Abstract
Kuranda, the ‘village in the rainforest’ located in northern Queensland was once a hippie haven. Rosita Henry takes this as a starting point for analysis of a village that has undergone significant change over the 20th century, and uses it to look back into the lives of those who preceded the hippies – and thus the circumstances which made it attractive to this group – and forward to those who came after, who settled in the area to capitalise on the tourism generated by Kuranda’s hippie legacy.
Within Kuranda, Henry identifies three primary populations: the Aboriginal population, early European settlers, and the hippies who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s. Rather than see these as three already-existing, immutable categories of person, however, Henry focuses on how they are brought into being as groups through social interaction. She does this by framing the ethnography around close analysis of five ‘social dramas’ (Turner, 1974) between 1979 and 1995.
The first concerns the local amphitheatre, conceptualised and built by hippie settlers, and used by all, but undergirded with tensions around control. The second concerns the local market: originally a space created by hippies for non-monetised exchange, the market (and then rival markets) become the lens through which Henry examines the rising tourist appeal of the ‘village in the rainforest’ and the (hidden) privatisation of space set up as countercultural. The third social drama builds on these tensions around ‘public’ space to examine planning, required in response to the increased burden of tourism in the village. Here, relations with the state come to the fore together with the formation of associations able to speak the language of government to influence how the space will be mapped and navigated by residents and visitors alike. The fourth returns to theatre, only this time to focus on the rise of Aboriginal dance performances.
In discussing representation of the Pacific region, Rennie (1998) talks of the decline of hula as cultural practice, which becomes in the 20th century ‘reanimated as a fiction’ for tourist consumption (1998: 222). One sees shades of this reanimation as fiction in Henry’s descriptions of Aboriginal dance performances for tourists first on the street, then on a stage and finally moved into a purpose built venue located at a little remove from the village. Yet, for her Aboriginal interlocutors this is no mere simulacra: yes, they perform, but they dance the dances of their ancestors. Yes, they paint their bodies, but do so in ways that reflect their lineage. Yes, they ‘perform’ for tourists, but they also attend rallies and demonstrations after ‘performances’. While these dances and body decorations may not be authentic in the sense of faultless reproduction, or are able to demonstrate continuity with the past in the terms required as evidence of indigenous land/identity claims by the Australian state, they are authentic because they use bodily ‘memory’ to help make sense of ‘history’, and as a means for negotiating structures of power in Australia today (p. 213).
The final social drama relates to the Skyrail link, and shared Aboriginal and hippie opposition to the installation of the 7.5 km passenger cable car between Cairns and Kuranda. While united in their opposition, the basis from which they opposed it differed, highlighting linkages between Henry’s three groups, but also how they are mutually constituted as different in moments of unity as well as conflict. It is through all five social dramas, but perhaps this one in particular that we see a calling forth of a fourth unnamed group, who could perhaps be identified as ‘entrepreneurs’ or ‘capitalisers’ – those who have taken advantage of the shifts in social life in Kuranda for individualistic, usually commercial, benefit. This unnamed group highlights a tension within the ethnography, acting as both foil to hippie and Aboriginal group identification, yet simultaneously being of them: some (former) hippies engage in entrepreneurial, profit-oriented ventures and – depending on one’s views of tradition, memory and performance of indigenous identities for touristic consumption – one could say something similar of some of the Aboriginal people. Henry navigates these currents calmly, showing through numerous examples both how these groups are constituted as groups through moments of conflict and how they simultaneously elude homogenisation as they tensely brush shoulders with each other and (occasionally becoming) entrepreneurs.
Overall, Henry provides a clearly written ethnographic account of performance as both staged event (theatrical responses to these ‘social dramas’ recur throughout the book) and performance as everyday life. Seeing social tensions (re)enacted as theatre not only reflects but shapes the form of these social dramas away from the performance space(s), illustrating the benefits of an analytic approach which plays with performance in all its senses. It further makes a valuable contribution to the anthropological study of authenticity – while not of central concern (indeed, the word does not appear in the index), what makes ‘authentic’ Aboriginal art/music/performance/language meaningful and real to all its consumers, be they Aboriginal, settler, hippie, tourist or entrepreneur, points to the benefits of a fluid and flexible approach to the concept. And finally, this book makes a powerful contribution to the anthropology of counterculture through detailed ethnographic engagement situated in concentric circles of connectedness to local indigenous people, national Australian government and counterculture as global phenomenon.