This body of research reads place-based texts through the twin lenses of human geography and literary theory, aiming to explicate the different types of spatial logic that may influence urban futurities. The research uses Lake Monger (Galup), in Perth’s Western suburbs, as an example case of an urban/suburban green space represented by a diverse body of textual practices.
Lake Monger is one of the few remaining large wetland bodies within Perth’s well-developed inner suburbs. In this research, the lake is approached as a case-study for the textual representation of suburban ecological spaces. The research investigates the various categories and genres of text that which may be produced by engagements with place, seeking to understand how these different ways of imagining place can open up or foreclose different visions of the future of Lake Monger.
In addition to engaging with Lake Monger’s urban futurity by applying the two theoretical approaches to the existing body of texts about the lake, this research has produced novel research output in the form of an anthology of speculative fiction and creative texts, written by local creative writers during a year-long residency at the lake.
These creative works respond to multiple urban futurities themes, including the responsiveness of urban space to climate change, technological change and more-than-humanism, the futures of urban transport and mobilities, urban sustainability, marginalization and belonging in urban environments, and the ongoing implications and acts of settler-colonialism.
This paper focuses on the use of spatial and narrative logics in these original creative works, illustrating how divergences in place-making practices and visions of futurity may be produced and reconciled.