Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef

Chapter 1

Introduction

World Heritage Values

New directions in heritage

The cultural bias and potential of aesthetic value

Aesthetics as Senses and Place

Visitor experience

References

PART I: VISITOR EXPERIENCES OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

Chapter 2

Orientation, wayfinding and cartographic knowledge of the Reef *

Disorientation and Danger

Controlling Danger: orientation and mapping

Science, tourism and navigation

Visitor Traditions of Orientation

In the Footsteps of the Navigators

Disorientation

Orientation: Continuity and Change

References *

Chapter 3

Visitors' Sensuous Experiences at the Reef

Seeing the Reef

Feeling the Reef

Fossicking

Heat

Sea Water

Insects

Reef Sounds

Sighing She-Oaks

Birds

Whistling Sand

Smelling the Reef

Tasting the Reef

Turtle

Tropical flavours

Merging Senses and Movement

References

Chapter 4

Sharing Experience of the Reef with the World

Contact and Copy

The Means of Capture

Verbal and Written Description

Collections

Images

Transmission of Experience

The Panoramic View

The Underwater World

Representing a Multi-Sensuous Reef

References

PART II - CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

Chapter 5

Reef Islands as Signifiers of Paradise

Australian Landscapes of the Great Barrier Reef

Australian Bush as the Everyday

In Pursuit of Paradise

The Coconut Palm as Signifier of Paradise Found

The Coconut Palm and Local Knowledge

A Tourist Gaze for Australian Visitors

References

Chapter 6

Controlling the Underwater Reef through Cultivation of Coral Gardens

Cartographic Mimesis: Control Over the Other

Out of Control: A Return to Otherness

Seeking Similitude: Coral Gardens

Aquariums as controlled gardens

Immersion and loss of control

Coral gardens as imagery

References

Chapter 7

The Great Barrier Reef as Hyperreality and World Heritage

The Simulacra of a Single Natural Reef

Hyper-Reality at ReefWorld

Loss of Place

Conservation of the Great Barrier Reef

World Heritage Listing

Postscript

References

Index