Songlines 2012 - Songlines vs. Pipelines? Mining and Tourism Industries in Remote Australia

A Two-Day Seminar at the University of NSW
Conveners: Dr Carsten Wergin, SPRC / UNSW and MLU (Germany); Professor Stephen Muecke, EMPA / UNSW
Dates: 28-29 February 2012
Location: Social Policy Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, John Goodsell Building, 2052 NSW Sydney, Australia, R 221-223
The mining boom in remote Australia sees leisure tourism competing against a fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) workforce for limited accommodation and flights. Industrial development seems not simply to increase visitor numbers in affected regions but to replace one type of visitor with another, namely leisure tourists with business tourists and travelers.
Aviation, food services and accommodation providers have benefited from the significant increase in business tourism and travel, but other parts of the tourism sector, notably Indigenous, environmental and heritage tourism, experience considerable pressures. Another significant area of impact is Indigenous culture. Indigenous, environmental and heritage tourism enterprises are in many ways closely related to people and country. Since country represents Indigenous culture and identity, any impact on it is not only an impact on tourism but can mean major transformations for Indigenous people.
Critique of mining and industrial development has been raised in different contexts. Cases have been made in regards to Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, or the impact of mining and industrial development on Indigenous people and country in the Pilbara (WA). A more recent example is the town of Broome, one of WA’s most popular tourist destinations, and the controversy surrounding a proposed LNG gas facility and mining projects in popular tourist sites in the area such as ‘Horizontal Falls’.
The seminar seeks to bring together academics, government researchers and other experts as well as those directly affected by mining development, notably Indigenous people, to generate critical debate. ‘Songlines vs. Pipelines?’ is a ‘wicked problem’ and there is a strong need for timely social and cultural policy to tackle it. We look for theoretically and empirically informed papers, qualitative and quantitative studies, historical approaches as well as popular accounts of past and present experiences of the impacts on Australian tourism and local culture by industrial development.
Please send proposals of 300-500 words outlining your contribution, plus a short bio to Dr Carsten Wergin (c.wergin-AT-unsw.edu.au) by 15 January 2012.