the expanse of nature ends or is ‘brought in’ in proudly domesticated forms (Cosgrove,
1993). This was a key narrative projection that underpinned the diverse European exten-
sions into the ‘New World’ from the seventeenth century. More specifically, the constitutive
spatialities within that progression – of improvement, property and settlement – were ones
through which Aboriginal non-cultivators on the Australian continent were dispossessed
from parts which, as ‘wastelands’, were not in production or even on the path to humanity’s
proper dwelling space in the city.
There exists within these conceits an opportunity to engage in long-overdue analytical
bridgework across the spheres of the human and non-human worlds. Crucially, this is a
move that requires more than an excavation into the history of ideas – in this case,
Eurocentric representations of humanity and animality, as well as different people and
places. For in this case, questioning the figuration of the ‘civilized’ human in western dis-
course forces not only a narrative but also an ontological recognition of the copresence of
all other living things to which the generic human has long since been discursively opposed.
It compels us to take seriously the vitalism and materiality of non-human entities
(Whatmore, 1999), not least those of the long devalued non-human animal.
The approach through which can be conceived a select agricultural show points well
beyond itself, then, to interests at the heart of cultural geography. In vivid contrast to studies
of ‘human impact’ that either commemorate or lament human change to ‘the environment’,
an alternative writing tactic uses the hybrid materials of culture/nature to think acrossthe
divides so proudly inscribed by the agricultural show. In so doing it is possible to unseat the
figure of the human who has pinned so much of his (sic) defining status on the capacity to
turn nature into culture. And far from being unmarked, the historically situated bodies of this
idealized figure were profoundly raced (and gendered), as can be seen through the following
window on ‘white natures’ in colonial Sydney.The show beyond its text Like agricultural societies elsewhere, the Agricultural Society
of New South Wales undertook many functions from its establishment in the 1820s, includ-
ing registering breeding societies, checking pedigrees, and compiling stud and herd books. A
key promotional strategy of the society was the holding of competitive shows. By the end of
the 1800s, Sydney was the stage to which regional societies throughout the colony and the
government experimental farms forwarded their best products. In the words of Society
president Sir John See, when opening the 1898 show and as reported in a local newspaper:
‘The exhibition, in focussing local competition, is an object lesson which enables the people
of Sydney to see for themselves the true capabilities of NSW. These shows are a marvellous
incentive to producers in the country who are brought into contact with ... all concerned with
the material development of the colony.’ As was the case in other emblematic spaces of
civilization, including imperial London with its fancier’s clubs and botanical and zoological
gardens, there was an enthusiasm in colonial Sydney for domesticated natures – both the
enclosures of wild nature, and activities that celebrated breeding achievements.
Competition was not only designed to increase resource production for the colony and
British market. It was also thought to foster a basic building block of humanity’s develop-
ment. In 1909 the Royal Agricultural Society annual stated: ‘The Show shows us by ocular
demonstration what great things the pastoralist and farmer are doing for the advancement of
the entire human race’ (p. 9). In that sense, perfecting the raw material of nature was the keyA ROUGH GUIDE 213029-intro.qxd 03-10-02 5:17 PM Page 21