Rural Autochthony? The Rejection of an Aboriginal Placename in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

Janice Newton

doi:10.5130/csr.v22i2.4478

Abstract

This article addresses the question of why the name ‘Mullawallah’, advanced by local Wada wurrung for a new suburb in the Ballarat area, was contested and rejected by residents. It argues that the intersection between corporate profit, government policy and meaning-based issues of belonging should be highlighted for a deeper understanding of practices around place naming. The contextual conditions regarding the democratisation of place-naming policy, overwhelming power of commercial developers to ‘name Australia’ with marketable high status names and a ‘carpentered’ pastoral environment ‘emptied’ of the Indigenous population, created an environment conducive for the contests over naming. The Indigenous people appeared to have been wiped from the landscape and the worldview of settler locals. Concepts of ‘locals’ and ‘rural autochthony’ prove useful for understanding the ambiguities of belonging and placename attachment in Australia. The article argues that cultural politics of naming remains a contested social practice.

Highlights

This article addresses the question of why the name ‘Mullawallah’, advanced by local Wada wurrung for a new suburb in the Ballarat area, was contested and rejected by residents
The contextual conditions regarding the democratisation of place-naming policy, overwhelming power of commercial developers to ‘name Australia’ with marketable high status names and a ‘carpentered’ pastoral environment ‘emptied’ of the Indigenous population, created an environment conducive for the contests over naming
The article argues that cultural politics of naming remains a contested social practice

Summary

Introduction

In this article I wish to further critical scholarship relating to settler belonging and placename theorisation by addressing the question of why the name ‘Mullawallah’ was contested and rejected by residents in the area between Delacombe and Smythes Creek in west Ballarat, which was targeted as a new growth suburb of 10,000 people. Peter Read begins his influential book, Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership asking how non-Indigenous Australians justify their ‘continuous presence’ and their ‘love for the country’ while Indigenous people remain ‘dispossessed’ and their ‘history unacknowledged’.35 Mark McKenna elaborates that ‘the way in which we create and remember history plays a crucial part in determining our local and national identities and our political agendas’.

Results

Conclusion