Erasure, discovery and emergence: The Buderim–Palmwoods Heritage Tramway walking track assemblage

Abstract

A serene little walking track graces the hillside along Mons Road between Buderim and the Bruce Highway. It marks a significant piece of state heritage: the Buderim–Palmwoods Tramway. Behind it lies a story of community driving discovery, emergence, conservation and use. This article tells of the emergence of the walking track using Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage concept to explore the ‘becoming’ of the walking track. Assemblages provide an understanding of heritage as a process rather than a fixed entity, examining the re-territorialisation of the tramway track and the ways in which its boundaries are constantly challenged by human and non-human elements. The continuums of territorialisation/deterritorialisation and materiality/expression offer insights into heritage management. Analysis of the tramway as a heritage assemblage reveals the ongoing process of caring for heritage: it shows the strengths of clear boundaries, and permeable ones, and the importance of both material and expressive roles of the components comprising a heritage place. An assemblage view moves conservation beyond the fabric, the architectural and aesthetic to the interplay of the atmospheric, the emotional and the expressive, recognising the action and agency of heritage components and their ability to affect and be affected.