The Cultural Politics of Paradise

Abstract

This thesis depicts the cultural transformation of Australia’s Gold Coast over the last decade. Informed by my own professional experience in the arts community, I present qualitative research conducted with artists, youth, cultural policymakers and industry leaders from 2010-2011 at a time when the city was on the cusp of cultural change. This is accompanied by my own autoethnographic observations and reflections since the data was collected, affording me a wide lens through which to contextualise the study. Drawing on the voices of artists and cultural practitioners, I describe how the discourse of paradise— ‘sun, sand, surf and sex’—positioned the Gold Coast as a ‘cultural desert’ in the Australian imaginary. More broadly, I discuss the spatial politics of paradise within the context of global place competition, hyperneoliberal development and urban cultural policy. I draw on the concept of the cultural cringe to illustrate how artists and cultural practitioners worked to resist and dismantle the paradise apparatus with the aim of realigning the Gold Coast’s cultural landscape. By adopting entanglement theory and transdisciplinarity alongside an historical approach to conversation, this thesis documents the emergence of a cultural voice. At a point in time when the cultural cringe was endemic and cultural governance was limited, this thesis shows how artists and cultural practitioners were at the forefront of advocating for better cultural policy and infrastructure. In doing so, it highlights the cultural politics of paradise across four milieus: community, youth, industry and policy. In my own observations, I reflect on the erosion of the cultural cringe as the city embraces arts and culture in an attempt to reposition itself as a cultural oasis. The findings have wide-ranging implications for cultural policy and planning on the Gold Coast as well as other paradise destinations more globally.