Year

2011

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (Honours)

ANZSRC / FoR Code

160301 Family and Household Studies, 160402 Recreation, Leisure and Tourism Geography

Department

School of Earth & Environmental Sciences

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the 'going out' practics of young women in order to explore the concept of cultural sustainability. Poststructuralist feminist theories are used to argue how subjectivities are felt and performed in and through space. Such theories are central to understanding why people choose to live in a particular place. This thesis offers an example of how spaces shape and are shaped by 'going out' practices. The study illustrates how 'going out' practices in the Bega Valley are imperative to understanding how women envision, establish and maintain their sense of self and place. A non-prescriptive mixed methodology is deployed to capture the richness of participants' experiences and situations, including: a google mapping exercise, interviews, solicited diaries, email and Facebook. Results presented over three chapters offer new understandings of the cultural sustainability of country towns. The first explores the interplay between mobility, bodies, rurality and 'going out' at night. It is argued that while car mobility is imperative to young women's social lives beyond the metropolis, driving after dark is not without dangers. The second and third results chapters draw attention to how particular styles of femininity are spatially constructed, performed, negotiated and reproduced through the commercial spaces of Bega and Merimbula. Attention is given to how particular styles of femininity are spatially constituted, how particular 'scenes' are shaped, and shape a night out, and how young women constitute understandings of rurality through 'going out' practices. In view of these results, a case is argued for the importance of cultural sustainability in the planning of future governmental policies.


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