In Community Hands: Memory and the Material Culture Legacy of a Mega Sporting Event: Commemorating the 1982 XII Commonwealth Games in Brisbane

Abstract

Research on the legacy of mega sporting events often pitches the lasting impact of infrastructure, especially the construction of stadia, against the disruption to and alienation of local communities. In contrast, this paper considers the social and cultural heritage legacy of the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia. It centres on the 30 year anniversary commemoration of the event by the local residential community in which the main stadium is situated. The paper demonstrates how a sporting landscape is not only given meaning by a suburban community, but that the community itself emerges in response to the material culture of the mega event. Significantly this community is comprised of people who may not have been sports fans, and the paper documents a shift within sections of the local community from people who were indifferent or antagonistic to the sporting event, to a community that retrospectively values the Games as part of its heritage. The paper reveals the importance of objects in creating this sense of community through their agency as mementos, provoking nostalgia, and creating living memory. These objects, unlike those in formal museums and archives, are integral to their communities and the personal stories of sporting heritage and legacy.