Chapter One - Introduction.
A Strange Utopia.
A colourful history, from humble beginnings to international style. A towering skyline, beachfront esplanades, country cottages and relaxing rainforests. Non-stop fun or leisurely days. Sophistication, glamour and natural beauty. This is the Gold Coast. (Free tourist magazine - Australia's Gold Coast 1993:4)
Is Surfers Paradise Utopia? This apparently superficial question evokes a variety of immediate and wide-ranging responses. A straw poll may elicit a monosyllabic exclamation or reveal more detailed musings. This plural collection of opinion does, however, reflect the multitudinous representations that depict a postmodern Surfers Paradise. The construction of an academic "answer" to this question, undertaken with the privilege of a sociologist's gaze, necessitates the consideration of the control factors, consumption patterns and power relations in advanced capitalist social life. The untheoried respondent must, at least, be familiar with representations of the site - Surfers Paradise - and maintain a conceptualisation of Utopia that is utilised as a yardstick. The name itself - "Surfers Paradise" - sketches an initial representation which intimates a specific and hedonistic form of Utopia 1. Despite this partisan moniker, Utopia may be alternately defined as the "good place" or "no place" but is precluded from being "my place" (Mumford 1962:1). This dual etymology allows the fabrication of Utopia to be suitably enigmatic as a focus and device for academic research (Davis 1987:89).
The ability for Utopia to be given form despite its primary existence as an imaginary construction of social criticism is a significant premise of this research. Although utopias are founded in the ideational - the world of human imagination - their attempted achievement is not confined to this facet of social life. Similarly, the physical world is always experienced through mediated terms and cannot be viewed objectively. The inter-relationship of these worlds creates a complex and recursive, but dynamic, process in which physical influences ideational and ideational influences physical (Craik 1991:29, Leach 1976:19, Ricoeur 1981:49). While Utopia is an ideational "place," the persistence of urban sites as complex sets of competing hegemonic representations and the location for human settlement allows them to exist in both the physical and ideational worlds (Rodman 1992:641). Surfers Paradise is an eminent example of this dual existence, extending the range and meaning of urban settlement beyond the "ordinary" towards the strange and spectacular. Various terms describe the interfaces that reconcile the physical and ide s boundaries, where any concept utilised is suspect (Leach 1976:34). The choice and utilisation of this model is, itself, a division of social arbitrarily defined for the purpose of academic research. Those concepts that are employed as tools of description or definition are used tentatively and hesitantly. This conditioning upon the use of concepts is not effected in the hope that more accurate or "real" positions will develop but, rather, as a reflection of the dynamic social situations which they describe.
Surfers Paradise has a particular appeal as a focus for an academic discussion of different worlds of existence and "reality." For some, its residents lack any grip upon "reality" and the place is the antithesis of Utopia. This research is an examination of the negotiated human relationship between the ideational and physical worlds. Although these worlds apparently exist as a simplistic dichotomy, the presence of humans, in their multiple social roles (including that as creators of the ideational world), ensures that no sociological model is ever truly reflective of the lived experience (Nietzsche 1968:10). Approximations are possible, but these are just as readily rebutted by alternate schemes. This invitation towards nihilism is not, however, the intention of this research. The physical and ideational worlds may be impossible to model. However, the interfaces between these worlds, provide tangible material to found a discussion. This is particularly so with the consideration of material culture, which requires input from both worlds of experience to exist. Such a discussion, then, centres upon the manner in which humans understand their world through their experience, participation, and consumption of various, often conflicting representations.
Tourism publicity ensures that differing representations of Surfers Paradise are known beyond its physical boundaries. This is achieved through the propagation of meaning-laden material culture items which often foster utopic representations (Jameson 1981:20). These items can take many forms, including brochures, television programmes (including the soap opera, Paradise Beach), newspaper reports, spoken conversation and, more mundanely, tourist's souvenirs (cf. Thiselton 1992:55). Tourists also play a significant role in perpetuating the promise of Surfers Paradise as a Utopia by shaping what they see around them in order to fulfil their preconceptions. The tourist has an expectation that they will see and experience a strange place where the conventions of the "ordinary" world are suspended for their benefit. These preconceptions are themselves developed under the influence of previous representations. By seeking, expecting and shaping their destination as strange, tourists reconfirm the "ordinary," non-utopic qualities of their daily lives. This process occurs regardless of the utopic qualities of the tourists' homes or dystopic features of Surfers Paradise.
The material culture items of Surfers Paradise are products of contemporary culture and are given meaning as a consequence of ongoing social relations both locally and elsewhere. Material culture items, as one of the "real" interfaces between the physical and ideational worlds, are laden with meaning as a consequence of existing within the "gaze" of human existence. Ideational constructions, however, such as the utopic qualities of Surfers Paradise, are given physicality through photography and other selective representational mediums. Within Surfers Paradise, these material culture objects and the ad hoc pastiche that is created in the juxtaposition of different styles, cultures and historical periods are given meaning by its creators - the residents and visitors. The physical site labelled "Surfers Paradise" has been assigned fictional and ideational qualities extending its provenance beyond solely functional elements into the ideational world of existence. In this manner, Surfers Paradise is a postmodern "city" (Mullins 1990:330).
The postmodernity of Surfers Paradise is, itself, discussed here within the framework of a methodology informed by the tenets of postmodernism. This dual application of the term, "postmodernism," recognises its multiple levels of meaning, among them academic theory and as a description for contemporary social life. This potential tautology of definition reflects the multitudinous arguments of its academic advocates. This choice of method, however, is a purposive one. Postmodernism as a means of description, and possibly interpretation, is a reflection of the historical period in which it has gained full articulation - the current "moment" in contemporary history (Lovering 1989:4). The consideration of Surfers Paradise is similarly one undertaken in this "moment" (Said 1979a:185). This approach admittedly particularises any conclusions that will be reached. However, a text that has been fully positioned, both methodologically and historically, may be of greater utility as a model and reference to future work than an ill-considered universalist approach (Said 1979a:164, Seidman 1991:134). The consideration of a city, especially one which is itself arguably postmodern, within the framework of a postmodernist methodology, is a tacit attempt at addressing the apparently nihilistic conundrum of practical works that are both postmodern and ethnographic (Beauregard 1988:57, Miller 1990:477). This charge is a result of the lack of givens that are available within a postmodernist epistemology, obliging the ethnographer to consider all the aspects of their research, to the possible detriment of the original subject. Practical works of a postmodern oeuvre are still possible, albeit, from the modernist perspective, within a highly conditioned context.
While structured conventionally, this research does not attempt to construct a gesamtkunstwerk or total art work of Surfers Paradise. To completely describe the city, irrespective of additional interpretation, is to effectively reconstruct the city. Holistic approaches can endanger the consideration of other ideational representation-building by appending new representations to those already in existence (Lewanowski 1993:46, Said 1975:302). This is a threatened prospect for this, or any research work, that purports to be a distillation of multiple preceding authorities (cf. Said 1975:13). A cautious method of addressing this eventuality is to parallel the tour guide's description of the city, though not its content. The resultant selected points of interest that have been chosen are necessarily brief, simplified, and eclectic. A linear text cannot, either graphically or descriptively, fully convey the interconnection of social lives that founds any urban settlement. This is a severe limitation for a project which maintains as its most basic and founding raison d'etre the description and attempted understanding of social life. However, this work does not attempt to address the inability of social research to distinguish the necessary editing of text from the creation of arbitrary divisions of social life. Rather, the social constructions and representations that allow human settlements to have "shape" and "meaning" are the focus of this dissertation.