john connell - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by john connell
Event Management, 2015
Event management research increasingly recognizes place embeddedness as critical to success. Less... more Event management research increasingly recognizes place embeddedness as critical to success. Less well understood is the significance of the festivals and events sector in places suffering from environmental crises. A major empirical survey of 480 festivals in rural Australia, conducted in 2008 at the height of the Millennium Drought, elucidates the role and significance of festivals under conditions of extreme environmental stress. It centers on a qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions on the impacts of that drought. Over 70% of participating festival and event managers indicated that their community had suffered from drought, while 43% cited drought as adversely affecting the organization and management of their event. Impacts varied geographically and by event type (with inland agricultural shows especially hard hit). Nearly half of event managers also explained how their festival played a constructive role in helping their community cope with drought. Festival...
Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture
Sounds and the City
However cartographies of music are constructed, they invariably suggest some authentic relationsh... more However cartographies of music are constructed, they invariably suggest some authentic relationship between particular sites of vernacular musical creativity and a social and economic context that has contributed to a certain distinctiveness. Thus, the literature is replete with accounts of supposedly distinctive Mersey and Otago sounds, New Orleans jazz or Nashville country, and the 'mutually generative relations of music and space' (Leyshon et al., 1995, p. 424). In the conventional narrative, styles are generally deemed to have originated from particular individual and collective scenes associated with key musicians and bands, and talked up as a means of promoting these styles and places. Local ties engender credibility as expressions of local identity and distinctiveness, and 'credible places invest music with commodity value' (Connell and Gibson, 2003, p. 116). However, music creation and reception are more often little to do with place, and yet music still gains some degree of success even in circumstances where it would seem to oppose any notion of a link to locality. A particularly extreme and unusual example of this is the association between Elvis Presley and the small Australian country town of Parkes. This chapter examines how that particular and peculiar relationship emerged, and how it has been sustained and nurtured. In the process, we challenge notions of creativity and its role in local development.
Tourism Geographies, 2007
Abstract This article discusses the complex links between tourism, music and place. Music tourism... more Abstract This article discusses the complex links between tourism, music and place. Music tourism is a rapidly expanding and diverse tourist niche, although rarely acknowledged by geographers or tourism scholars. The article discusses historical precedents, before sketching a typology of contemporary linkages between music, tourism and place, including museums and festivals, sites of birth and death and (musical) creation, and locations enshrined in lyrics. Prior research is reviewed and new approaches proposed based on ...
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 2003
While tourism has been somewhat neglected in literature on the 'cultural economy', it remains an ... more While tourism has been somewhat neglected in literature on the 'cultural economy', it remains an important influence on cultural production, particularly within a global matrix of youth travel. A distinct cultural economy has emerged at Byron Bay in Far North Coast, New South Wales, Australia, which builds on connections between tourism and the production and marketing of music. Counter-urban migration and tourism have contributed to transformations of regional identity, as the Far North Coast is increasingly perceived as an 'alternative' or 'lifestyle' region, attracting more overseas visitors than any other non-metropolitan area and transforming Byron Bay, a small ex-whaling town, into a unique site of backpacker subcultures. A crucial element of tourist consumption is popular music, produced specifically for youth markets, informed and influenced by the attitudes and style of backpacker cultures. These themes come together in the marketing and consumption of 'world music' and its artefacts to 'neotribal' subcultures. This paper discusses the economic impacts and cultural discourse of these trends, emphasising the role of a politics of representation within economic and social geography.
Progress in Human Geography, 2004
Music has been neglected in geography, yet the rise of ‘world music’ exemplifies the multiple way... more Music has been neglected in geography, yet the rise of ‘world music’ exemplifies the multiple ways in which places are constructed, commodified and contested. Music from distant and ‘exotic’ places has long entered the western canon, yet the pace of diffusion to the west accelerated with the rise of reggae and the marketing of Paul Simon's Graceland (1986), which pointed to the modification and transformation of distant, ‘other’ musics for western tastes and markets. Fusion and hybridity in musical styles emphasized both the impossibility of tracing authenticity in musical styles and the simultaneous exoticism and accessibility of distant musics. ‘Strategic inauthenticity’, romanticization and the fetishization of marginality were central to the search for and marketing of purity and novelty: simplistic celebrations of geographical diversity and remoteness. The formal arrival of world music in 1987 was as a marketing category with commerce and culture entangled and inseparable, ...
Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2009
Examining a database of 2,856 festivals in Australia and survey results from 480 festival organiz... more Examining a database of 2,856 festivals in Australia and survey results from 480 festival organizers, we consider how nonmetropolitan cultural festivals provide constraints as well as opportunities for economic planners. Cultural festivals are ubiquitous, impressively diverse, and strongly connected to local communities through employment, volunteerism, and participation. Despite cultural festivals being mostly small-scale, economically modest affairs, geared around community goals, the regional proliferation of cultural festivals produces enormous direct and indirect economic benefits. Amidst debates over cultural and political issues (such as identity, exclusion, and elitism), links between cultural festivals and economic development planning are explored.
Geographical Research, 2007
This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350km to the ... more This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350km to the west of Sydney, in rural Australia. It explores the way in which a remote place with few economic prospects has created a tourism product, and subsequently captured national publicity, through a festival based around commemoration of the birthday of Elvis Presley, a performer who had never visited Australia, and certainly not Parkes. The Festival began in the early 1990s, when a keen Elvis fan rallied promoters (and other fans) around the idea of bringing Elvis impersonators to the town for an annual celebration. Since then, the Festival has grown in size, with notable economic impact. The town now partly trades on its association with Elvis, constituting an 'invented' tradition and place identity. Yet the festival is not without tensions. The images of Elvis and the traditions generated by the festival challenge those who wish to promote Parkes through more austere, staid notions of place and identity. For some, Elvis is a means for the town to generate income and national notoriety, while others prefer less 'kitsch' tourism attractions such as a nearby (and nationally famous) radio telescope. Results from interviews with key players and surveys of visitors demonstrate how 'tradition' is constructed in places (rather than being innate), and how small places, even in remote areas, can develop economic activities through festivals, and create new identities-albeit contested ones.
Rural and regional Australia have had a hard time of late. The economies of Sydney and Melbourne ... more Rural and regional Australia have had a hard time of late. The economies of Sydney and Melbourne are growing, but much of the rest of their states are not. The population of regional areas is stagnating and agriculture is struggling. Perhaps worst of all there is a feeling that no-one in Canberra or in the booming coastal periphery cares about this. The people of Orange have apparently spoken. Outside Sydney, behind what seems like an impervious sandstone curtain, not all is well. Even the largest towns in regional New South Wales are struggling to retain their populations and have faced difficult economic times through the present decade, although the drought years have faded away. Agriculture still matters, for employment and exports, but mechanisation has cost jobs. Farming is still how people see rural and regional Australia, but it is certainly not the only thing. There is more to rural Australia than agriculture, and most places have shifted away from the mass production of ag...
Geographical Research, Jan 1, 2007
This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350 km to the... more This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350 km to the west of Sydney, in rural Australia. It explores the way in which a remote place with few economic prospects has created a tourism product, and subsequently captured national publicity, through a festival based around commemoration of the birthday of Elvis Presley, a performer who had never visited Australia, and certainly not Parkes. The Festival began in the early 1990s, when a keen Elvis fan rallied promoters (and other fans) around the idea of bringing Elvis impersonators to the town for an annual celebration. Since then, the Festival has grown in size, with notable economic impact. The town now partly trades on its association with Elvis, constituting an ‘invented’ tradition and place identity. Yet the festival is not without tensions. The images of Elvis and the traditions generated by the festival challenge those who wish to promote Parkes through more austere, staid notions of place and identity. For some, Elvis is a means for the town to generate income and national notoriety, while others prefer less ‘kitsch’ tourism attractions such as a nearby (and nationally famous) radio telescope. Results from interviews with key players and surveys of visitors demonstrate how ‘tradition’ is constructed in places (rather than being innate), and how small places, even in remote areas, can develop economic activities through festivals, and create new identities – albeit contested ones.
Event Management, 2015
Event management research increasingly recognizes place embeddedness as critical to success. Less... more Event management research increasingly recognizes place embeddedness as critical to success. Less well understood is the significance of the festivals and events sector in places suffering from environmental crises. A major empirical survey of 480 festivals in rural Australia, conducted in 2008 at the height of the Millennium Drought, elucidates the role and significance of festivals under conditions of extreme environmental stress. It centers on a qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions on the impacts of that drought. Over 70% of participating festival and event managers indicated that their community had suffered from drought, while 43% cited drought as adversely affecting the organization and management of their event. Impacts varied geographically and by event type (with inland agricultural shows especially hard hit). Nearly half of event managers also explained how their festival played a constructive role in helping their community cope with drought. Festival...
Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture
Sounds and the City
However cartographies of music are constructed, they invariably suggest some authentic relationsh... more However cartographies of music are constructed, they invariably suggest some authentic relationship between particular sites of vernacular musical creativity and a social and economic context that has contributed to a certain distinctiveness. Thus, the literature is replete with accounts of supposedly distinctive Mersey and Otago sounds, New Orleans jazz or Nashville country, and the 'mutually generative relations of music and space' (Leyshon et al., 1995, p. 424). In the conventional narrative, styles are generally deemed to have originated from particular individual and collective scenes associated with key musicians and bands, and talked up as a means of promoting these styles and places. Local ties engender credibility as expressions of local identity and distinctiveness, and 'credible places invest music with commodity value' (Connell and Gibson, 2003, p. 116). However, music creation and reception are more often little to do with place, and yet music still gains some degree of success even in circumstances where it would seem to oppose any notion of a link to locality. A particularly extreme and unusual example of this is the association between Elvis Presley and the small Australian country town of Parkes. This chapter examines how that particular and peculiar relationship emerged, and how it has been sustained and nurtured. In the process, we challenge notions of creativity and its role in local development.
Tourism Geographies, 2007
Abstract This article discusses the complex links between tourism, music and place. Music tourism... more Abstract This article discusses the complex links between tourism, music and place. Music tourism is a rapidly expanding and diverse tourist niche, although rarely acknowledged by geographers or tourism scholars. The article discusses historical precedents, before sketching a typology of contemporary linkages between music, tourism and place, including museums and festivals, sites of birth and death and (musical) creation, and locations enshrined in lyrics. Prior research is reviewed and new approaches proposed based on ...
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 2003
While tourism has been somewhat neglected in literature on the 'cultural economy', it remains an ... more While tourism has been somewhat neglected in literature on the 'cultural economy', it remains an important influence on cultural production, particularly within a global matrix of youth travel. A distinct cultural economy has emerged at Byron Bay in Far North Coast, New South Wales, Australia, which builds on connections between tourism and the production and marketing of music. Counter-urban migration and tourism have contributed to transformations of regional identity, as the Far North Coast is increasingly perceived as an 'alternative' or 'lifestyle' region, attracting more overseas visitors than any other non-metropolitan area and transforming Byron Bay, a small ex-whaling town, into a unique site of backpacker subcultures. A crucial element of tourist consumption is popular music, produced specifically for youth markets, informed and influenced by the attitudes and style of backpacker cultures. These themes come together in the marketing and consumption of 'world music' and its artefacts to 'neotribal' subcultures. This paper discusses the economic impacts and cultural discourse of these trends, emphasising the role of a politics of representation within economic and social geography.
Progress in Human Geography, 2004
Music has been neglected in geography, yet the rise of ‘world music’ exemplifies the multiple way... more Music has been neglected in geography, yet the rise of ‘world music’ exemplifies the multiple ways in which places are constructed, commodified and contested. Music from distant and ‘exotic’ places has long entered the western canon, yet the pace of diffusion to the west accelerated with the rise of reggae and the marketing of Paul Simon's Graceland (1986), which pointed to the modification and transformation of distant, ‘other’ musics for western tastes and markets. Fusion and hybridity in musical styles emphasized both the impossibility of tracing authenticity in musical styles and the simultaneous exoticism and accessibility of distant musics. ‘Strategic inauthenticity’, romanticization and the fetishization of marginality were central to the search for and marketing of purity and novelty: simplistic celebrations of geographical diversity and remoteness. The formal arrival of world music in 1987 was as a marketing category with commerce and culture entangled and inseparable, ...
Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2009
Examining a database of 2,856 festivals in Australia and survey results from 480 festival organiz... more Examining a database of 2,856 festivals in Australia and survey results from 480 festival organizers, we consider how nonmetropolitan cultural festivals provide constraints as well as opportunities for economic planners. Cultural festivals are ubiquitous, impressively diverse, and strongly connected to local communities through employment, volunteerism, and participation. Despite cultural festivals being mostly small-scale, economically modest affairs, geared around community goals, the regional proliferation of cultural festivals produces enormous direct and indirect economic benefits. Amidst debates over cultural and political issues (such as identity, exclusion, and elitism), links between cultural festivals and economic development planning are explored.
Geographical Research, 2007
This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350km to the ... more This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350km to the west of Sydney, in rural Australia. It explores the way in which a remote place with few economic prospects has created a tourism product, and subsequently captured national publicity, through a festival based around commemoration of the birthday of Elvis Presley, a performer who had never visited Australia, and certainly not Parkes. The Festival began in the early 1990s, when a keen Elvis fan rallied promoters (and other fans) around the idea of bringing Elvis impersonators to the town for an annual celebration. Since then, the Festival has grown in size, with notable economic impact. The town now partly trades on its association with Elvis, constituting an 'invented' tradition and place identity. Yet the festival is not without tensions. The images of Elvis and the traditions generated by the festival challenge those who wish to promote Parkes through more austere, staid notions of place and identity. For some, Elvis is a means for the town to generate income and national notoriety, while others prefer less 'kitsch' tourism attractions such as a nearby (and nationally famous) radio telescope. Results from interviews with key players and surveys of visitors demonstrate how 'tradition' is constructed in places (rather than being innate), and how small places, even in remote areas, can develop economic activities through festivals, and create new identities-albeit contested ones.
Rural and regional Australia have had a hard time of late. The economies of Sydney and Melbourne ... more Rural and regional Australia have had a hard time of late. The economies of Sydney and Melbourne are growing, but much of the rest of their states are not. The population of regional areas is stagnating and agriculture is struggling. Perhaps worst of all there is a feeling that no-one in Canberra or in the booming coastal periphery cares about this. The people of Orange have apparently spoken. Outside Sydney, behind what seems like an impervious sandstone curtain, not all is well. Even the largest towns in regional New South Wales are struggling to retain their populations and have faced difficult economic times through the present decade, although the drought years have faded away. Agriculture still matters, for employment and exports, but mechanisation has cost jobs. Farming is still how people see rural and regional Australia, but it is certainly not the only thing. There is more to rural Australia than agriculture, and most places have shifted away from the mass production of ag...
Geographical Research, Jan 1, 2007
This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350 km to the... more This paper discusses the annual Elvis Revival Festival in the small town of Parkes, 350 km to the west of Sydney, in rural Australia. It explores the way in which a remote place with few economic prospects has created a tourism product, and subsequently captured national publicity, through a festival based around commemoration of the birthday of Elvis Presley, a performer who had never visited Australia, and certainly not Parkes. The Festival began in the early 1990s, when a keen Elvis fan rallied promoters (and other fans) around the idea of bringing Elvis impersonators to the town for an annual celebration. Since then, the Festival has grown in size, with notable economic impact. The town now partly trades on its association with Elvis, constituting an ‘invented’ tradition and place identity. Yet the festival is not without tensions. The images of Elvis and the traditions generated by the festival challenge those who wish to promote Parkes through more austere, staid notions of place and identity. For some, Elvis is a means for the town to generate income and national notoriety, while others prefer less ‘kitsch’ tourism attractions such as a nearby (and nationally famous) radio telescope. Results from interviews with key players and surveys of visitors demonstrate how ‘tradition’ is constructed in places (rather than being innate), and how small places, even in remote areas, can develop economic activities through festivals, and create new identities – albeit contested ones.