Exploring coastal development through affect and discourse over time: a case study of the Bayly’s Beach experience

Abstract

Research around Coastal development is usually focused on extraordinary and significant cases of growth in coastal areas. Such studies also tend to focus on present experiences and performative methods, which ultimately marginalise historical experiences and associated documentary sources. This thesis aims to shift the emphasis from the extraordinary and present, towards conceptualising coastal development and place as a process that emerges over time and is informed by relational interactions between people and place. Affect and emotion are developed as key theories that are used to explore subjective experiences within historical documentary sources, arguing for the ability to contribute to the scope of current coastal development literature. Bayly’s Beach, Dargaville provides a case study to explore these ideas, as it represents an area undergoing slow growth, and is largely banal (ordinary) in terms of its features, location, demographics and changes over time. The theoretical framework of the study emphasises the interrelated nature between affective experiences and expressions of emotion, and their ability to shape, and be shaped by, discourses, power and everyday experiences. Place and time are critical factors informing everyday experiences and current landscapes, whilst also being fundamental to focusing the application of affection and emotion. Combining the features of everyday geographies, place and time, along with affect and emotion provide a theoretical framework that enables exploration into the relational interactions and emergent outcomes that exist between these concepts. The thesis adopts a method that focuses solely on documentary sources and applies a discursive analysis to explore the ways in which affective experiences and expressions of emotion are utilised and produced within experiences of coastal development. It is argued that attention to such experiences over time enable insight into the ways in which affective experiences and expressions of emotion are intertwined within the discourses shaping coastal development over time. Hints of affective experiences and expressions of emotion within documentary sources reveal critical discourses of place-making that have emerged over time and persisted at Bayly’s Beach. The findings demonstrate how discourses of place-making are produced and enacted over time and their ability to persist and frame current perceptions of place and coastal development.