Jacqueline Naismith

Doctor of Philosophy, (Sociology)
Study Completed: 2015
College of Humanities & Social Sciences

Citation

Thesis Title
Mediating the alpine archiscape: design and publicity for New Zealand's Tongariro National Park 1928 - 1984

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How places are visually represented is central to their production as specific kinds of social environments. Ms Naismith''scase study of archival design and publicity for the Tongariro National Park and the Chateau Hotel explores how relationships between people and the park were represented between 1928 and 1984. Using discourse and semiotic analysis the thesis examined representations of people, architecture and landscape for evidence of how the park environment was socially constituted in this time period. Analysis showed how shifting representations of the park and hotel in the time period studied pivoted on specific social constructions of luxury. The study highlighted how designed artefacts worked as placing devices to simultaneously inscribe people into places and places into people, a process theorised in the thesis as emplacement.

Supervisors
Associate Professor Brennon Wood
Dr Avril Bell
Dr Amanda Bill