SELLING WATERFRONT HERITAGE - A CRITIQUE OF MILLERS-POINT, SYDNEY

This article explores the assimilation of a Sydney waterfront precinct , Millers Point, into the cultural tourism industry. Heritage tourism offers a potential economic base to revitalise an area whose nineteent h-century wharves and port infrastructure have become redundant. The s election of Millers Point over other places occurred through the prese nce of artefacts dating from the nation's early European history. Mark ing tourist sites in Millers Point as part of a Bicentenary Project of the Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) inhered to this locali ty imaginings of Australian national identity. Within the rhetoric of 'cradle of the nation', aspects of this officially sanctioned locality that threaten the national imaginings were either suppressed, trivial ised or silenced. Furthermore, these claims of national identity are a ppropriated, communicated and amplified within representations of the tourism industry's brochures and guidebooks. Representations of nation al identity within Millers Point privilege official over vernacular hi stories. Furthermore artefacts are prioritised over social memory, in particular first and oldest structures over all others. Finally where social memory is addressed, emphasis is given to the elite over the pr oletariat, men over women, Anglo-Celtic over indigenous peoples, glori ous decisions over the ignoble, and an egalitarian ideology over extan t social relationships. Such a selective representation of Millers Poi nt allows conflictual and challenging elements of Australian national identity to be cast aside, leaving dominant social norms unchallenged.