Experiments in history: the voice of Bondi

ABSTRACT How might we distil the meaning of a place amid a myriad of competing representations, perspectives and narratives? In this article, I address this question with a case study of Bondi Beach, Australia. Bondi is a synecdoche for an Australian beach lifestyle, and for urban congestion, dysfunction and the destruction of the natural world. I argue that appeals to historical facts, which are invariably contested, can never reconcile disparate representations into a single truth. All representations are mediated by contextually laden perspectives. Here I explore the issue of representational histories of places by presenting a case study of Bondi Beach. The article comprises two sections. In the first I highlight the problem of competing evidence and representations that emerge from traditional empirical-analytical research into three subjects relevant to Australian beaches including Bondi: Aboriginal custodianship, colonization, and coastal management. In the second section, I propose a biographical/autobiographical form of representation using Bondi’s voice. I advocate Bondi’s voice as an approach to mediating competing representations of place. Bondi’s voice – in the form of a biographical/autobiographical narrative – is not an attempt to produce a single truth but to tell a story from the perspective of a natural environment under siege from destructive human cultures.