Tactile Landscape Visitors At The Great Barrier Reef

tactile landscape: visitors at the great barrier reef ===================================================== dr celmara pocock aborigin

Tactile Landscape: visitors at the Great Barrier Reef
=====================================================
Dr Celmara Pocock
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit
The University of Queensland
Brisbane QLD 4072
Australia
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: +61 7 3365 6793
Fax: +61 7 3365 6855
Notes on Contributor
Celmara Pocock is a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of
Queensland with research interests in environmental anthropology,
cultural history, museum studies, and representations of space and
place. She has carried out research in tropical north Queensland and
the temperate island state of Tasmania. She has a strong interest in
social and cultural histories of the Great Barrier Reef.
ABSTRACT
The cliché ‘Take only photographs. Leave only footprints’ is employed
to raise awareness and minimise visitor impacts on sensitive
environments. The Great Barrier Reef is Australia’s premier tourist
destination and included in the World Heritage List in recognition of
its unique physical attributes. It is a location where tourists are
strongly encouraged to look rather than touch. Even footprints are
forbidden or washed away in this marine environment. But what have we
lost in our experiences of the environment? This paper examines
sensuous knowledge in visitor understanding and appreciation of the
Great Barrier Reef through the twentieth century, and considers how a
diminished sense of touch can lead to a loss of place in contemporary
tourist experiences.
KEY WORDS:
==========
Place; Touch; Visitors; Great Barrier Reef
INTRODUCTION
One of the natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef
stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres along the northeast coast of
Australia. The region is visited by millions of tourists each year and
is known to countless more people through rich visual imagery of
underwater coral gardens brilliant in colour, shape and form, and of
idyllic islands abundant in lush vegetation. But to what extent do
such tourist visits and visual imagery contribute to a sense of place?
This paper contrasts visual ways of knowing the Reef with more
embodied experiences of the region. In particular it explores the role
of touch in how visitors experienced the Reef through the twentieth
century and considers how visitors have known this landscape as place
and space.
PLACE, SPACE AND TOUCH
======================
A useful way of distinguishing the concepts of space and place is to
consider place a primary form of knowledge that originates in embodied
experience (This follows Casey 1996, but see also Tuan 1997; Augé
1995; Ingold 2000).1 Knowledge of place is thus built from the
sensuous experiences of physical space and its contents through time.
The accumulation of information about landscapes is derived from a
fusion of human senses; sight, sound, taste, smell and touch, brought
together through the orientation and movement of the human body. When
such sensuous encounters are repeated or become an everyday
experience, they produce a local knowledge of place. A local knowledge
of place is therefore based in sensuous knowledge of space and
constituted through habit (cf.Bourdieu 1977). Consequently knowledge
of place is often a taken-for-granted form of knowledge, and one that
may remain unrecognised until it is lost, or perhaps until it is
restored following a temporary loss. The habituated nature of local
knowledge means that in many instances it becomes second-nature, and
many sensuous experiences cease to provoke cognisant thought.
Our sense of touch is perhaps the most immediate and bodily of all our
senses, and arguably our most important. Tactile senses are strongly
related to the body and are a central characteristic of animality, and
it is suggested that the skin is more vital to physical survival than
the other senses (Montagu 1971; O'Shaughnessy 1989, 2003). In common
speech we think of touch as those deliberate acts of reaching out to
feel a particular being, object or substance. Rodaway (1994) therefore
argues that ‘touch’ implies a sensuousness limited to the extremities,
particularly the fingers and hands. He suggests the term ‘haptic
sense’ is a more inclusive term for the many senses taken in by our
skin. For touch is not only constituted by deliberate acts of reaching
out. Our sense of touch extends beyond the skin to a broader
relationship between space and our bodies as a whole (O'Shaughnessy
1989, pp. 37-58). As a consequence our sense of touch contributes to a
broader awareness of the environment and plays a significant role in
orientation which is a central characteristic of place and landscape.
Hence touch is an everyday experience that contributes to local
knowledge of place.2 However, touch is enhanced and complemented by
visual and auditory information and is often overlooked as an
important contributor to our sense of place (Rodaway 1994). Because
the sense of having a body and the haptic sense are integral to one
another, touch (the haptic sense) tends to be the most
taken-for-granted of our senses. All human senses inform one another,
but touch is the most difficult to isolate from the others.3 We
primarily notice our skin when it is damaged (Montagu 1971), and the
sense of touch is most significant for those who cannot see, or even
more evidently among those who are both blind and deaf (Montagu 1971;
Hull 1990). Consequently it is frequently only extremes like rough and
smooth; hot and cold; hard and soft; that are noticed by the
fully-abled. It is these kinds of haptic sensations that are most
frequently articulated by Reef visitors but other haptic encounters
can be identified through sources such as photographs.4
TOUCHING THE REEF
A sense of place as a form of everyday knowledge stands in strong
contrast with tourist experience(s) which are constructed around
notions of difference. The traveller makes very self-conscious
comparisons and observations that contrast home with away; like and
unlike; familiar and unfamiliar. These differences are often
preconceived and tame in comparison with the radical contrasts brought
about by the experiences of migration, exile or other more permanent
shifts of location (Tuan 1977). By definition tourists’ visits are
impermanent and frequently short-term encounters that do not allow for
the evolution of habitual knowledge. And though senses such as smell,
taste and sound contribute to the tourist’s idea of being somewhere
different, tourist experiences of space are primarily visual (Urry
1990, 1992, 1995). If we consider a definition of place to be a form
of habituated knowledge acquired through long-term everyday
experiences of a range of embodied senses, then it is questionable
whether tourists can ever gain a sense of place.
This problematic is heightened in relation to the Great Barrier Reef,
especially those celebrated parts of the underwater where terrestrial
humans are out of place. In spite of an ever expanding range of
technologies that allow people to dive the ocean depths, humans are
not adapted to living permanently or even long-term underwater.
Consequently tourist experiences are not constituted through everyday
encounters with this environment. Tourist experiences of place are
also limited by a bias towards visual quality and this is also
heightened in the case of the Great Barrier Reef which is a landscape
universally celebrated for its photogenic qualities – especially
aerial vistas and coral gardens.5 This paper considers the effects of
these technological developments in underwater access and photographic
reproduction on tourists’ experiences of touch and associated sense of
place.
Rodaway identifies four kinds of haptic sense: global touch being a
general multi-sensual exploration of the environment; reach as an
active process of touch analogous to the everyday use of the term;
extended touch being the haptic sense acquired through the extension
of our sense through aids such as walking sticks; and lastly imagined
touch which is based in memory and expectation. The first three of
these might be understood as physically interactive haptic experiences
which contribute to a sense of place through reciprocity between the
body and its surrounding physical environment (Rodaway 1994). Visitor
knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef is based, at least in part, on
such haptic experiences.
Early 20th Century Reef experiences
The way in which people experience the Reef has changed significantly
since the beginning of the twentieth century, and is partly a
reflection of the means by which people access the islands and reefs.
These changes have had a particularly noticeable impact on haptic
experiences.
Tourism emerged at the Reef as an adjunct to scientific expeditions in
the early twentieth century, and experienced something of a heyday in
the late 1920s and 1930s. Although there were a number of
well-organised holiday expeditions, most notably those arranged by
Mont Embury, there were few visitor facilities on the islands. Voyages
and visits were lengthy in duration and visitors spent almost all
their time outdoors, and slept in tents (Barr 1990; Pocock 2002b,
2003, 2004, 2006a, 2009). Their sensuous experiences were therefore
direct and unmediated encounters with the native environments of the
islands and the sea.
The skin is receptive to characteristics of climate, particularly the
air, its movements, heat and humidity as it envelops the body. The
Great Barrier Reef is broadly characterised as belonging to the
tropics and most of the region enjoys a warm, dry winter (Dry Season)
and a hot and humid summer (Wet Season). Tactile sensitivity is
mediated by clothing and in the heat people tend to wear less of it,
exposing more of their skin to the environment. But for early visitors
convention often prevented the kind of scanty dress that is acceptable
today. Visitors were usually fully-dressed, out of modesty and to
avoid sunburn, and wore long dresses, shirts and trousers (Figure 1).
This clothing provided a barrier between the body and the environment
but also intensified the heat.
The warm weather was promoted as an attraction for holidaymakers in
the cold wet winters of Melbourne and Sydney. However, many
expeditions were scheduled for the summer holidays. For physically
active visitors with limited shelter from the environment, the heat
and humidity could be stifling. In November 1928 The Sydney Morning
Herald reported on the experiences of the British Expedition to Low
Isles including a graphic description of the heat the party endured:
[A]s men of flesh and blood they sank slowly into a sort of melting
decay under the savage heat of a humid summer.
About 9 o’clock in the morning one begins to feel on Low Island as
though one’s spine is being slowly boiled away. Sydney people would
call it hot....
It continues to warm until, at 10 o’clock, the temperature stands
between 90 and 95 degrees. The humidity varies from 78 to 80. The
trade winds have passed months ago. Everything is still and quiet,
unreal, with the quality of a mirage. Only the heat moves. It bursts
up in tangible waves from the sand. If a man wants to walk twenty
yards across the beach he has to run the last fifteen. … The air wraps
him round in stifling veils of heat, till he feels as though he is
tangled in curtains of heavy velvet.
warm in the water too
On shore a bathing costume makes him think he is wearing sealskin in a
Turkish bath. He escapes into the water. The sea is like a neutral
bath. Sometimes its temperature rises to 82 degrees Fah. Night is
notable, because the temperature falls a few degrees. Still the
lightest exertion melts the body into perspiration. …. Anyway, one
escapes in the darkness the glare of the sun which cuts at the eyes
with brazen blades of torturing light.
…. Of course, one does not find water on coral islands. A launch
brings 800 to 1000 gallons from the mainland, and the whole party
settles down to row it ashore, 200 yards across the lagoon and carry
it in kerosene tins up a beach sloping 12 feet in 60. What that means
in such a climate is easy to imagine.
(The Sydney Morning Herald 1928, 29 November)
As this description indicates, it was not simply the hot climate that
made visitors uncomfortable, but the living and working conditions
that exacerbated it. The lack of island infrastructure required
visitors to manually cart scientific equipment, supplies and
freshwater. There were few jetties, and the shallow tidal zone of the
corals made it difficult to bring boats close to shore. It was
therefore necessary to carry heavy loads through shallow water and
across the sand; a particularly arduous task in the heat.
The heat produced further discomforts for the skin. Warm temperatures
foster a proliferation of insects which are especially annoying to
people living outdoors from the earliest encounters with the region.
The nineteenth century naturalist and geologist Jukes (1847, p. 26)
had to move camp to avoid mosquitoes and sandflies, and his complaints
were echoed by British scientific expedition leader Yonge (1930, pp.
36-7) complained of the severe discomfort caused by these biting
insects. Holidaymakers were just as vulnerable, and a report from the
first Embury expedition to Hayman Island in 1933 told how:
A suddent [sic] descent during a breathless day by sandflies and
mosquitoes left a trail of woe and drove many from shorts into long
trousers.
(Wigmore 1933, 14 January)
While another visitor on the same excursion recounted that “a plague
of March flies, which lasted about a week, worried us very much, as
also did the sand flies, the worst pest of all” (Marks 1933, p. 6).
Occasionally trips were enjoyed because of the absence of mosquitoes
and sandflies, but other insects such as wasps and green ants could
also sting and bite, destroy equipment and food and generally be a
nuisance.
In spite of the discomforts associated with the heat, the warmth of
the tropics was still a novelty and an important part of a Reef
experience. Warm sea water was enjoyed as especially unusual for those
from southern regions. Bathing in the sea was a necessity because
there were no bathrooms or freshwater for washing. But the related
haptic senses gave considerable pleasure. During a visit to the Reef
in 1925 naturalist Crosbie Morrison recorded in his diary that ‘[t]he
sea was beautifully warm and [his] bathe very pleasant (Morrison
1925). Swimming in the warm ocean was a sought after activity. The
possibility of attacks by sharks and other marine life saw netted
swimming enclosures constructed on beaches near base camps, and a more
permanent wooden enclosure was featured among the first tourist
amenities constructed on Hayman Island in 1932.6
The sea was a source of entertainment for visitors who swam, bathed
and rode turtles in the shallows (Pocock 2004, 2006b). The coral pools
were a particular focus of holiday activities and produced
exhilarating encounters between Reef visitors and underwater life.
However, experiences of being in the water and viewing the underwater
were not synchronous activities. The usual way of viewing corals and
fishes was to peer into pools left on the exposed reef at low tide
(Figure 2). This depended on the right tides, still weather and a
large amount of patience because any surface disturbance spoiled the
view.
In spite of the visual limitations, this method exposed visitors to a
range of sensuous encounters, most notably touch. Early groups of
visitors comprised professional and amateur naturalists, and
holidaymakers played an integral part in scientific collecting and
recording. Recording and observing Reef animals involved walking on
exposed corals at low tide and fossicking among the rocks. It was only
by bringing creatures to the surface that they could be viewed in any
detail or be photographed. Collecting and preserving corals, shells
and fishes were central activities in Reef holidays for a large part
of the twentieth century and exposed people to a variety of tactile
sensations, notably as they reached out to touch and handle the
textures, movements, weights, forms and densities of reef life.
Visitors recounted the feather heads of sea worms that ‘disappear as
one touches them’ (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
1926), the bech-de-mer that lets out long strings of cotton ‘when
touched with a stick’ (Daly 1933) and ‘the queer thrill of holding a
little cat shark up by his tail’ (Stainton 1933). Still images and
motion films show young women sitting on dead sharks and hauling up
large fish, groups of fishers holding their catches, dissections in
progress and displays of coral that have been collected and grouped.
The intimacy required by this kind of touch also brought danger. In
1935 a young visitor to Hayman Island died as a consequence of
handling a cone shell (Conus geographus):
Eye-witnesses said that on picking up the shell, which was covered
with a thin skin, the finder held it in his palm and started scraping
it with a knife.
…
A barb-like spike, about half an inch long, was thrust out by the
animal, and penetrated his palm.
He took no notice of it for some time, but then complained that his
eyesight was failing.
He next lapsed into a coma, and exhibited all the symptoms of
snake-bite.
Rushed to the mainland, he died soon afterwards.
(The Telegraph 1935, 9 August)
In anticipation of their visit to the Reef in 1967 a Belgian
scientific expedition sought “instructions for the treatment of such
particular problems as snake bite, stings by venomous fish … and
wounds or irritation caused by certain corals, sea wasps and so on”
(Prime Minister's Department 1966-1969). In response, the Prime
Minister’s Department wrote that although there was no specific guide:
Injuries that the expedition may possibly suffer would include
sunburn, dehydration, cuts from coral, external otitis7, stings from
hydroids, coral and jellyfish, puncture wounds from fish in general
and particularly from Stonefish, Butterfly Cod, Mai-Mai, Pearl Perch
etc.
There is also the possibility of injury from sea urchins, seastars,
stingrays, cone shells, sea snakes as well as attacks from sharks. In
addition, certain fish may be poisonous when eaten in certain seasons
of the year.
(Prime Minister's Department 1967, 25 May)
These and other dangers comprise a significant part of the way the
Reef was portrayed in the first part of the last century. Giant clams
were regarded as dangerous and deadly and visitors wearily sidestepped
them as they picked their way across the coral rocks.
Some early visitors expressed the idea that the physical dangers and
discomforts were the price of, and even heightened the pleasures of
their Reef experiences. Nevertheless, many aspects of camping on
islands especially for long periods, brought physical discomfort. Many
haptic experiences recorded from these Reef excursions highlight
negative or less pleasant sensations rather than everyday or positive
ones. As the Reef was promoted as a tourist destination to overseas
markets including the United States of America, it became an industry
imperative to improve facilities.
Contemporary Reef experiences
Tourism infrastructure developed fairly rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s
and continues to grow in the present. While warm weather is an
attraction, its extremes and potential discomforts are ameliorated by
modern infrastructure. Almost every resort and large tour today is
fully air-conditioned. This makes it possible for people to enjoy the
region at any time of year and for buildings to be closed and screened
to keep out insects. While visitors are now protected from some of the
discomforts, they are also cushioned from many senses that contribute
to a sense of place. These include sounds and smells as well as the
less extreme haptic experiences that might characterise the region.
Today, the vast majority of people who visit the Reef stay in one of
the international-style resorts on the islands or adjacent coast of
the Whitsundays or Cairns regions. These resorts provide
air-conditioned accommodation, manicured gardens and other amenities.
Swimming in the ocean is merely an option as almost all resorts have
swimming pools. While something of a necessity during the Wet Season
when life-threatening Irukandji (Carukia barnesi) and deadly
box-jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) are in the ocean (CRC Reef 2002;
Seymour 2002b, 2002a), many more guests use the pool facilities than
the beach even during the winter Dry Season. Saltwater and sand can be
irritating to human skin, and freshwater bathing is highly desirable.
The enormous expansion of resorts and international hotels has made it
possible for contemporary visitors to avoid what might be assumed to
be key elements of a tropical island holiday – sea and sand.
The underwater living reef, however, continues to be a significant
tourist encounter. The development of resorts on the islands has been
paralleled by developments in technology to improve visual access to
the underwater reefs. Early inventions included the water telescope –
a bucket or paraffin tin with the bottom replaced by glass – which
eliminated surface disturbance and provide a clear view underwater.
This principle was furthered in glass bottomed boats which provide a
kind of porthole through which corals and fishes can be viewed in less
calm conditions and in greater depth of water thus providing greater
access at high tide. In the 1950s underwater viewing chambers were
constructed on Green and Hook Islands. Unlike the earlier means of
viewing the Reef, the portholes of these submerged chambers provided
visitors a side-on view of the underwater, rather than a perpendicular
one. This was essentially a static way of viewing the underwater and
one that also physically isolated the visitor from the water. Although
the earliest visitors remained fully clothed and on the surface while
viewing coral gardens, the activities of fossicking and netting fishes
nevertheless brought them into contact with the warm water, corals and
fishes. The underwater viewing chamber eliminated these haptic
encounters – the viewers remaining dry and terrestrial and separated
from the underwater by the physical construction of the chamber. It
was not until the adoption of easy to use snorkelling and diving
equipment in the late 1960s and 1970s, that visitors immersed
themselves to view the reef. However, this was paralleled by
conservation concerns which contributed to new haptic dissociation.
In the early twentieth century, the Reef was characterised as
dangerous – threatening ships and human lives. Sharks, stingrays,
giant clams and venomous fish all posed a threat to the human body.
Conservation concerns have transformed these relationships of danger
considerably. A 1990 film documentary shows Valerie Taylor, one of
Australia’s foremost advocates of marine conservation, spinning,
touching and playing with Reef creatures in a way that encouraged
similar interaction by others (Film Australia 1990). The emphasis in
these activities and the associated commentary is that these creatures
are not dangerous. In other words touch is used to create a perception
that Reef creatures – or nature more broadly – is benign and harmless.
In recent times this idea has been further transformed and it is now
perceived that the Reef is in danger from our tactile exchanges. The
impacts of human touch on the Reef have been considerable. Vast
amounts of coral and shell were removed by visitors as souvenirs and
even more significant damage came through reef walking which was
actively encouraged well into the 1980s. Consequently visitors are now
indoctrinated into thinking that touch is something more dangerous to
the Reef than to ourselves. This is reflected in filmic
representations, which no longer show the kind of Valerie Taylor
interactions but show a humanless underwater environment. Although
scientists continue to touch, play, kill and otherwise physically
interfere with Reef creatures, this has become a hidden activity for a
privileged few.
Contemporary tourist experiences have become primarily visual
experiences. Many, but not all,8 tourists will view some part of the
Reef in person during a visit to the region. Of these some will
snorkel or dive on one of the fringing reefs of the continental
islands. But it is the Outer Reef which is promoted as the most
authentic experience. There are numerous opportunities for tourists to
snorkel and dive in one of the lagoons of the Outer Reef. The most
common means of reaching these locations is by way of quick catamarans
which anchor off semi-permanent pontoons. The amenities are similar to
those of the island resorts and include restaurant, bar, sun lounges,
souvenirs and some even offer showers. Snorkelling equipment is
included in the cost and visitors of all ages and swimming abilities
plunge into the ocean depths. In brightly coloured bathing costumes
and fluorescent snorkels, masks and fins that mimic tropical corals
and fishes, visitors find themselves fully submerged among the life of
these reefs. Patrolled areas are marked by ropes and buoys and the
inexperienced and curious are offered guidance from the company marine
biologist. The rest of the group is left with some basic instructions
about where to go, how to signal for help and, most importantly,
directives not to touch or remove anything from the Reef.
Even though conservation discourages touch, the experience of being
submerged is a new haptic encounter for many. Immersion in saltwater
also transforms the body’s sense of touch. Many everyday skin
sensations are altered by the aqueous surrounding; the skin tingles
and becomes swollen, its usual sensitivity dulled and sluggish. Even
though the water is warm, it cools the human body and further
diminishes the sense of touch. Immersion also creates new haptic
senses, brought about by novel forms of movement. In water, unlike on
land, our bodies are less weighted and this allows us to float: three
dimensional movements become possible. This three-dimensional movement
and the vision that accompanies it, is likened to flying. These are
unusual, not everyday experiences.
Three-dimensional movement is also disorienting. When considered in
the context of disorientatation associated with rapid transport, it
can be seen to further diminish a sense of locality and place. The
visits are relatively short, some allow for little more than an hour
at the Reef location. On returning to the pontoon or catamaran,
visitors swim onto a platform to remove their equipment before
entering the comfort of the cabin. The arrival and departure from the
Reef presents an abrupt change from underwater otherworldliness to the
ordinariness of upholstered seating, air-conditioning, drinks and
media entertainment.9
This is much more comfortable than visitor experiences of the Reef in
the past. But to what extent does it contribute to a knowledge of
place, and how does it impact on an understanding of landscape?
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The changing relationships of touch, or haptic encounters, evidenced
at the Great Barrier Reef in the twentieth century present an
interesting reversal in human knowledge of place. As the underwater
has become more visually accessible and physical access to these
watery environments has increased, haptic knowledge has been altered
in a way that leads to a loss of sense of place.
People with limited or no sight depend on their sense of touch to
establish relationships with space and place. Hull suggests that in
blindness one loses a sense of anticipation, a forewarning of
approach, and dissolution of space. For Hull, blindness limits his
knowledge of space because it is an incomplete way of knowing (Hull
1990). For early visitors who tried to view the Reef through the water
surface, their vision was impaired or imperfect. The distortion of the
water surface limited their sight and they depended on haptic sensory
knowledge to acquire a more fully informed knowledge of the
underwater. In the quest to better view the living reef, other senses,
especially our sense of touch, has been neglected and this too
contributes to a diminished knowledge of place.
A consideration of the first three of Rodaway’s types of haptic sense
– global, reach and extended – leads to the conclusion that these have
been diminished even as our bodies have gained greater access to the
underwater. In spite of new ways of experiencing this environment, the
body is suspended from its everyday sense of touch and of orientation.
Even more dramatically our haptic senses of reach and extension have
been curtailed. Thus vision is the primary sensual experience even for
those who are fully immersed in diving.
Increasingly the Reef is experienced not through the embodied
interactive forms of haptic sense, but through Rodaway’s fourth
category – that of imagined touch. We now enjoy unprecedented visual
access but it is dissociated from other senses. Diving is undoubtedly
an embodied experience, but because the haptic sense is integral to
body awareness and orientation the separation of vision from the sense
of touch produces a disembodied form of sight. Consequently
contemporary experiences of the Reef represent experiences of space
rather than place. In moving underwater tourists are in a new medium
of space, but with no knowledge of the particularities of place. The
pontoons and catamarans visited by tourists are non-places (cf. Augé
1995) that further dissociate the relationship between different
locations on the Reef. Consequently tourists fail to orient themselves
or to create connections between the localities they travel to and
from. This dislocation fragments the space of the Reef and leads to a
dissolution of landscape.
Such disembodied vision is reinforced by photographic imagery which
shapes visitors’ anticipation and recollection of the Reef. The region
is increasingly represented by films and photographs devoid of humans,
and filmic representations in particular emulate the kind of
disoriented movement characteristic of diving (Pocock 2004). Thus the
imagination and anticipation of a Reef visit is foreshadowed by a
disoriented vision that is realised in the three dimensional movement
of a contemporary underwater experience. Photography also shapes the
way in which the Reef is recollected. Conservation regimes have
eliminated the interactivity of fossicking and collecting. Souvenirs
of shell and coral once maintained a sense of contact with the Reef,
but these enduring haptic reminders have been replaced by photographic
recording (Pocock 2004, 2009). One of the most significant aspects of
touch is it is an encounter of the moment. Even in considering forms
of touch that do not involve interactions between bodies – the
suggestion that the eyes can touch – these are encounters in time.10
In contrast taking photographs anticipates memory. As with all
tourists, Reef visitors spend a significant amount of time taking
photographs. These are created for future enjoyment and are frequently
at the cost of the emplaced experience. Thus the embodied experience
of being at the Reef is often transformed into one of anticipating a
future moment of recollection. This is not a direct encounter in space
and time.
Without a strong haptic sense, tourist encounters with the landscapes
of the Reef are encounters in space – dislocated, disoriented, visual
and out of time. But perhaps the most dramatic effect is the loss of
reciprocity between the environments of the Reef and the people who
visit it. Through touch we understand the nature of other forms of
life and understand them as living moving bodies like our own. Because
in touching we are touched. It is this immediacy of reciprocal touch
that has been lost, and which has diminished the connectivity between
people, places and landscape.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The original research for this paper was made possible through the
support of the CRC Reef, James Cook University and the University of
Tasmania. Special thanks to Dr Marion Stell and Dr David Collett.
ENDNOTES
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Figure 1: Fully Dressed Visitors arrive at Hayman Island circa 1932. ©
Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Figure 2: Postcard of Holidaymakers collecting shells and corals at
Lodestone Reef, Great Barrier Reef circa 1920. © National Museum of
Australia
1 This follows Casey (1996), but see also Tuan (1977), Augé (1995) and
Ingold (2000).
2 This is illustrated by John Hull in his account of blindness and the
pleasures of knowledge brought by touch when oriented to a daily
routine and sense of space.
3 Humans are highly sentient. We rely on our senses for many aspects
of our survival and our sensuous engagements enrich our daily
encounters with our surroundings and others. Among the most noticeable
or conscious of our senses are sight and sound. We give cultural
expression to these through art, design and fashion; language and
music. To a lesser extent our cultural awareness of smell and taste
are marked by particular culinary and wine tasting practices. These
are conscious performances and celebrations of particular senses. Our
sense of touch is less frequently celebrated in isolation from other
senses, though it might be argued that sports celebrate our sense of
balance and orientation as much as they do sight and strength.
4 For a description of the methods used to identify these experiences
see Pocock (2002a).
5 The inclusion of the Great Barrier Reef in the World Heritage List
refers to these visual qualities as part of its assessment of the
aesthetics of the region. See (Environment Australia 2002; Pocock
2002b).
6 Mont Embury ran a number of holiday expeditions to Reef islands in
the 1920s and 1930s and subsequently established a more permanent base
on Hayman Island when he obtained a lease over the island (The N.S.W.
Freemason 1932; Wigmore 1932).
7 Inflammation of the ear.
8 Many visitors remain in the resorts, simply enjoying the relaxation
of ‘sun, sand and sea’ except the sea is the pool or aquarium, and
many fail to experience feel the sand beneath their feet – an
experience linked with pleasures – the softness and fineness of some
sands, the coarseness of other coral beaches, and the associated
sounds of squeaking, crunching and distinguishing one location from
another.
9 The many conveniences give many Reef resorts and dive locations the
characteristic of Auge’s non-places (Augé 1995).
10 While Rodaway suggests that touch extends beyond the extremities to
include the body as a whole, Derrida and Marks take this idea further
to suggest that the eyes can touch and that touch can be perceived
through vision and film, but even these are instances of encounter in
time (Derrida 1993; Marks 2000; Naas 2001; Marks 2002).
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