Waiting our turn

Hope in a connected world

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  • Published 20170502
  • ISBN: 9781925498356
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

GENERATIONALISM IS A complex phenomenon. The concept of a generation is obvious: the social and economic contexts for a group of people born around the same time are going to be somewhat similar. But in addressing lived experience, a number of factors highlight how arbitrary such categorisation is: place, culture, socio-economic standing. In Generation Less: How Australia is Cheating the Young (Black Inc., 2016), Jennifer Rayner identifies this apparent contradiction as the difference between ‘cohort’ and ‘life cycle’ effects – that is, between the standard conception of generations as age groups, and the non age-specific commonalities that such designations cannot adequately address.

In the 1920s, sociologist Karl Mannheim identified ‘the problem of generations’ as central to understanding ‘the accelerated pace of social change characteristic of our times’.[i] Almost a century later, that accelerated pace is also characterising generation Y (the millennial generation; roughly, those born between 1980 and the mid-1990s) – though dictated by the digital revolution rather than the aftermath of the First World War.

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The geography of respect

Starting in 2019, Parks Victoria closed or restricted access for climbers to much of Gariwerd-Grampians while it assessed cultural heritage and worked with Traditional Owners and conservation experts to develop the Greater Gariwerd Landscape Management Plan (GGLMP). These closures drew strong reactions from many climbers. They saw Parks Victoria’s actions as impinging on their rights, and its apparent focus on climbing as a risk to cultural heritage and environmental integrity as overblown. They criticised the government’s lack of communication and consultation with climbing groups and its ‘demonising’ of the sport. They also claimed economic concerns: regional tourism operators would be among the hardest hit around Gariwerd-Grampians, and in other areas where access restrictions were also being enacted, climbing stores, accommodation providers and even whole towns (specifically Natimuk, in relation to restrictions at Dyurrite-Mount Arapiles) allegedly faced financial turmoil. A website called Save Grampians Climbing sprang up to advocate for these and other issues and to rail against Parks Victoria. An online petition to ‘stop climbing from being banned in the Grampians’ gained almost 35,000 signatures.

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