Ferals and gentrification in urban Australia

Place, Death and Memory

Bibliographic Data

ID3977446
AuthorsD Mcduie-Ra (0000-0001-5999-3850, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia, corresponding author), K Senior (0000-0003-3009-0871, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia)
Year2025
Volume26
Issue2
Pages139-159
Publication date2025-02-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2024.2384403
OpenAlexW4401152911
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited47

In the city of Newcastle on Australia's east coast, murky distinctions between feral and native, public and private, domestic and wild are being delineated and firmed as the city rapidly gentrifies. The suburb of Stockton, a peninsula with deep working-class roots, has long been considered an urban frontier, a liminal zone for plants, animals and humans. Here, ferality is entangled with place, with frontier-ness. As the area undergoes changes in step with gentrification in Newcastle and coastal Australia more generally, species once tolerated are being identified as risky and then eliminated. In this article, we focus on two feral species subject to elimination in Stockton, the Thorn Tree and the Breakwater Cats. We argue that shifting nature-city boundaries impacts urban frontiers during periods of gradual, then rapid, gentrification, disrupting the relationship between frontiers and feral ecologies. Second, while literature tends to focus on feral plants or animals, we consider the ways that hardening nature-city boundaries can make both plants and animals vulnerable to elimination. Third, despite their elimination, the Thorn Tree and the Breakwater Cats are subject to memory practices in the community, suggesting that even as the urban frontier amalgamates with the rest of the city, memories of feral co-habitants remain for some members of the human community

Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Gentrification · Geography · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Public Spaces through Art

Tools

Open DOI