Beached

In Beached, Anja Schwarz investigates the varied narratives associated with the Australian shore. Some historical accounts, she shows, focus on European infatuation with the coast and its spread to seaside societies around the world; others cast the postwar beach as a site of departure from Australia’s colonial past and indigenous dispossession. Arguing that the beach represents both the historical location of colonial encounters and the prime site of articulation for present-day Australian nationalisms, Schwarz links the study of landscape with questions of postcolonial historiography and memory. In the process, she approaches the shore from a variety of perspectives, offering up a collection of fascinating snapshots of the Australian beach.