The spatial accommodation practice of the bureaucracy of the Commonwealth of Australia and the production of Canberra as national capital space: A dialectical and prosaic history

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the contribution of public bureaucracies to the production and reproduction of nation-states and national capital cities through their spatial accommodation practices by specifically looking at the practice of the bureaucracy of the Commonwealth of Australia in Canberra. By ‘spatial accommodation practices’, the paper refers to the provision of workspaces for these bureaucracies. Examining the dialectic relationship of the Commonwealth bureaucracy and Canberra as a national capital city, the paper examines how the two have interacted through time, both in terms of their effects on each other, and on the wider process of Australian ‘prosaic’ statisation. In doing so, both spectacular and banal forms of statisation are emphasised, along with historical contingency in the ongoing making and remaking of Canberra and the Commonwealth bureaucracy's office practice. The paper concludes that while other phenomena of statisation in national capitals such as national museums or houses of parliament may be perceived as being more significant, spectacular, or glamorous, bureaucrats and their offices should also be seen as being of analytical interest for those studying nation-states and national capital cities as political spaces.