Time on the Waterline

Coastal Reclamations and Seawalls in Sydney and Japan

Authors

  • Denis Byrne Western Sydney University, Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33282

Keywords:

Sydney, coastal reclamation, anthropocene, seawalls, sandstone, concrete

Abstract

Coastal reclamations may represent humanity's overreaching lust for land, but from whereI stand in 2015 on the beach below the reclamation at Elizabeth Bay on Sydney Harbour,gazing at the sandstone seawall, what compels my attention is the way this reclamationis giving up its substance to the sea. As the geological time of the wall engages with therhythmic time of the sea, my own geosubjectivity comes momentarily into view. Recollectionof the reclamation park of the 1980s as a gay cruising site sparks a considerationof how open minds and touching bodies in that decade form a background conduciveto closer human-nonhuman relations in the present decade. Finally, moving to the SetoInland Sea, Japan, to reflect on the time of concrete, I examine the historical move fromstone to concrete as the favoured material for seawall construction. 

Author Biography

  • Denis Byrne, Western Sydney University, Australia

    Denis Byrne is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western SydneyUniversity. Address for correspondence: Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University,Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia.

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Published

2018-06-04

How to Cite

Byrne, D. (2018). Time on the Waterline: Coastal Reclamations and Seawalls in Sydney and Japan. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 5(1), 53-65. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33282