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What is it about Whales?: Charismatic Megafauna and Commerce.
Jo Robertson, English Department, UQ
| [ Go to this paper in the timetable ] |
Twenty years ago, Harvey Bay was a bush seaside town where nothing seemed to happen. Since the whales have returned, this Queensland coastal place has been altered. The remnants of its former identity are now tangled with shopping centres, motels, and tourist enticements. But these jarring juxtapositions between the bush and the modern seem to be immaterial to where it's really at - in the Bay, where "face-to-face encounters of a lifetime" take place between whales and people. Tourist brochures offer an intimate experience: the opportunity to experience the exhilaration of watching the whales, and in doing so, to be more intensely present to oneself. At the same time, the whales are equally curious, watching us, watching them, and they are endowed with humanity in the encounter. They can be seen to be "curious and intelligent", "playful and gentle", and their voices can be heard piped over loud speakers. This paper investigates the dynamics of this exchange and argues that whales function to mark and intensify the boundaries of the "human". From the histories of their slaughter as a commercial resource, more recent campaigns to save them, reports of efforts to refloat beached whales, and their contemporary, revivified, commercialisation, they serve as a measure of progressive, human enlightenment. This paper examines and interrogates this narrative.
