Embodied places in indigenous ecotourism: the Yarrawarra research project.

Beck, Wendy ; Somerville, Margaret

Abstract. Little research has been done on how places with shared Indigenous and colonial pasts are communicated to tourists. One problem is that many tourists lack an understanding of Indigenous cultural landscapes and have stereotyped views of Indigenous peoples and places. In order to address this problem we argue that an embodied presence in the landscape, focusing on knowledge by the body as well as knowledge by the mind, is essential to understanding Indigenous place stories, and for seeing the landscape in new ways. On the mid-north coast of New South Wales, where ecotourism is increasingly important, we are carrying out a collaborative research project to develop interpretive materials with the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation. In the Yarrawarra Place Stories project (1997-2000) we have carried out oral history and archaeological research, and through a series of five books based on individual places, we attempt to convey Aboriginal places in complex and layered ways which focus on an embodied presence in the landscape, and explore how tourists may construct places visited in new ways. In this article we provide a reading of an example of the place representations from this project (Yarrawarra Place Stories Books 1-5) to make evident the embodied nature of local place stories in this interdisciplinary research project.

 Places, and images of places, are fundamental to the
 practice of tourism ... Tourism is a strongly visual
 practice. We spend time in advance of a tourism trip
 attempting to visualise the experience by examining
 guidebooks and brochures, or in anticipatory day
 dreams; we often spend significant parts of the trip
 itself engaged in the act of sightseeing in which we gaze
 upon places, people and their artefacts; and we relive
 experiences as memories and recollections, aided by
 photographs or home video footage ... In the process we
 are inventing (or reinventing) places to suit our
 purposes. [Williams 1998:173]

The notion of the tourist gaze (Urry 1990) has been an important one for research into tourists and tourism. But the 'tourist gaze' is often a disembodied one, so in this article we explore the notion of a bodily presence, putting tourists into the landscape. Our research question becomes: how can we represent Aboriginal heritage tourist places in a local and embodied way?

Little scholarly research has been done on the representation of places for tourists, especially those places with shared Aboriginal and colonial pasts AHC 2002; Zeppel 1999, Zeppel 2001a). In this article we examine how our research project with Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation, which involves Indigenous ecotourism, archaeology and oral history in coastal New South Wales, has chosen to represent local places in books produced for tourists (Yarrawarra Place Stories Books 1-5). The key to our images of place lies in embodiment. Following Somerville (1999) we argue that an embodied presence in the landscape is essential to understanding Indigenous place stories and to developing relations of empathy with the landscape and with the storytellers so that there is the possibility of developing new stories, and of seeing the landscape in new ways. Seeing the landscape in this context also involves seeing a different and nonstereotypical Indigenous presence and making hidden places and histories visible to non-Indigenous persons. Walsh (1992:145) has argued that:

 ... heritage, in many of its forms, is responsible for the
 destruction of a sense of place. The representation of
 historical surfaces via a uniform set of media which
 tend to appear in all heritage representations,
 emphasize the spectacle rather than any depth of
 historical questioning and analysis.

Many researchers present a dichotomy between the 'inauthentic' place identification of tourists and the 'authentic' lifestyles of local peoples. In our project we argue that the 'production and consumption of heritage spaces involves a much more complex negotiation between local and external forces' (Hubbard and Lilley 2000:231), and that an interdisciplinary research approach is necessary for effective heritage tourist products. Our books, written for tourists, attempt to convey the Corindi Beach places (near Coffs Harbour, NSW) in complex and layered ways that focus on an embodied presence in the landscape.

There are obviously many ways in which places can be defined and represented. Most residents and visitors to the Corindi Beach area have an image and experiences of beaches, holidays and fishing, and a very limited understanding of the Indigenous landscape and history of the area; one which extends back thousands of years. When we present work generated from the Yarrawarra Place Stories project we introduce the place in different ways, representing different stakeholders in the research. These place-practices are not necessarily in agreement. Some of these ways of defining place are taken-for-granted place-practices (e.g. identifying a location on a map); others are newly taken up and not so obvious place-practices such as using language, language groups and Indigenous ownership to identify a place. All are socially and culturally determined and all are ways of defining and representing place, which we refer to as 'place-practices'. These are place-practices that we share with the Corindi Beach people and include acknowledging and claiming Indigenous ownership of places, defining place by speaking language or by marking language boundaries of territory, or by living and working in places. In this article, we present a detailed reading of Corindi Beach places to present alternative ways for visitors to construct place.

Background

The project started in 1997 and is continuing, although the major field projects of the first stage have been completed; these include hundreds of hours of Corindi Beach oral history recording and several archaeological investigations. The work was undertaken by a team consisting of both Yarrawarra Corporation and University staff. The specific aims of the fieldwork are to research places of significance in the area of the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation. This project is somewhat unusual as it is not a contract, it is not a University research project and it is not a cultural heritage management project. It is a research partnership jointly funded by the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation and the Australian Research Council (through the University of New England) who equally committed cash and in-kind support for the work. The outcomes of this interdisciplinary project are productive for both Yarrawarra and academic purposes and the research has focused on local place stories.

The project is located on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales, an area which is now densely settled, with an increasing population situated along the coastal strip, and a large Indigenous population. This population is part of the Gumbaingirr language group. Tourism is an important industry in this area, for both domestic and international tourists and Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation participates in this tourist industry. For example, six per cent of Australia's international tourists visited the North Coast in 1989; this is the same percentage that visited Uluru. The presentation of attractive and educative material for tourists, on Indigenous culture, is therefore important.

Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation is located at Corindi Beach, about 35 kilometres north of Coffs Harbour and has been involved in cultural ecotourism since 1987. In 1997, Yarrawarra employed over one hundred individuals in various enterprises, making it one of the largest local employers. While a number of families live locally, other employees live at Coffs Harbour and other regional centres, such as Woolgoolga. As part of their ecotourism enterprise Yarrawarra run programs designed for a range of client groups including primary and secondary schools, tertiary students and adult tourists with approximately 5000 visitors annually. The programs involve visits to sites, bush-tucker walks, an art gallery, craft workshops and the sale of crafts and bushfoods. In 1999 a seventy-bed accommodation block ('Nuralamee') was constructed and opened at Yarrawarra, which supplements the existing Cultural Centre.

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International tourism as research stimulus

What does an international tourism context mean for Yarrawarra Corporation and hence to the research project? Why are images of local places important? Yarrawarra's ecotourist enterprise functions in the context of an international tourist exchange market dealing in cultural tourism and ecotourism. It has been predicted that international tourism will have had an increasingly significant impact on the Australian economy during the ten years from 1993 to 2003. Expenditure by international tourists was forecast to grow at an average annual rate of nine per cent, from just over six billion dollars in 1993 to almost fifteen billion in 2003 (Office of National Tourism 1998). About 35 per cent of tourists to Yarrawarra are international tourists. The northern coast of New South Wales is a popular international tourist destination, six per cent of Australia's international tourists visited there in 1989, the same proportion that visited Uluru (Ayers Rock) (Brokensha and Guldberg 1992:27). Studies of international tourists have also found (Young 1991:24) that the majority of

 ... international visitors to Australia are interested in
 seeing and learning about Aboriginal arts and culture,
 one third of the visitors purchased Aboriginal arts or
 other items related to Aboriginal culture, the value of
 these purchases is estimated at $30 million per year.

In 1996, about 557 000 international visitors, or fifteen per cent of the total, visited Indigenous sites and attractions, an increase of 45 per cent from 1995 (Office of National Tourism 1998).

Such statistics highlight the phenomenon of growing international interest in Indigenous cultures and 'authentic' experiences that seems to parallel increasing globalisation and global consumerism (Zeppel 1998). Indigenous Australians have taken up these discourses, most notably through their artworks in response to the world-wide interest in Western desert style 'dot paintings' and in their efforts to gain international advocacy (Zeppel 2001b). An international audience (at the United Nations) has been sought in the case of native title claims with the Australian Government's 1998 amendments to the native title legislation, and also recently with World Heritage bodies in relation to the establishment of Jabiluka uranium mine, near Kakadu National Park. Locally, Indigenous communities and individuals have taken up these discourses in a variety of ways, one of which is to engage with the ecotourist industry.

Ecotourism and cultural ecotourism?

The Ecotourism Association of Australia includes in its definition of 'ecotourism' fostering 'environmental and cultural understanding and appreciation'. There is an acknowledgment that culture and heritage are both parts of the landscape (Beeton 1998:49). Ecotourism is widely considered, both in Australia and overseas, as an area of the tourism industry with significant growth potential. It is seen both as an important niche market with a particular range of experiences sought by particular visitors, and as a catalyst for encouraging the tourism industry to be ecologically sustainable (ADT 1994a). Indigenous peoples are particularly involved in this kind of tourism (ADT 1994b), and Objective 10 of the National Ecotourism Strategy is to 'enhance opportunities for self-determination, self-management and economic self-sufficiency in ecotourism for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders' (ADT 1994a:44). Tourism was one of three industries recommended as offering opportunities for greater Indigenous participation by the Government's response to the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Royal Commission (ARCADC 1992). There are currently a growing number of Indigenous communities becoming involved in ecotourism, particularly in guided walks and tours. Surveys of tourists have indicated that visitor interest and participation in field activities, such as visiting Indigenous sites and guided cultural tours, is high (Young 1991:22).

The social, economic and cultural benefits of ecotourism are seen, according to the National Ecotourism Strategy (ADT 1994:22), at two different levels.

In the local community, to:

* create a variety of employment opportunities that draw on the skills of local people

* contribute to diversifying the economic base of regional economies and to the tourism industry generally

* assist in the long term conservation of natural areas that have cultural value

* offer an effective means of re-vitalising local arts and traditions

* encourage local communities to value and to benefit from natural and cultural assets

* encourage Aboriginal organisations to be self-sufficient.

More widely, to:

* encourage reconciliation by helping non-Indigenous people to understand and appreciate Indigenous cultures and values

* add to national foreign exchange earnings

* encourage local infrastructure development.

In many discussions about their ecotourist enterprise, Tony Perkins, the Manager of Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation, has emphasised Yarrawarra's interest in restoration of damaged lands, land protection and land management. Cultural ecotourism is also compatible with the need to be economically self-sustaining and at the same time to maintain cultural values, in particular, relationship to land. Tony has said that cultural ecotourism is appropriate because it values Indigenous place knowledge; it allows Corindi Beach people to live away from sources of employment in major centres and to continue to engage in cultural practices of land management for cultural survival. Yarrawarra markets itself in the context of the intersection of discourses of ecotourism and market exchange and cultural maintenance.

The general objectives of Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation are expressed, not in terms of market viability, but in terms of their primary desire 'to strengthen and foster the development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity and culture' (Yarrawarra 1996). It is important that the development of their ecotourism strategy and the research project be seen in this context. The Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) was also important at the time to support tourism projects. Members of the Corporation have been involved in cultural ecotourism since 1987. The Corporation's targets for the year 2000 (Yarrawarra 1996) included:

* Establish as major tourist operator in cultural experiences

* To be at Arating as conference holders and service providers in cultural education

* Full-time employment for CDEP employees in culture and history

* To be a recognised label internationally and locally in the supply of quality genuine art. Within the context of their desire to preserve 'their identity and culture', Yarrawarra has taken up the discourses of market exchange with their emphasis on marketing of cultural experiences, competition in the marketplace, attention to both international and local markets and the marketing of art objects as well as tourist products.

The current business situation is summed up (Yarrawarra 1996) thus:

 A platform has been laid for forward progress in
 viability of projects established. However, some
 projects require urgent funding to capture their
 intended markets. If this is not done unfortunately
 these projects will fail through market loss.

There is some sense of urgency expressed here in the desire to capture local and international markets and the proposed research project fits into this gap. Tony Perkins, Manager of Yarrawarra and collaborator in the research proposal, in a meeting about the proposed project, emphasised his desire in relation to knowledge about their prehistory. He drew an open book in the sand with a line in the middle of the page to signify 1900 and said 'We know a lot about this time [after 1900] and we'd like to find out what happened up to here [before 1900]'. So, how does a research project answer these questions?

In developing the research proposal, we decided that information was needed from a variety of sources, including archaeology, oral history, and palaeo-ecology to include in the material that was required to service the range of educational and visitor groups. Yarrawarra Corporation considered that, in order satisfy increasing visitor demand, the organisation needed to research more of the local sites to provide accessible and accurate material for the growing tourist market. The newly constructed accommodation building is expected to increase the numbers of tourists, especially international visitors, and to put considerable pressure on Yarrawarra to offer a high-quality tourist product. Jacobs and Gale (1994) argued that, in order to ensure high-quality tourism, information and educational material should be easily accessible, accurate, stimulating and available for a range of different visitor interests and requirements. Such material also ensures protection of the sites by increasing respect and appreciation of them (Jacobs and Gale 1994:123).

'Getting the message out'--sharing Indigenous knowledge

The rationale for tourism at Yarrawarra Corporation, however, is about getting Aboriginal place stories from Corindi Beach 'out' to the community. Tony Perkins (1998) outlined the history of the Corporation:

 Yarrawarra was a dream ... going back in about the
 1980s. The reason why we decided that we needed a
 Corporation like this was to show the real value of the
 Aboriginal culture ... its history, that virtually was
 never known about and ... I don't think anyone pushed
 hard enough or may be they weren't allowed to at that
 time to establish these kind of organisations to show
 that the culture is really alive ... on the ... on the
 coastline of NSW. So basically that's why this
 Corporation was set up to establish ... all those types of
 aims and objectives, to get the message out that
 Yarrawarra and where it's based had real culture and
 real history that was very important to the Aboriginal
 people living here.

 How we've had to go about that was to first establish
 an organisation and then start very slowly in getting the
 elders of the tribe from this area to work as a clan group
 to work out what information we could give regarding
 the tradition of the tribe how do we put together
 educational programs and what sorts of on-site stuff
 can we do and then we thought maybe we can justify
 that there is still an Aboriginal existence still along the
 coastline ...

 We can't ... we can't continue to be a hidden race of
 people and we've come to terms there ... there is only
 one way to get this message out, but at the same time
 we have to be very careful, we don't want to lose, we
 don't want to lose the full power of the tradition and
 the culture and some of the secrets that need to be kept.
 But at the same time we must let go so much of that to
 be ... I suppose ... identified as a race of people that still
 have the knowledge and that still live here in this area.

 We think what we have done is working ... the elders
 believe that knowledge must go out to a certain extent
 and hat we must ourselves work out an educational
 system where it'll benefit all people in this country.

Cultural maintenance and relationships to place

Cheryl Brown, a researcher from Yarrawarra Corporation, outlines the reasons why communicating how Aborigines relate to place today is important in addressing stereotyped views that tourists and others have of Indigenous peoples. She says (C. Perkins 1998):

 We as Aboriginal people from Yarrawarra have had
 dealings with many different cultures and have heard
 many different versions on what they think its like to be
 an Aboriginal person living in today's society.

 'Where are the real Aborigines?', and 'Did you used to
 be an Aboriginal?' are some of the questions that people
 ask, and while walking down the Bush Track I heard a
 student say 'I don't eat Bush Tucker, I only eat real
 food'. This made me laugh, because I didn't think you
 could get any more real than eating bushtucker. So even
 though some of us might choose to wear clothes, and
 don't live in humpies, or chase the odd kangaroo it
 doesn't mean that we are less an Aboriginal than our
 ancestors before us. It just means that we have learnt to
 adjust to a different way of living, but still not
 forgetting who we are, where we come from, and what
 our culture means.

 Well as you can see there are different types of
 comments from the general community, and other
 overseas tourist. And even though eating the kangaroo
 to some tourists, was like the thought of 'Eating
 Skippy', I think this goes hand in hand with the thought
 of eating 'Flipper' or deep-frying 'Willy'.

 Australia has always been a multi-cultural society, with
 hundreds of language groups. However now there is
 pressure on Aboriginal people to present a similar
 cultural picture all over Australia. At Yarrawarra we
 wish to show visitors that Aboriginal Culture is not just
 didgeridoos and dot painting. This is the reason that we
 are gathering all this information together about
 Gumbaingirr lifestyles and to help maintain and
 develop Gumbaingirr culture, to make the young ones
 proud.

So an important part of our research was making visible some of the stories of the landscape that have not been previously visible to non-Indigenous peoples (Somerville et al. 1999) as well as inspiring Gumbaingirr young persons.

We were looking for a new way of presenting these various kinds of place practices to outsiders, by working with archaeology and oral history to develop a more productive relationship and a deeper understanding of place. Previous research at Corindi Beach either had taken an archaeological focus using time as an organising principle (McBryde 1974:195), or had been based on very brief periods of fieldwork, such as that for environmental impact consultancy reports (Cane 1988; Morris 1994). While all of these relatively brief studies (e.g. sixteen oral history fieldwork days) suggested a long and intimate association of Corindi Beach people with significant places in the area, they were not designed to be comprehensive research documents, theoretical statements or interpretative material. More detailed research was required and, since 1995, recognising areas of mutual interest, Yarrawarra and the University of New England have designed and carried out a large research project to address these gaps. We considered that 'place' was a more appropriate framework for interdisciplinary work aimed at revealing hidden places, and that a productive relationship between oral history and archaeology would involve an integrated knowledge base, without co-option or dominance by one discipline over the other and with the possibility of movement between. We propose the idea of conversation as a way to conceptualise the relationship between the two disciplines.

Creative interpretation of places

Our original objective was to propose how oral and archaeological information may be integrated into a creative interpretation of cultural sites. We started by jointly identifying five site clusters (Arrawarra, Corindi Beach north, Corindi Beach south, Old Camp, Red Rock) which then formed the basis of place categories and each interpretive book was based on one of these clusters. We have moved from the idea of integration, where often an artificial relationship is created, to one of conceptualising the relationship as conversations involving a movement between the two.

With place as an enabler, we found conversation allowed archaeology and oral history to participate in productive interdisciplinary research to produce books for the Yarrawarra ecotourism enterprise. We defined several kinds of conversation between oral history and archaeology: intersecting, parallel, complementary, co-opting and conflict. As a result of these conversational types we were able to produce a richer interpretation of placeness through: (1) embedding specific objects in community of meaning, (2) adding an extra strand of parallel information about place-based behaviours, (3) complementing information from each source, and (4) answering questions that would otherwise be unanswerable. We found that less satisfactory understandings arose through co-opting one knowledge into the other. Consequently the richest understandings of place at Yarrawarra were developed through interdisciplinary conversations.

For example, in the production of the books, the various kinds of conversations about each individual site cluster were brought together, with local conversations on individual pages, followed by more general conversations crossing over all the text, with the positioning of text about place making the conversation. This forms an analogy for the research process as a whole. As well as representing the interdisciplinary nature of the research, we were concerned to represent the Corindi Beach places in an embodied way. The Arrawarra site cluster is a creek estuary and headland (adjacent to Arrawarra township about three kilometres south of Corindi Beach) with several different kinds of sites, including a midden, rainmaking site and fishtrap.

Embodied places

To explore the embodiment of place in the books, we have used the idea of the fold to illuminate the intertextual nature of the meanings created when the different sorts of text are brought into conversation with each other. Just as the pages are folded together in the making of the book, so the texts are folded together, making meaning by their relationship to each other, the rubbing together of surfaces of meaning. Elspeth Probyn (1993), following Foucault, also uses this idea of the fold to illustrate that the way we are, as subjects, is created by the places we live in. The following reading of the first book in our series, Yarrawarra Place Stories, Arrawarra: Meeting Place (Somerville et al. 1999), analyses the book using these ideas.

 The outside front cover is a photo of a single turban
 shell on a background of sand. It lies alone and
 unexplained, presenting not a narrative of landscape
 but an image or metaphor that is open to the fold. The
 meaning of this image is created by the other texts in
 the book and also by you the reader/subject reading
 yourself into the landscape of these stories. What do
 you see? How do you insert yourself into this picture?

 In the bottom left a small black and white photo of a
 group of five elders Keith Lardner, Bing Laurie, Jerry
 Flanders, Bruce Laurie and Michael McDougall is
 inserted into this landscape. They sit on the ground,
 signifying their belonging to this place. The black and
 white photo of the elders superimposed on colour of
 the sand gives them a different form of authority, a
 keyhole through which we can enter the stories of this
 place. The title Arrawarra: Meeting place suggests that
 the book is not about place in the abstract but people in
 the landscape.

 To unfold the inside of the book to an alternative
 reading Margaret Somerville will trace three lines of
 inquiry as they are represented in text and image--the
 body, language and landscape.

 Body

 The first line of inquiry, linking with the image of the
 turban shell on the cover, is the body. According to
 feminist philosophers (Grosz 1994; Kirby 1991) the
 body is erased in Western texts and constituting new
 subjectivities first involves writing the body back into
 our representations of ourselves in place. I have argued
 elsewhere that the absence of the body is the
 fundamental grounds of violation of landscape
 (Somerville 1999). How is the body and body
 knowledge evident in this text?

 The turban shell on the front cover is first and foremost
 an embodied form produced in and of its place. The
 pearly spiral form of the turban shell on the front cover
 is seen again on the inside front and back covers as part
 of the dense lens of the midden. 'It was the physicality
 of the site--the midden was so obvious on the beach
 for so many years, so dense it was almost shocking, so
 robust it was almost edible--shell, bone, stone' (Smith
 in Somerville et al. 1999:24). The close-up of the midden
 lens at eye level shows something of the physicality and
 intensity of this site. At least three turban shells, their
 inside spiral form exposed in various stages of
 decomposition, are wedged amongst other shells or
 suspended by fine root hairs from the collapsing
 overhang of the dune.

 The book was developed around the centre page
 double-spread of a series of linked photos of the
 midden lens. Around the photos are the names of some
 of the fish and shellfish identified in the midden and
 along the bottom of the page the language words
 connected with that landscape. The story of the midden
 is about shells and their bodies, about us and our
 bodies. It is about eating-place. It is where people came
 to eat a massive feast next to the fish trap, the plentiful
 rock platform and the rich supply of food in the estuary
 where the river meets the sea--a meeting place of
 currents, environments and stories. We know that the
 dense layer of shells was formed about 1000 years ago
 over a very brief period of time. The conditions that
 made the feast possible were times of a rich abundance
 of food. The men tell stories about the mullet running at
 such a time, "you can smell them in the waves" and
 "the waves are so full they can hardly break".

 "They're just a continuous flow of mullet along the
 beach and it looked like one permanent cloud on the
 shoreline for months on end, just travellin'--you'll see
 millions and millions of white butterflies flyin' up the
 coast here--and that's the start of the mullet season."

 This is body knowledge--knowledge of the rhythms
 and movements of place produced by living in and of a
 place. The abundance and materiality of the midden is
 reflected in the archaeological analysis of the bone and
 shell remains found there.

 "The midden contains a broad range of shellfish ... the
 turbo or googumbal is the most common. ... Shellfish
 provide the basic matrix of the midden and the
 alkalinity of the shells helps to preserve the bone. It is a
 story of bodies, materiality and eating place."

 The cooking page, after the archaeological analysis,
 shows some of the bodily qualities of contemporary
 eating place practices. Part of my learning was to find
 and cook googumbals.

 "The googumbals are ready when the door comes loose
 and the flesh starts to come out. You have to pull the
 flesh out like pulling a plug (a bit like giving birth)
 there's a slight woosh and you get a release of liquid
 and the whole lot comes out elongated and then recoils.
 We lay them on the board and look at their whole
 form curled up into their little coils and we have to
 work out which ones are males and which ones female.
 Nan (Marie Edwards) says Just cut off the green bit on the
 end. The little green bit, that's supposed to be the male. And
 the other one's yellow, like an egg, that's the female, you eat
 that. We used to eat them with damper."

 Bruce Laurie still eats them today and we have
 included his recipe for curried googumbal patties.
 Bruce corrected our original recipe in the feedback
 stage of the process of making the book. He insisted we
 add the Keen's curry powder. Precise details of
 language were important in the making of the books.

 Language

 We enter Arrawarra stories through language. In the
 Arrawarra book, words are produced by and about
 bodies and of places.

 Bing says, "biyambeigu yural Yarrawarra", Be happy
 and eat food at Yarrawarra, inviting us all to join in
 eating, a traditional form of welcome to Yarrawarra
 country.

 For language speakers at Yarrawarra, "lingo" as it is
 commonly known, is a site of embodied power
 connected to place and learning language is a very
 embodied experience. Words are produced by the
 contact of surfaces between body and place. Language
 can be learned.

 Landscape

 Arrawarra landscape language words are repeated at
 the bottom of every page of the booklet so that nonspeakers
 can become familiar with at least the shape of
 these words that sound the landscape. The words at the
 bottom of the pages of each book are words which
 belong to this landscape--gargul, gooren, goloonay,
 buloongull, midgin, googumbull; waves, wind, big
 rain, mullet, flathead, turban shell. Language is
 understood by Merleau-Ponty as the self-enfolding of
 the flesh. "Language is the result of, or is made possible
 by the dehiscence or folding back of the flesh of the
 world (Merleau-Ponty in Grosz 1994:102)". Through
 learning a language we are invited to participate in
 landscape stories differently.

 But even language is already hybridised; there is no
 pure essence of place. Bing uses English spellings to
 write language words that have never been written and
 language talk is commonly known as lingo, a
 reclaiming of the derogatory term of early white
 settlers. Even more hybridised, Aboriginal English
 carries the full meaning of the stories of place we
 recorded. If we look at the stories of the mullet running
 for instance, there is a double fold of the outside to the
 inside. English has been bent to sound these place
 stories and in this lies the possibility that we too can be
 folded into this landscape through these hybrid stories
 of place.

 Multiple stories of place are folded together in the book
 and different meanings can be made through the
 contact of the surfaces. We know from oral history that
 when the mullet were running there was an abundance
 of food and people would gather at Arrawarra from all
 over--it was a place for a big feast. We know from
 language recordings what the words for the foods were
 and how they sound the shape of the landscape. The
 archaeology of the midden tells a parallel story through
 positivist, scientific methods of data collection and
 analysis. There are no oral memories of the midden.
 Archaeology tells the story of a massive amount of food
 remains created over a relatively short period of time
 about 1000 years ago. It tells us the sort of things that
 people probably ate during these feasts and what
 proportion of each was represented in the midden.
 There is a complex multiple and embodied
 representation of place when different modes of telling
 and knowing have conversations in intersecting,
 parallel, complementary and contradictory ways.

[FIUGRE 2 OMITTED]

Conclusion

Various innovative ways of constructing places for tourists have been explored in this article; constructions based on detailed research and reading of landscapes. Places of significance in the area of the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation were studied using a range of methods, especially archaeology and oral history, to find out how an Indigenous people have related over time to places in five site clusters. Data collection and analysis were carried out collaboratively, overcoming the critical problem of appropriation of knowledge and material remains by outsiders; information from multiple sources was integrated within an Indigenous perspective; and the outcomes were used by Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation to produce a range of information books, leaflets and educational kits for their ecotourism enterprise. We used the idea of embodied places to construct a book about Arrawarra (the first in a series) that emphasises different ways of knowing and telling about places. There are three themes: body, language and landscape. The bodies of shellfish and fish, through cooking and eating are represented by the materiality of the Arrawarra midden, and the Indigenous language words are repeated on each page to represent Arrawarra landscape. The contact between body and place through words and pictures is a way of directly connecting the reader with the place. The theme of representing Yarrawarra Aboriginal heritage places as embodied is a new way of constructing places for the tourist gaze. One that puts the viewer (the visitor) in the same frame as the viewed (the local Indigenous people).

Acknowledgements

We thank all the members of the project research team: Dee Murphy, Cheryl Perkins, Tony Perkins (all from Yarrawarra), and Anita Smith (ARC Research Fellow) for their sustained input into this project. We also acknowledge the assistance of the Garby Elders and Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation and its members. Their help was essential for the completion of this project. Financial and in-kind assistance for the project has also been provided by the Australian Research Council (Grant C5970052 to Beck, Murphy and Somerville), the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Australia Foundation for Culture and the Humanities, NSW Marine Parks Authority, Coastcare, Coffs Harbour Waterways Catchment Management Committee, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Many Rivers Regional Council.

REFERENCES

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Wendy Beck is an academic at University of New England and an archaeologist who has a special interest in how people use spaces, both in the past and the present.

School of Human and Environment Studies, University of New England, Armidale, 2351, <wbeck@metz. une.edu.au>

Margaret Somerville is an academic at University of New England and she has a passionate interest in people and landscape. In this project she works as an oral historian, collecting place stories.

School of Professional Development and Leadership, University of New England, Armidale, 2351, <msomervi@metz.une.edu.au>