Tourism's sacralisation, possession and repatriation of Uluru to Anangu

What is it about?

In tracing an official, centrally-organised tourist site sacralisation campaign that transformed an unknown rock into an emotion-laden spectacle, this paper makes a strong case for the role of national tourism as a form of civic religion and national tourism organisations in writing the sacred texts of this religion, and in shaping historical consciousness, the history of colonial race relations, cultural production, identity formation, and a national consensus about the land and its meaning.

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Why is it important?

The originality of this interdisciplinary transnational approach may change the understanding of nation-making as a process and how icons like Uluru became places of considerable symbolic significance during the birth of national tourism organisations throughout the C20. It reflects a key methodological concern: the contribution that visual imagery can make to scholarly research and situates local tensions between colonising and colonised peoples within larger struggles for Indigenous rights.