The social construction of place: Newcastle, NSW

The city of Newcastle (Australia) has experienced significant transformations of identity. The city's contemporary reconstruction is a deliberate shift from industrial to post-industrial identity. An industrial identity is now held to be debilitating for places, while a post-industrial vision proffers an impression of improvement. The notion that places are constructed, symbolically as well as materially, allows us to problematise the identity of place, and to expose the ideologies and the actors behind such (re)constructions. Creative literature, media comment and autobiogeographical material provide insight into the landscapes and discourses of the city's changing identity, and into persisting patriarchal ideology, Anglo-centrism and elitism. The new post-industrial identity disinherits working people, ignores the local indigenous peoples, and trivialises the role of women.