Kin, fictive kin and strategic movement: working class heritage of the Upper Burnett

Abstract

The Upper Burnett district of southeast Queensland, Australia is a landscape of working class resilience in the face of natural and institutional oppression. The Upper Burnett was the site of numerous small goldmining towns throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Physically, most of these towns now survive only as archaeological remnants, yet both the tangible heritage elements and the intangible forms of labour heritage, such as stories in the landscape and of movement between places, contribute to the shared and continued attachment of the Burnett community to its mining history. Historical archaeological, sociological and landscape studies, including long-term projects working with descendents of the mining families, have provided detailed insight into the palimpsest of meanings applied to the social landscape of the working class inhabitants. Oral history, documentary and archaeological research have been conducted on the townships of Paradise, Mount Shamrock, Monal and Cania. The cultural landscape of these towns can be seen as a complex heritage of working class pastimes, networks of labour through kin and fictive kin relationships, strategic movement across the region and the interaction between communities. Although the local museums tend to memorialise the physical heritage of the goldmining through collecting and displaying the impressive material culture (such as stampers, berdan pans, mine wheels, etc.), it is the stories, meanings, diaries, and the continued attachments to these places today that play the larger role in the remembering of the working class past.