Chris Beer
Biographic Data
| ID | 200109 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Chris Beer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Chris |
| FAMILY NAME | Beer |
| SIGNATURE | BEER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5321-0464 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
What Was ‘Middle Australia’? Social Categorisation and Political Positioning in the Late‐20th Century
‘Middle Australia’ became a ubiquitous term of social categorisation and political positioning during the latter decades of the 20th century. This article examines how this concept was variously used in the metropolitan print media in the guises of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age of Melbourne, including in their reporting of federal and state politics and politicians. In doing so, it will be argued that between the 1970s and the end of the …
Seachange Migration, Outer Metropolitan Suburbanisation, and Marginality
Seachanging and the expansion of suburbia led to important changes in Australia's human geography during the second half of the twentieth century. However, the implications of domestic migration on electoral politics have received only limited study. The Central Coast of New South Wales was one place where these two patterns of movement converged and which came to be routinely identified in public debate as electorally marginal. In reviewing this…
Conceptualizing choices in the commuter belt
This article examines media discourse about commuting travel time in Australia’s two largest metropolitan areas – Sydney and Melbourne – between 1970 and 2000. In major newspapers from each of the cities, reportage and commentary conveyed expanding commuting geographies oriented towards the mass pursuit of home ownership enabled by public policy and reflective of pluralism around households’ time use preferences. In a period when time use was wid…
Sydney’s Ordinary Outliers
From 1945 to the end of the twentieth century, the Central Coast region adjacent to Australia’s largest city—Sydney—grew from a population of 30,000 to nearly 300,000 people. This article examines the long-distance commuting that was integral to this growth. By the 1990s, around a third of the region’s workforce was regularly traveling distances of 50 kilometers or more each way to the main body of Sydney. For many, the Central Coast offered new …
Edgy Conservatives? The Late-Twentieth Century Rise of the Mortgage Belt in Australian Electoral Politics
The expansion of home ownership in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century was accompanied by a new vernacular geography – the mortgage belt. From the 1970s, such belts around major cities were frequently said to be crucial to federal and state elections. This article examines where political commentary located mortgage belt areas in Sydney and Melbourne and finds that it encompassed a diverse range of places often, but not always, …
A compromised shore
The second half of the twentieth century saw major coastal landscape changes around Australia driven by seachange migration. This article examines the experience of New South Wales' Central Coast, whose population increased nearly tenfold and was the site of ongoing debates about environmental risk and loss. Over time, a compromise emerged regionally and nationally that allowed continuing coastal migration but with distinct bounds on further deve…
Examining aspects of self in the creative design process
I am a practising jewellery designer and artist who lectures at a university of technology in South Africa. The aim of this study was to deepen my understanding of my own creative design process so that I can better facilitate my students' creative development. I used the little-c (everyday creativity) definition of creativity as a framework for analysing work that I exhibited in a self-study research exhibition. By analysing the space in which I…
Adriana Portella
The Contingent Public Value of ‘Good Design’
The proposition that the urban built environment can, and indeed should, be made more visually attractive is a long‐standing feature of the governance of Australian cities. In this vein, this paper examines how ‘good design’ in terms of visual aesthetics is currently pursued including through the development assessment process and the work of government architects. The paper begins by tracing the background of contemporary regulatory practice fro…
The national capital city, portraiture, and recognition in the Australian mythscape
This article explores nation-making at the intersection of the imagination and practice of national capital cities, portraiture, and the politics of recognition. Specifically examining Canberra's National Portrait Gallery as a national cultural institution, it seeks to account for the development of the Gallery as a place of portraiture and the Australian national politics of historical recognition. After situating the Gallery generally in the co…
National Capital Bureaucracy as a Spatial Phenomenon
Emphasizing bureaucracy as a communicative phenomenon involving localized knowledge—or metis—this article examines the place of the national capital city of Australia, Canberra, within the geographies of the Australian Public Service. First, drawing on research into knowledge clusters, the city is viewed as a key place of certain forms of communicative interaction. Second, drawing on the concept of metis, Canberra is discussed as a place potentia…
Political Geographies of Lobbying
This paper seeks to examine the ambiguous place of Canberra within the political geography of Australia, through exploring the place of the city among a particular category of political actors—lobbyists. Drawing on a series of interviews with lobbyists working for interest groups, government relations firms, or as freelancers, the city is presented as a central site of lobbying within the national polity through two key (and related) dimensions: …
The spatial accommodation practice of the bureaucracy of the Commonwealth of Australia and the production of Canberra as national capital space
Accommodating Bureaucrats in Canberra
This article seeks to explore an important intersection of the Commonwealth's administrative and spatial histories by examining the Commonwealth bureaucracy's office space accommodation practices between 1996 and 2006 in the urban spatial context of Canberra. After initially conceptualising and describing the experience of the Howard decade and contrasting it with previous policy and practice, the article seeks to theorise the general experience …
Zimbabwean Refugees in the U.K
The spatial accommodation practice of the bureaucracy of the Commonwealth of Australia and the production of Canberra as national capital space
The national capital city, portraiture, and recognition in the Australian mythscape
This article explores nation-making at the intersection of the imagination and practice of national capital cities, portraiture, and the politics of recognition. Specifically examining Canberra's National Portrait Gallery as a national cultural institution, it seeks to account for the development of the Gallery as a place of portraiture and the Australian national politics of historical recognition. After situating the Gallery generally in the co…
Political Geographies of Lobbying
This paper seeks to examine the ambiguous place of Canberra within the political geography of Australia, through exploring the place of the city among a particular category of political actors—lobbyists. Drawing on a series of interviews with lobbyists working for interest groups, government relations firms, or as freelancers, the city is presented as a central site of lobbying within the national polity through two key (and related) dimensions: …
Accommodating Bureaucrats in Canberra
This article seeks to explore an important intersection of the Commonwealth's administrative and spatial histories by examining the Commonwealth bureaucracy's office space accommodation practices between 1996 and 2006 in the urban spatial context of Canberra. After initially conceptualising and describing the experience of the Howard decade and contrasting it with previous policy and practice, the article seeks to theorise the general experience …
Zimbabwean Refugees in the U.K
Zimbabwean Refugees in the U.K
Accommodating Bureaucrats in Canberra
This article seeks to explore an important intersection of the Commonwealth's administrative and spatial histories by examining the Commonwealth bureaucracy's office space accommodation practices between 1996 and 2006 in the urban spatial context of Canberra. After initially conceptualising and describing the experience of the Howard decade and contrasting it with previous policy and practice, the article seeks to theorise the general experience …
The spatial accommodation practice of the bureaucracy of the Commonwealth of Australia and the production of Canberra as national capital space
The national capital city, portraiture, and recognition in the Australian mythscape
This article explores nation-making at the intersection of the imagination and practice of national capital cities, portraiture, and the politics of recognition. Specifically examining Canberra's National Portrait Gallery as a national cultural institution, it seeks to account for the development of the Gallery as a place of portraiture and the Australian national politics of historical recognition. After situating the Gallery generally in the co…
National Capital Bureaucracy as a Spatial Phenomenon
Emphasizing bureaucracy as a communicative phenomenon involving localized knowledge—or metis—this article examines the place of the national capital city of Australia, Canberra, within the geographies of the Australian Public Service. First, drawing on research into knowledge clusters, the city is viewed as a key place of certain forms of communicative interaction. Second, drawing on the concept of metis, Canberra is discussed as a place potentia…
Political Geographies of Lobbying
This paper seeks to examine the ambiguous place of Canberra within the political geography of Australia, through exploring the place of the city among a particular category of political actors—lobbyists. Drawing on a series of interviews with lobbyists working for interest groups, government relations firms, or as freelancers, the city is presented as a central site of lobbying within the national polity through two key (and related) dimensions: …
The Contingent Public Value of ‘Good Design’
The proposition that the urban built environment can, and indeed should, be made more visually attractive is a long‐standing feature of the governance of Australian cities. In this vein, this paper examines how ‘good design’ in terms of visual aesthetics is currently pursued including through the development assessment process and the work of government architects. The paper begins by tracing the background of contemporary regulatory practice fro…
Adriana Portella
Examining aspects of self in the creative design process
I am a practising jewellery designer and artist who lectures at a university of technology in South Africa. The aim of this study was to deepen my understanding of my own creative design process so that I can better facilitate my students' creative development. I used the little-c (everyday creativity) definition of creativity as a framework for analysing work that I exhibited in a self-study research exhibition. By analysing the space in which I…
A compromised shore
The second half of the twentieth century saw major coastal landscape changes around Australia driven by seachange migration. This article examines the experience of New South Wales' Central Coast, whose population increased nearly tenfold and was the site of ongoing debates about environmental risk and loss. Over time, a compromise emerged regionally and nationally that allowed continuing coastal migration but with distinct bounds on further deve…
Edgy Conservatives? The Late-Twentieth Century Rise of the Mortgage Belt in Australian Electoral Politics
The expansion of home ownership in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century was accompanied by a new vernacular geography – the mortgage belt. From the 1970s, such belts around major cities were frequently said to be crucial to federal and state elections. This article examines where political commentary located mortgage belt areas in Sydney and Melbourne and finds that it encompassed a diverse range of places often, but not always, …
Seachange Migration, Outer Metropolitan Suburbanisation, and Marginality
Seachanging and the expansion of suburbia led to important changes in Australia's human geography during the second half of the twentieth century. However, the implications of domestic migration on electoral politics have received only limited study. The Central Coast of New South Wales was one place where these two patterns of movement converged and which came to be routinely identified in public debate as electorally marginal. In reviewing this…
Conceptualizing choices in the commuter belt
This article examines media discourse about commuting travel time in Australia’s two largest metropolitan areas – Sydney and Melbourne – between 1970 and 2000. In major newspapers from each of the cities, reportage and commentary conveyed expanding commuting geographies oriented towards the mass pursuit of home ownership enabled by public policy and reflective of pluralism around households’ time use preferences. In a period when time use was wid…
Sydney’s Ordinary Outliers
From 1945 to the end of the twentieth century, the Central Coast region adjacent to Australia’s largest city—Sydney—grew from a population of 30,000 to nearly 300,000 people. This article examines the long-distance commuting that was integral to this growth. By the 1990s, around a third of the region’s workforce was regularly traveling distances of 50 kilometers or more each way to the main body of Sydney. For many, the Central Coast offered new …
What Was ‘Middle Australia’? Social Categorisation and Political Positioning in the Late‐20th Century
‘Middle Australia’ became a ubiquitous term of social categorisation and political positioning during the latter decades of the 20th century. This article examines how this concept was variously used in the metropolitan print media in the guises of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age of Melbourne, including in their reporting of federal and state politics and politicians. In doing so, it will be argued that between the 1970s and the end of the …
Political science (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Geography (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Australian History and Society (5 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (5 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works)