequently James (1838 10) asserted thatPort Adelaide while lsquo well enough for smallervessels is totally unfit for general purposes ofcommerce and will never come to anythingrsquoThus Port Adelaide was considered to be onlya temporary measure until sanity prevailed andHindmarsh was able to relocate the colonialcapital to Port Lincoln

James was extremely cautious in openlycriticising Light With reference to the personaldebate over the settlement site between Lightand Hindmarsh James (1838 10) tactfully noteslsquo[i]t is very disagreeable to be compelled tospeak of the unsuitableness of Port Adelaidebecause it seems to imply a censure upon ColonelLightrsquo Despite this protest James (1838 10)felt obliged to lsquo speak the truth in order thatany impediments to the prosperity of the Colonybe remedied if not removedrsquo Once in the open asan opponent of Light and his choice of settlement

278

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

278

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

James becomes quite brazen in his assaultreferring to Adelaide as a geographic lsquoblunderrsquoand Port Adelaide as an lsquounnatural abortionrsquo thatlsquorespectable partiesrsquo could not tolerate (James1838 33) These views were further entrenchedby other politically aligned authors WilliamHarcus (1876 15) for example referred to thePort as being a lsquo most unwholesome andunsavoury spotrsquo Harcusrsquo comment draws uponan important emerging landscape constructionthis being that the Port was physically lsquoun-wholesomersquo and the emerging settlement therewas socially lsquounsavouryrsquo Within this politicallycharged discourse Port Adelaide was stigmatisedboth physically and socially

Socialising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Socially Port Adelaide was cast as being both amorally corrupt and corrupting landscapeLocating the port in according to James (183828) an lsquouninhabitable swamprsquo precipitated theabandonment of civilised social deportment andconduct Given the scarcity of readily availablebuilding materials the lsquo landing site wascrudely constructed of clay poles and bushesrsquo(Pike 1967 205) Consequently new colonistswere met not with substantial docks and piersbut with the lsquoindignityrsquo of being ferried ashoreeither in small boats or on the backs of sailorsFor many colonists lured by overly glowingdescriptions of South Australia Port Adelaidewas an affront to their expectations and sens-ibilities Alexander Tolmer (1882 130ndash131)recounted in his reminisces that

Never shall I forget the wretched night [in the Port River] owing to the myriads ofmosquitoes which attacked us unsparingly The next morning we weighed anchor andproceeded to Port Misery a name which iswell deserved in those days there was nowharf or facility for landing passengers whowere carried on shore on the sailorsrsquo backsand their luggage thrown promiscuously onthe muddy beach and unless promptlyremoved frequently damaged by the risingtides

Here the Port is constructed as an alien andhostile landscape the very antithesis of civili-sation Tolmerrsquos use of the term lsquopromiscuousrsquois particularly evocative While commonlyassociated with sexual immorality the wordpromiscuous also denotes an indiscriminate andundiscriminating mixing of categories The actof handling persons of a higher-class position

and their possessions in a lsquopromiscuousrsquo mannerthen was a metaphor for the collapsing socialorder within the Port Populated by sailors andpersons referred to as lsquogypsiesrsquo and lsquosavagesrsquo(James 1838 28) recently arrived colonistswere treated without deference as to class andcertainly received lsquo no touched hats and pre-cious few ldquosirsrdquo on arrival at Port Adelaidersquo(Whitelock 1985 170)

Tolmerrsquos outrage at the physical and socialnature of Port Adelaide is in fact a replication ofJamesrsquo (1838) jeremiad 44 years earlier It wasJames (1838 28) who first coined the term lsquoPortMiseryrsquo acridly describing Lightrsquos harbour aslsquo an uninhabitable swamprsquo where people lived

in wigwams [where] one or two grogshops made of branches of trees are seen This is Port Adelaide Port Misery would bea better name for

nothing in any other partof the world can surpass it in everything thatis wretched and inconvenient

(emphasisadded)

This discursive nadir for Port Adelaide encap-sulated in the meta-narrative lsquoPort Miseryrsquo hasbeen echoed in the writings of others For theReverend David MacKenzie (1852 49) PortAdelaide was to be lambasted as a place awashwith lsquodrunkenness and avaricersquo For Pike (1967205) the Port was a place rife with the lsquoimprecations of seamen and the blasphemy ofbullock driversrsquo In this uncivilised landscape itwas according to Leigh (1929 2) possible towitness the lsquo deadening and gradual drift ofdecent working class families down to slumconditionsrsquo With this in mind social commen-tators such as James (1838 29) urged that thesooner decent colonists lsquo got out of this horridhole the betterrsquo

The debate over the location of the colonialcapital was entrenched in fierce personal andpolitical struggles Striving to undermine theauthority of Light a powerful discursive argumentwas mounted denigrating the suitability of theproposed harbour site This argument rootedin personal enmity and political ambition deliber-ately and systematically projected a discourseof lsquomiseryrsquo and deviance upon Port AdelaideThe ultimate intention of this campaign was torelocate the capital to Port Lincoln and leaveAdelaide to lsquo remain as a country village andstand a monument to follyrsquo (James 1838 34)While Hindmarsh failed to relocate the colonialcapital he and his supporters successfully createdand established a stigmatising meta-narrative

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

279

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

casting Port Adelaide as lsquoPort Miseryrsquo So pow-erful was this meta-narrative that it came toencapsulate the Portrsquos lsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock1981) retaining its currency to the present dayIt is to the contemporary echoes of the lsquoPortMiseryrsquo meta-narrative that we now turn

Inheriting lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide has never truly shrugged off thePort Misery stigma Lewis (1979 120) regardslandscape as our lsquo unwitting autobiographyrsquothat reveal our lsquo cultural warts and blemishesrsquoConsequently landscapes are a form of culturalmemory that function as repositories of meaningthat lie dormant for prolonged periods of timeCertainly this is the case for Port Adelaide aslsquoPort Miseryrsquo Having lain dormant followingthe failure to relocate the colonial capital themeta-narrative of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was once againremobilised during the early twentieth centuryThroughout the Great Depression and inter-warperiods external interests accentuated the Portrsquosstatus as an inferior physical and social landscapeIt is possible to lsquoreadrsquo (Duncan and Duncan1988) this re-emergence as the product ofparticular relations between local communitiesand external economic interests It is welldocumented that the fate of the Port has restedlargely with stakeholder interests beyond ofthose of local residents (Verity 1999 Oakleyand Verity 2003) As the statersquos largest port theeconomic and social fortunes of the place havebeen largely subject to the whims of outsidestakeholder interests That is the economic inter-ests of the state have dominated and directed thefate of local residents The dialectic relationshipbetween economic interests and local communitieshas produced a spirited and strong local politicsand collective action by those local communitiesaffected by ongoing changes to capital endeavour(Oakley and Verity 2003 195)

Labour relations between wharf labourers andemployers at the Port are symbolic of this on-going tension It is a tension that reveals not onlya disregard by outside economic interests forlocal workers and working life but equally of thelocal landscape Up to 12 000 people living inand around the waterfront and surrounding areawere associated with the stevedoring industry atthe height of shipping activities (Shertock 199175) These workers can be interpreted as inheritorsof and indeed construed as perpetuating thestigmatised meta-narrative A commonly heldbelief was that lsquorespectable people providethemselves with permanent employmentrsquo (Curnow

1958 4) Wharf workers did not fit this charac-terisation of decency They were working classmen irregularly employed in cargo handlingThe working conditions on the wharfs weredeplorable and unlike mining labour the worklacked any romantic associations (Curnow1958 3) Waterside work was manual low statusand irregular with workers subjected to threatsof instant dismissal

While such labour conditions were not uniqueto Port Adelaide waterside workers at the Portwere subjected to working conditions consideredunacceptable at other ports Indicative of thistoilets were not installed on the wharves despitenumerous requests resulting in wharf labourersbeing labelled as dirty because of their lsquoinsanitaryhabitsrsquo (Curnow 1958 49) The use of thewaterfront for ablutions resulted in significantpollution as the waterways became choked withlsquo dead fish and other objectionable matterrsquo thatgave off an lsquo unbearable stenchrsquo (

PortAdelaide News

12th March 1926) Here thePortrsquos physical landscape is no longer cast as adegrading influence precipitating moral declineHere moral decline is the agent of environmentaldegradation within Port Adelaide

Working conditions were dirty and dangerous

Sometimes men trudged ankle deep in mudcarrying bags of wheat or flour [or] hotcoal or obnoxious cargo The unloading ofsulphur and fertiliser was almost unbearablein hot weather with fumes rising in a confinedspace as holders dug down in to the cargo(Curnow 1958 49)

Complaints to employers rarely led to improvedworking conditions Strike campaigns to improveworking conditions only fuelled further negativecharacterisations of the Port as a place of unionmilitancy and communist sympathisers Alterna-tively wharf workers were vilified as lsquoloafersrsquolsquono-hopersrsquo and lsquolazyrsquo (Curnow 1958 4) Yet attimes of heavy shipping traffic wharf labourerswere expected to work long hours over extendeddurations of up to three weeks straight

Port Adelaide as a landscape lacking lsquorespect-abilityrsquo was further enforced by the absence ofhigher-class residents This absence was thedirect legacy of the writings of early socialcommentators (see James 1838 and Tolmer1882) who constructed the Port as a coarse anddegenerate landscape Ship owners for examplehad little contact with their workers becauselsquorespectabilityrsquo relied on maintaining both phys-ical and social distance from the Port Even the

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

280

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

head office of the Harbours Board and principalofficers of the Board were located in innerAdelaide Middle-class abandonment of the Portaccelerated from the 1950s as further heavyindustries were established in and around thePort (Potter 1999 149) The Portrsquos landscapealready depleted of lsquodecentrsquo residents sufferedfurther due to economic and industrial changesthat occurred in the later part of the twentiethcentury

Increased containerisation the relocation ofexport shipping activities from the inner harbourto a deeper outer harbour port facility combinedwith a declining manufacturing base dramaticallyaltered the Portrsquos landscape These changes werenot isolated to Port Adelaide Precipitated bychanges in the global and national economymany former industrial centres suffered industryclosures and high unemployment rates Indicativeof this trend Newcastle was labelled Australiarsquoslsquoproblem cityrsquo (see Dunn

et al

1995) followingthe collapse of its industrial base Similarlythe Port came to be characterised by rising un-employment as industry closures and relocationsrendered the Port increasingly derelict Howeverwhile local and state governments rapidly estab-lished entrepreneurial partnerships with privateindustry in order to transform Newcastle fromlsquoproblemrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquo (McGuirk

et al

1996Rofe 2004) the political will to re-invigoratePort Adelaide through encouraging new economicactivity was until recently lacking

The building of a new major shopping centreat West Lakes a new middle-class suburbadjacent to Port Adelaide to cater for the regionrsquospopulation exemplifies political neglect of thePortrsquos economic vitality The decision to investin new facilities rather than redevelop existingfacilities within the Port contributed to a furtherdecline of the arearsquos main shopping and retailprecinct (Samuals 1991 3) It further highlightsthe entrenched political view that regardedthe Port as a stagnant landscape incapable ofrenovation and rejuvenation This reading of thelandscape as dormant is further reflected inthe failure to remove an Ansett Airline advertise-ment (Figure 2) in the Portrsquos central businessdistrict until early 2006 Given that AnsettAirlines collapsed in March 2002 the non-removal of this billboard lends credence to theperception that the Port is indeed stagnant Thisbillboard then is an artefact of obsolescencewithin a landscape construed to be obsoleteHowever such perceptions belie the steadytransformation of the arearsquos population profile

over a number of years Echoing the experienceof other declining industrial regions Port Adelaideis on the cusp of an urban renaissance that heraldsa more positive cosmopolitan future

Manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

It is against the lsquoPort Miseryrsquo backdrop that themost recent external intervention in PortAdelaide has been justified Following the leadof other entrepreneurial strategies to reinvigoratedeclining industrial areas the South Australiangovernment has moved to redevelop PortAdelaide The opening salvo in this strategy wasfired under the headline lsquo

Grime out people infor Portrsquos grand plan

rsquo (Craig 2002 3) (Figure 3)Involving a A$12 billion redevelopment of thePortrsquos waterfront landscape the article detaileda vision for a cleaner more cosmopolitan PortAdelaide The proposed redevelopment involvesthe replacement of industrial sites with some2000 residences cafeacutes and restaurants a touristprecinct and supporting hotel and retail facilitiesHowever this re-development would also resultin the wholesale transformation of the socialand economic fabric of the Port In effect thisproposal seeks to recreate Port Adelaidersquoslsquopersonalityrsquo (Pocock 1981) and lsquosense of placersquo(Eyles 1985) Within this lsquo framework of ideasrsquo(Punch 1998 226) Port Adelaidersquos cosmopolitanfuture can only be achieved through the obliter-ation of the physical and discursive landscapeof lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Thus plans to revitalise thePort constitutes lsquocreative destructionrsquo (Zukin1991)

According to Zukin (1991 54) creativedestruction is a deliberate policy led processthrough which lsquo the nature of [land use]demandrsquo is changed as the lsquo deployment anddifferentiation of capital along new linesrsquooccurs The essence of this process is encodedin the language of Craigrsquos (2002 3) text The

Figure 2 Traces of obsolescence in the Portrsquos landscape

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

281

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo declaration is redolentwith connotations of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo whileforeshadowing the positive transformation tocome It was asserted that the changing deploy-ment of political agency and investment wouldresult in lsquomarket forces and a stronger environ-mental focusrsquo

4

lsquodrivingrsquo out those heavy industriesremaining in the immediate Port area (Craig2002 3) Allied with in-migration of new pro-fessional residents the Portrsquos landscape wouldbe transformed into a vibrant lsquodestinationrsquo as itlsquo came to life againrsquo (Conlon 2004) Thislanguage of lsquore-birthingrsquo is evident within thenational (

Grand new start for desperate old portndash

McGuire 2004 2) and local press (

Rust beltno longer ndash

Lloyd 2005 45) Yet the languageof revitalisation is also socially charged Onceagain the lsquo

Grime out people in

rsquo banner ismost instructive This article explicitly premisesrevitalisation on attracting new residents to thePort while implicitly inferring that the existingcommunity are aligned with the old Port withlsquoPort Miseryrsquo This new framework of ideas(Punch 1998) is simply an echo of pre-existing

discourses and associations that have stigmatisedthe Port

A greater focus and concern with the con-dition of the arearsquos environment by the Stategovernment seems somewhat at odds with pastaction As Verity (1999 109) argued the closeproximity of industry with local residents in thearea has been one of ongoing controversy andthe motivation for lsquointensersquo action and lobbyingfrom local environmental and communitygroups because of longstanding issues of noiseair and water pollution and land contaminationProgress to alleviate these issues has been slowand arguably minimal Many local residentshave largely resigned themselves to co-existingwith the lsquoun-environmentalrsquo outputs of localindustrial activity With the advent of lsquonew peoplersquoresiding in the area because of the redevelopmentsuch industrial activity is considered inappropriatefor the place That is the in-migration of peopleconsidered to be lsquoof the ldquorightrdquo sortrsquo in this postindustrial age has meant that such old economicactivity is no longer considered suitable for PortAdelaide (Oakley 2005)

Figure 3 Visions of a cosmopolitan Port Adelaide (Source Craig 2002 3)

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

282

Geographical Research

bull

September 2006

bull

44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

The lsquorenaissancersquo of Port Adelaide (Hoyleand Starick 2005 10ndash11) involves a significanttransformation of not only its built environmentbut also of the discourse inscribed upon thatenvironment Through a carefully managedplace marketing process the Portrsquos stigmatisedindustrial landscape is being reconceptualised asa future landscape of cosmopolitan desire andprofessional occupancy The success of the re-development requires that the landscape is lsquore-constructedrsquo and lsquosanitisedrsquo mirroring post-modernforms of entrepreneurial endeavour and capitalaccumulation

Creating sustaining and manipulating lsquoPort Miseryrsquo

Port Adelaide exemplifies the complexity oflandscape Textual analysis of historical docu-ments and media materials has revealed anumber of competing discursive constructionsseeking to encapsulate and communicate theessence of Port Adelaide as place For some thePort is yet another industrial rust-bucket resplendentwith the semiotic load associated with decliningindustrial areas For others the Port is repletewith the discourse of kinship and mateship thatcombined form the foundation of a fiercelyparochial community However places can cometo be characterised by a dominant discourse thatemerges to embody the sense of a place Overtime this dominant discourse may assume theposition of a naturalised meta-narrative The caseof Port Adelaide demonstrates the developmentand far-reaching impacts of such a meta-narrativea meta-narrative that casts the Port as a deviantplace Yet as Kobayashi and Peake (1994)suggest such constructions are lsquounnaturalrsquo dueto their socially mediated nature Drawing uponthe literature pertaining to landscape analysis(for example Meinig 1979 Duncan and Duncan1988 Massey 1992) this paper has demon-strated that landscapes are fluid social textsthat emerge through particular political andsocio-economic endeavours

Those endeavours that have created PortAdelaide may be thought of as the intersectionof the discursive and the physical The genesisof the stigmatising lsquoPort Miseryrsquo discourse istraceable to before the physical enactment ofcolonisation Political struggles and personalconflict constituted the essence of this genesisIn short the physical environment that becamePort Adelaide was the unwitting palimpsestupon which these political and personal struggleswere projected Thus lsquoPort Miseryrsquo was a

political tool employed discursively through thewritings of lsquoauthoritativersquo authors such as James(1838) and Stevenson in the

Gazette

Howeverthe political discourse of these texts has beenunproblematically replicated in and perpetuatedthrough the works of other authors (Hailes1843 Harrison 1862 Harcus 1876 Tolmer1882) Through this process Port Adelaide hasbecome synonymous with and indeed sympto-matic of lsquoPort Miseryrsquo Moral indignation andoutrage at the perceived decline of social orderlauded so highly as the hallmark of colonialSouth Australia have continued to cast a pallover the Portrsquos community Allied to the lsquorustingrsquolandscape of industrial decline the lsquoPort Miseryrsquometa-narrative has recently been remobilised tolegitimate external interventions in the PortOnce again significant political will is beingbrought to bear upon Port Adelaide Howeverwhereas over 100 years ago the lsquoPort Miseryrsquodiscourse was created to precipitate theabandonment of the Port Adelaide site thiscontemporary mobilisation seeks to initiatethe reclamation of Port Adelaide In doing sothe complexity and fluidity of Port Adelaidersquoslandscape is accentuated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe thank Christine Crothers for cartographic assistance andtwo anonymous referees for their constructive comments

NOTES1 While this paper does not deal explicitly with issues of

Indigenous occupation of and displacement from thearea now called Port Adelaide it acknowledges thatthis place is the traditional land of the Kaurna people

2 Ironically the central architect of the colonial planEdward Wakefield conceived of the colony while inNewgate prison for kidnapping an underage heiress In1829 he published eleven articles in

The MorningChronicle

detailing what he entitled a

Sketch of aProposal for Colonizing Australia

3 Colonel William Light possessed none of the pure

aristocratic standing that many of his peers and sub-ordinates in the new colony could lay claim to Lightwas in the words of Whitelock (1985 6) the lsquo ille-gitimate son of an illegitimate sonrsquo Lightrsquos illegitimacywas further compounded in the strictly hierarchical andxenophobic colonial society as his mother was ofPortuguese and Asian descent

4 Environmental improvement has become a key facet ofinner city revitalisation rhetoric However Szilirsquos(2004) critique of environmental claims made in relationto the Port Adelaide redevelopment reveals that theseare largely discursive rather than substantive Szili(2004) argues that environmental claims constitutecorporate lsquogreenwashingrsquo concluding that the purportedenvironmental improvements are largely lsquosymbolicrsquo

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

M W Rofe and S Oakley

Constructing the Port

283

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

serving to legitimate the inscription of new meaningsupon the Portrsquos landscape

REFERENCESBaker ARH 1997 lsquoThe dead donrsquot answer question-

nairesrsquo researching and writing historical geography

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

21 231ndash243Barnes TJ and Duncan JS (eds) 1992

Writing WorldsDiscourse Text and Metaphor in the Representation ofLandscape

Routledge LondonConlon P 2004 Minister for Infrastructure South

Australia Retrieved 10 March 2005 from lthttpwwwlmcsagovau lmcabout ministerconloncfmgt

Craig L 2002 Grime out people in for the Partrsquos grandplan

The Advertiser

(30 July) 3Crang M 2002 Qualitative methods the new orthodoxy

Progress in Human Geography

26 647ndash655Crang M 2003 Qualitative methods touchy feely look-

see

Progress in Human Geography

27 494ndash504Crang M 2005 Qualitative methods there is nothing

outside the text

Progress in Human Geography

29 225ndash233

Crump J 1999 What cannot be seen will not be heard theproduction of landscape in Moline Illinois

Ecumene

6295ndash317

Curnow E 1958 Shall we strike An account of the 1928strike struggle of the waterside workers in Port AdelaideUnpublished PhD thesis University of Adelaide

Doel MA 2004 Analysing Cultural Texts In CliffordNJ and Valentine G (eds)

Key Methods in Geography

Sage Publications London 501ndash514

Duncan J and Duncan N 1988 (Re)reading the landscape

Environment and Planning D Society and Space

6 117ndash126

Dunn KM McGuirk PM and Winchester HPM 1995Place making the social construction of Newcastle

Australian Geographical Studies

33 149ndash167Eyles J 1985

Senses of Place

Silverbrook Press LondonHailes JC 1843

South Australia in 1842 By One WhoLived There Nearly Four Years

Reprinted 1971 AustralianFacsimile Editions No A78 Libraries Board of SouthAustralia Adelaide

Harcus W 1876

South Australia its History Resourcesand Productions

WC Cox Government Printers AdelaideHarrison R 1862

Colonial Sketches or Five Years in SouthAustralia with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants

HallVirtue and Co London Reprinted 1978 AustaprintAdelaide

Hoyle R and Starick P 2005 The renaissance of a port

The Advertiser

(4 June) 10ndash11James TH 1838

Six Months in South Australia WithSome Account of Port Philip and Portland Bay in Aus-tralia Felix With Advice to Emigrants

J Cross HolbornJeans DN 1988 The First World War memorials in New

South Wales centres of meaning in the landscape

Australian Geographer

19 259ndash267Kobayashi A and Peake L 1994 Unnatural discourse

lsquoracersquo and gender in geography

Gender Place andCulture

1 225ndash243Lees L 2004 Urban geography discourse analysis and

urban research

Progress in Human Geography

28 101ndash107

Leigh E 1929

Register News

(9 February) 2Lewis PF 1979 Axioms for reading the landscape some

guides on the American scene In Meinig DW (ed)

TheInterpretation of Ordinary Landscapes GeographicalEssays

Oxford University Press New York 11ndash33

Light W 1839

A Brief Journal of the Proceedings ofWilliam Light

Archibald MacDougall AdelaideLloyd T 2005 Rust belt no longer

The Advertiser

(4 June)45

MacKenzie D 1852

Ten Years in Australia Being theResults of His Experience as a Settler During that Period

Ord and Co London

Massey D 1992 A place called home

New Formations

17 3ndash15Mayo MP 1937

The Life and Letters of Col WilliamLight

FW Preece and Sons AdelaideMcGuire M 2004 Grand new start for desperate old port

The Australian

(23 September) 2McGuirk PM Winchester HPM and Dunn KM 1996

Entrepreneurial approaches to urban decline theHoneysuckle redevelopment in inner Newcastle NSW

Environment and Planning A

28 1815ndash1841Meinig DW (ed) 1979

The Interpretation of OrdinaryLandscapes Geographical Essays

Oxford UniversityPress New York

Mitchell D 2003 Cultural landscapes just landscapes orlandscapes of justice

Progress in Human Geography

27787ndash796

Oakley S and Verity F 2003 Resisting urban entrepre-neurialism place-based politics in the production ofcollective identity

Urban Policy and Research 21 191ndash203Oakley S 2005 Working port or lifestyle port A prelimi-

nary analysis of the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopmentGeographical Research 43 319ndash326

Ogborn M 2004 Finding historical data In Clifford NJand Valentine G (eds) Key Methods in Geography SagePublications London 101ndash115

Osborne D 1998 Constructing landscapes of power theGeorge Etienne Cartier monument Montreal Journal ofHistorical Geography 24 431ndash458

Pike D 1967 Paradise of Dissent South Australia 1829ndash1857 Melbourne University Press Melbourne

Pocock D 1981 Place and the novelist Transactions of theInstitute of British Geographers 6 337ndash347

Port Adelaide News 1926 (12 March)Potter Y 1999 Progress pubs and piety Port Adelaide

1836ndash1915 Unpublished PhD thesis University ofAdelaide

Punch KF 1998 Introduction to Social Research Quanti-tative and Qualitative Approaches Sage PublicationsLondon

Purvis T and Hunt J 1993 Discourse ideology dis-course ideology discourse ideology British Journal ofSociology 44 473ndash499

Rofe MW 2004 From lsquoproblem cityrsquo to lsquopromise cityrsquogentrification and the revitalisation of Newcastle Austral-ian Geographical Studies 42 193ndash206

Rose G 2001 Visual Methodologies an Introduction tothe Interpretation of Visual Materials Sage PublicationsLondon

Rose M 2002 Landscape and labyrinths Geoforum 33455ndash467

Samuals B 1991 Foreword In Murphy C (ed) Of Shipsand Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener Press Pty LtdPort Adelaide indashii

Shertock A 1991 Arthur Shertock In Murphy C (ed) OfShips and Strikes and Summer Nights Kitchener PressPty Ltd Port Adelaide 72ndash78

Szili G 2004 Greening lsquoPort Miseryrsquo the lsquogreenrsquo face ofwaterfront redevelopment in Port Adelaide SouthAustralia Unpublished BA (Honours) thesis Universityof Adelaide

284 Geographical Research bull September 2006 bull 44(3)272ndash284

copy 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation copy 2006 Institute of Australian Geographers

Tolmer A 1882 Reminiscences of an Adventurous andChequered Career at Home and at the AntipodesSampson Low Marston Searle and Rivington London

Verity F 1999 Renaissance or rhetoric community partici-pation in local government Unpublished PhD thesisUniversity of Newcastle

Walton JR 1995 How real(ist) can you get The Profes-sional Geographer 47 61ndash65

Whitelock D 1985 Adelaide from Colony to Jubilee aSense of Difference Savvas Publishing Adelaide

Winchester HPM McGuirk PM and Dunn KM1996a Constructing places for the market the case ofNewcastle NSW International Journal of HeritageStudies 1 41ndash58

Winchester HPM McGuirk PM Parkes A and Dunn KM1996b Carrington community of difference In Rowe D(ed) Imaging Newcastle Proceedings of the ImagingNewcastle Symposium University of Newcastle 75ndash83

Zukin S 1991 Landscapes of Power from Detroit toDisney World University of California Press Berkley