Parklands, Culture and Communities
The Parklands, Culture and Communities project looks at how cultural diversity shapes people's understandings and use of the Georges River and nearby open spaces in Sydney's south west.
Official Parklands, Culture and Communities web site
We focus on the experiences of local communities such as:
- Vietnamese Australians
- Arabic-speaking Australian communities from the Middle East and North Africa
- Indigenous people, both traditional owners of the area and those who have come from rural areas
- Anglo-Australians
Some of the key issues our work tackles include:
Our findings and project outcomes will help park managers from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and local government to run parks in ways which are inclusive and welcoming places for a range of people.
Research approaches the team is using to understand the differences and similarities in people's relationships with the river and its parks include:
- In depth interviews
- Discussing personal photo collections of park users
- Personal maps of open space use
- Community focus groups
- Archival research
This project is funded by an ARC Linkage grant, with UTS and DEC as contributing partners.
The research team is led by Chief Investigator Prof. Heather Goodall and senior research officer Dr Allison Cadzow, both staff of FHSS at UTS. Other researchers on the project include Denis Byrne from the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), an adjunct professor with Transforming Cultures, (TfC) a major HSS based research centre and Assoc. Prof. Stephen Wearing (UTS Faculty of Business), also an associate researcher with TfC.
For a brief summary of this project, please download the official flyer (pdf, 827kb).