Hostname: page-component-68945f75b7-z8dg2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-05T16:19:11.904Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Book culture, landscape and social capital: The case of Maleny

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2016

Jane Frank
Jane Frank*
Affiliation:
j.frank@griffith.edu.au
Get access

Abstract

The clustering of book culture in rural locales around the world is a growing phenomenon. Creative and cultural activity in these bookish communities enhances social capital, and their book-based economies contribute to sustainability. Maleny, in South-East Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland, has long been recognised as a centre for books, readers and writers. It is the home of two writers’ festivals, Outspoken and Maleny Celebration of Books. The community attracts city dwellers, and those who like to escape to the Blackall Ranges for relaxation, as well as people who choose to live a ‘slow’ life in the area. Onyx (2005) identified high levels of social capital. In this article, I consider the potential of Maleny to position itself as a ‘book town’. However, my findings confirm that, despite the community's reputation as a place of cultural consumption, prosperity is a hindrance to book town development.

Type
Articles
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , June 2016 , pp. 35 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berkelouw, L. 2012. Personal interview. Eumundi, Queensland. 14 August.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1986. ‘The forms of capital’. http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/bourdieu-forms-capital.htm, accessed 25 November 2010.Google Scholar
Dickenson, J. and Lumsden, L. 2010. Slow travel and tourism. London: Earthscan, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, A. 2008. A collector's year. Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar
Givens, C. 2015. Personal communication, 5 October.Google Scholar
Green, G. 2004. ‘Environment award for author's series.’ Courier-Mail, 9 June, 18.Google Scholar
Hall, C.M. 2009. ‘Degrowing tourism: Décroissance, sustainable consumption and steady-state tourism’. Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 20 (1) (2009): 46–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landry, C. 2008. The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators (2nd ed.). London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Lang, S. 2015a. Personal communication, 30 October.Google Scholar
Lang, S. 2015b. Outspoken [website], http://www.outspokenmaleny.com, accessed 25 September 2015.Google Scholar
Macaskill, H. 2007. ‘The complete guide to book towns’. The Independent [UK], 24 March, http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/the-complete-guide-to-book-towns-441542.html, accessed 22 February 2010.Google Scholar
Mason, J. 2002. Qualitative researching. London: Sage.Google Scholar
McCrum, R. 2006. ‘E-read all about it’. The Observer [UK], 15 January, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jan/15/ebooks.technology/print, accessed 3 February 2011.Google Scholar
McGuire, F., Boyd, R. K. and Tedrick, R. E. 1999. Leisure and aging: Ulyssean living in later life. Champaign, IL: Sagamore.Google Scholar
Maleny Arts Council 2012. ‘Maleny – a book town?’ Public Meeting, Maleny RSL Hall, 13 March.Google Scholar
McShane, P. 2010. Personal interview, Bowral, New South Wales, 9 July.Google Scholar
Mulcock, J. and Toussaint, Y. 2002. ‘Memories and idylls: Urban reflections on lost places and inner landscapes’. Transformations 2: 1–16.Google Scholar
Muller, L. 2010. Personal interview, Brisbane, 7 September.Google Scholar
Onyx, J. 2005. Maleny: Social capital and the development paradox. Sydney: University of Sydney CACOM.Google Scholar
Onyx, J. and Bullen, P. 2000. ‘Measuring social capital in five communities’. Journal of Applied Behavioural Science. 31 (1): 23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onyx, J. and Leonard, R. 2007. ‘The Grey Nomad phenomenon: Changing the script of aging’. International Journal of Aging and Human Development 64 (4): 381–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Putnam, R. 1995. ‘Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital’. Journal of Democracy, 6 (1): 65–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Radbourne, J. 2015. Personal communication, 29 October.Google Scholar
Ragusa, A. T. 2013. ‘Downshifting or conspicuous consumption? A sociological examination of treechange as a manifestation of slow culture’. In Osbaldiston, N. (ed.), Culture of the slow: Social deceleration in an accelerated world. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sassatelli, R. 2013. ‘Creativity takes time, critique needs space: Re-working the political investment of the consumer through pleasure’, in Osbaldiston, N. (ed.), Culture of the slow: Social deceleration in an accelerated world. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Seaton, A. V. 1996. ‘Hay-on-Wye, the mouse that roared: Book towns and rural tourism’. Tourism Management, 17 (5): 379–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seaton, A. V. 1999. ‘Book towns as tourism developments in peripheral areas’. The International Journal of Tourism Research, 1 (5): 389–99.3.0.CO;2-0>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seaton, A. V. 2002. ‘Tourism as a metempsychosis and metensomatosis: The personae of eternal recurrence’, in Dann, G. M. S. (ed.), The tourist as a metaphor for the social world. Wallingford: CAB.Google Scholar
Stafford, A. 2005. ‘The people versus Woolworths’. The Monthly, October: 22–3.Google Scholar
Tilden, J. 1996. ‘Bunyas and bladey grass: How the co-operative spirit thrives in Maleny, Queensland’. New Internationalist 278: 22–3.Google Scholar
Urry, J. 1988. ‘Cultural change and contemporary holiday-making.’ Theory, Culture and Society 5 (35): 35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaid, G. 2004. So many books. London: Sort of Books.Google Scholar