www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

Technologies of agency and performance: Tasmania Togetherand the constitution of harmonious island identity

Elaine Stratford

Sustainable Communities Research Group, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania,

Private Bag 78, Hobart TAS 7001, Australia

Received 24 July 2002; received in revised form 1 March 2005

Abstract

Baldacchino [Baldacchino, G., 2002. Jurisdictional self-reliance for small island territories: considering the partition of Cyprus,

The Round Table, 365, 349–360] has argued that the �troika� of smallness, insularity and peripherality may incline island peoples

(rather more than mainlanders?) to question the effects of economic globalization and be especially disposed to innovative

approaches to development. He views jurisdictional capacity as integral to that task. Much of the literature on such issues relates

to island nations, but this work focuses on Australia�s smallest and only island state of Tasmania, and thus on a sub-national juris-

diction. In what follows I explore the effects of an attempt to enrol Tasmanians in the creation and stabilization of a �2020 vision�meant to be global in its reach, to focus on the particular strengths of the island state, and be innovative in advancing sustainable

development. Known as Tasmania Together, the 20-year strategic vision outlines diverse economic, social and environmental goals

assembled over two years via widespread consultations with the island�s communities of place and interest. For a time Tasmania

Together generated significant debate about what it means to be an island people, and whether and to what extent Tasmanians�future will be secured through economic globalization or localized endeavours premised on sustainability principles. Important

to Tasmanians as well as to island studies, these rhetorics of social and spatial engagement also have salience beyond the borders

of the island state, highlighting larger questions about the technologies of governmentality, agency and the performance of identity.

� 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Governmentality; Actor networks; Sustainability; Economic globalization; Tasmania; Islands

1. Unfolding

Anyone who lives on an island knows there is a

particular tension with that lifestyle. On the one

hand, you are vulnerable and isolated on your

rock in the sea, but on the other hand you are

blissfully separate and insulated from the conti-

nental forces which can range from glaciers and

mammoths to shopping malls and trans-Canada

highways . . . You also are keenly aware of anisland consciousness, a strategy for survival, that

is different from the next island over and it defines

0016-7185/$ - see front matter � 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2005.03.001

E-mail address: elaine.stratford@utas.edu.au

your way of life . . . From an evolutionary point of

view, you have the sense that you are either goingto be amongst the next to disappear off the face of

the earth, or the only ones to survive (Anon.,

2003).

1.1. Of islands

Islands are said to be places characterized by insular-

ity and vulnerability (Crowards, 2004). Among their

apparent problems are smallness of scale, dependence

on limited natural resources and a narrow range of

products and services, disadvantaged terms of trade,

high transport costs, or reliance on outside authorities

1 For these insights, I am especially grateful to Andrew Harwood,

Jeff Malpas and the late Bob White, whose discussions and unpub-

lished paper on various commissions of inquiry and other interventions

into the governance of Tasmania have been an important inspiration

for parts of this paper (Harwood et al., 2001).2 Not least among these machinations were events in the lead-up to

the 2004 Australian federal elections. Then leader of the Labor

Opposition, Mark Latham, latterly promised Tasmanians a compen-

sation package of AUS$800 million for the cessation of old-growth

forestry, although the State Labor Premier, Paul Lennon refused to

support the national leadership on this matter. Two marginal Labor

seats in Bass and Braddon in Tasmania fell to the Liberal Government,

which (despite an increase in the proportion of people voting for the

Australian Greens) retained power after the election with an increased

majority in the House of Assembly and a majority in the Senate for the

first time in nearly three decades. Forestry will remain a vexed issue in

Tasmania.

274 E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

(Briguglio, 1999; Dolman, 1985; King and Connell,

1999; Royle, 2001; Streeten, 1998). By the same token,

islands have been constituted as places in which

resourcefulness and innovation are hallmarks (Anckar,

2002; Armstrong and Read, 2003). These qualities are

captured by Iceland�s Prime Minister Oddsson who,when asked in 2001 of his nation�s manifold successes,

said that his people just kept forgetting how small their

island was (Baldacchino and Milne, 2000). Whether vul-

nerable, resilient or paradoxically expressive of both

conditions, islands are remarkable qua islands if one�sfocus includes questions of how we govern and are gov-

erned (Dean, 1999).

It is not simply the (quite variable) size of islands thatmatters here; an island is a specific physical entity; a lit-

eral category of morphology. In generic terms, it may be

described as land surrounded by water and smaller than

a continent. There are various sub-categories of islands:

island continents, large islands, small islands, islets and

isles. Powerful metaphors also circulate around the idea

of an island. In Latin and French the term is associated

with insularity but in Middle English, iland/iglandmeans�watery land�, and may be indebted to the word eyland

from the Old Norse (Merriam Webster Dictionary,

2004). Watery lands are encircled and surrounded.

Water separates island from mainland, sometimes bring-

ing things from over the sea, sometimes acting as a

buffer from offshore influences, always implying a

state-of-being under constant negotiation.

It is possible to bridge islands, but this act may notrender them something other than islands. Bridges can

be fixed, as in tunnels, bridges, causeways and roads.

They can be semi-fixed, as in information technologies

or telecommunications. They can be mobile; in this

sense, vessels of the air and sea are also bridges. These

�spans� may draw innovation to and from islands while

increasing islands� exposure to accelerated ecological,

economic and social changes. The ability to bridgethem underscores their boundedness. In turn, this

boundedness emphasizes that islands are different from

mainlands. Islanders know that available resources are

always limited, and may be defensive and eager to pro-

tect them or may seek to further their opportunities by

engaging with those who are not of the island. In this

regard, many island populations are internally frag-

mented by deep divisions about whether and to whatextent they should conserve or develop those resources

and engage in the processes of economic globalization.

Debates about the salience of sustainable development

or the more radically constituted idea of a praxis of

sustainability are central to such divisions (Davidson,

1999; Dobson, 1996; Gibbs, 2000; Michael, 1995;

O�Riordan, 1996; Redclift, 1987; Stratford and Jaskol-

ski, 2004). Together, island/ness, economic globaliza-tion and sustainability form the meta-themes of this

paper.

The creation of islands internal to the coastline may

also be inscribed by topography, settlement patterns,

locality and divergent manifestations of sense of place.

Building bridges—that is, socio-spatial relations—in

such contexts may be as challenging as building links

to those places beyond the water/land interface that de-fines the island�s physical form. In real and metaphoric

terms, then, the shifting ontologies of islandness, and

the variance of islands as topological and topographical

categories1 become central problems in how one might

decipher the meaning and effects of boundaries and

flows and, most fundamentally, of change (Stratford,

2003).

1.2. Of the island state of Tasmania

Australia is an archipelagic nation of many hundreds

of islands, jurisdictionally disposed as several dependen-

cies, two territories and six states. Creatures of the Com-

monwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901, each

State and Territory has its own Constitution and laws,

but may not raise forces or taxes nor coin money. In thismost fundamental sense, each is dependent on the Com-

monwealth. Nevertheless, each is also active in the pur-

suit of trade and development in order to reap the real

and apparent benefits of economic globalization

through the use of natural and human capital. Some

256 km from the mainland, and itself an archipelago

of over 334 �members� of varying size, Tasmania is the

smallest, most peripheral and only island state in thefederation of Australia. It has been typified as the bas-

ket-case of the nation for a long time and its people have

faced numerous significant tests of economic and geopo-

litical development over the two hundred years since the

island was colonized by the British. Among these chal-

lenges were a significant depression in the 1890s, and

ongoing dependency on forestry, fishing, mining and

agricultural production, each of which has been at themercies of international market fluctuations and na-

tional and local political machinations.2

3 This perception of the Greens as �spoilers� goes back to the 1960s

and successive campaigns since that time over Lake Pedder, the

Gordon-below-Franklin, Southern Forests, Lemonthyme, Tarkine and

other disputes over the development of hydro-electric dam facilities,

forestry and private developments on public lands. One of these, the

Gordon-below-Franklin campaign, spilled over into national and

international domains and, in 1983, culminated in the High Court of

Australia overturning a State Government decision to construct a dam

near the confluence of the Gordon and Franklin rivers.4 Tasmanian elections work under the Hare–Clark system, ‘‘a Single

Transferable Vote (STV) method of proportional representation used

in multi-member electorates. Single transferable vote means that a

ballot paper moves between candidates as determined by the elector�spreferences . . . Under Hare–Clark, parties, groups and independents

are elected to the House of Assembly in proportion to their support in

the electorate. The composition of the House closely reflects the

proportion of primary votes on a State-wide basis’’ (Tasmanian

Electoral Office, 2004).

E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286 275

Currently, Tasmania�s economic growth rests pri-

marily on resource extraction and tourism and, in prin-

ciple, these sectors are subject to the broad tenets of

sustainability as conceived and maintained among

members of the international community since the

1980s (United Nations, 1992; United Nations and theInternational Institute for Environment and Develop-

ment, 2003; World Commission on Environment and

Development, 1987). Its dependency on the Common-

wealth is marked: for example, in 1997/98 58% of rev-

enue derived from specific and general purpose grants

from the Commonwealth (Australian Bureau of Statis-

tics, 2000).

Tasmanians have also had to adjust to variousstructural demands made on the State after three com-

missions of inquiry into the Tasmanian economy by

Lockyer in 1926, Callaghan in 1972 and Nixon in

1996/7 (Harwood, 2002). The 1996 Commonwealth-

State Inquiry into the Tasmanian Economy (Nixon,

1997) was chaired by the Honourable Peter Nixon, a

retired federal Liberal parliamentarian. He was jointly

appointed by the Rundle Liberal Government in Tas-mania�s capital city of Hobart, and the new Howard

Coalition Government in the national capital of Can-

berra. Nixon�s brief had been to conduct a thorough

investigation of the reputedly recalcitrant Tasmanian

economy, provide advice on policies to improve eco-

nomic performance, and furnish strategies to reduce

the State�s dependency on the national budget. He

identified five significant problem areas: governance;government finances, education and training, business

and industry development; and planning processes

(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1998). In light of his

recommendations, in 1998 the Federal Government

made a number of electoral promises in relation to

Tasmania, including one to write-off some AU$150

million in State debt (Australia. Department of Prime

Minister and Cabinet, 1998).Apart from being a literal island and separated

from the mainland by numerous socio-economic mark-

ers of difference, Tasmania comprises diverse commu-

nities of place internally fragmented by communities

of interest whose politics have tended to polarize

around conservation in general and forestry practices

in particular (McManus, 2002). Nixon�s recommenda-

tions on matters of governance significantly affectedthese political issues and served to heighten internal

animosities around the question of sustainability. The

Tasmanian Greens had been increasing the number

of seats it had secured in the House of Assembly,

something the major parties—Liberal and Labor—

were equally concerned about. Indeed, both the State

and Federal Greens (led by Senator Bob Brown) were

and often still are blamed for the State�s failure to at-tract and hold international economic development

projects, particularly in forestry and other resource

extractive industries.3 Thus, Nixon�s recommendations

on electoral �reform� were accepted in a bipartisan deal

that subsequently led to a reduction in the number of

seats in State Parliament and to an adjustment to elec-

toral boundaries. In the process, the Green�s electoral

prospects were shattered such that at the 1998 election,it lost four of its five seats in Parliament4 although

numbers have increased to four in subsequent State

elections.

Many of Nixon�s other recommendations were re-

jected by the Labor Government when it was elected

to power in 1998 under the leadership of the late Jim Ba-

con, MHA. Sidelining Nixon�s recommendation for the

wholesale privatization of major public assets such asthe once impregnable Hydro-Electric Commission, the

new Labor Government kept working to a series of

endogenous fiscal strategies that had been developed

around 1990 and that carried the State into surplus in

1999/2000 for the first time in the island�s history. Con-sidering that a decade earlier over 50% of State income

was derived from the Commonwealth and that the State

deficit then stood at AU$189 million, the modest firstsurplus of AU$1.26 million was noteworthy (Mussared,

2003). Too complex an issue to elaborate here, the Com-

monwealth�s part-sale of the national telephony system,

Telstra, was also instrumental in Tasmania�s emergent

economic recovery. The initial part-privatization in Sep-

tember 1997 resulted in AU$353 million being directed

over time to the State via Natural Heritage Trust funds,

largely as a result of the efforts of the independent Sen-ator Brian Harradine, known for his staunch support of

States� rights and the importance of the local in national

politics, and armed with his balance-of-power vote.

The Commonwealth Government has confirmedits commitment to move quickly to establish theNatural Heritage Trust of Australia once legisla-tion for the part sale of Telstra is finalised by theSenate . . . 10% of the expenditure under theTrust will be applied to programs in Tasmania

276 E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

[reflecting] . . . the Commonwealth�s understandingof the natural heritage pre-eminence of Tasmaniaand the costs to Tasmania in repairing and con-serving a disproportionately large share of ournation�s reserves and biodiversity . . . [and] themerits of the arguments put . . . by Senator Harra-dine about the need to ensure Tasmania receivesan appropriate share of funding to flow from theTrust . . . By committing such a large portion ofits land to national parks or conservation reserves,Tasmania has foregone economic potential. Thecommitment made by Tasmania to conserve itsnatural heritage benefits all Australians [and] . . .additional funding to protect that natural heritagealso benefits all Australians (Hill, 1996).

Buoyed by this development and the benefits of hor-

izontal fiscal equalization,5 the Bacon administration

created the framework for a new community plan forthe State; one intended to address the long-term social,

economic and environmental needs of Tasmanians over

the period to 2020; one meant to be linked to budget

processes, agency performance, and the establishment

and monitoring of benchmarks to measure social, eco-

nomic and environmental change over time; one in-

tended to harmonize. The so-called people�s plan is

known and written as Tasmania Together and is de-scribed as ‘‘a brave and aspirational vision, based on

the hopes and dreams of many thousands of people’’

(Community Leaders Group, 2001, p. 3). It both as-

sumes and attempts to produce rhetorical consensus.

Once it claimed tri-partisan support among the major

political parties, Labor, Liberal and Green; in political

terms, during the late 1990s and early 2000s it has been

largely a creature of the Labor party. Thus the title andemphasis are paradoxical insofar as the plan�s constitu-tion and operation underscore disjunctions in how Tas-

manians understand and address the larger demands of

economic globalization and sustainability (on these de-

mands, see Dobson, 1996; Guillen, 2001; Starr and

Adams, 2003); in how they identify Tasmania as an is-

land place relative to the mainland and the interna-

tional arena; and in how they view themselves asislanders.

Various stories exist about who had the idea to

undertake Tasmania Together, but the widely promul-

5 Horizontal fiscal equalization is a complex system of distributing

resources from the Commonwealth to the States and Territories in

which Tasmania and the Northern Territory are provided an amount

that is disproportionately large in relation to the other jurisdictions on

the grounds that they suffer from certain �disabilities� such as isolation

and under-developed economies that detrimentally affect capacities to

raise revenue, and from other impediments such as policy, practise and

operating �efficiencies� (Australia. Department of the Treasury, 1997/

1998). Note the constitution of the peripheral as necessarily

�backward�.

gated version is that Premier Bacon was its chief archi-

tect, something not readily ignored. Few antecedents

are acknowledged but in the narratives of its origin there

are passing references to similar (regional planning)

experiments in North America and Europe—and espe-

cially in the Republic of Ireland (Haughton and Coun-sell, 2004). Of these, the Oregon Shines I and II

processes are closest in fit and style (Oregon Progress

Board, 1989, 1997), and loose networks of information

exchange now exist between that US jurisdiction and

Tasmania.

1.3. Aims and objectives

In light of the foregoing, in the rest of this paper I

want to critically evaluate elements of Tasmania

Together by conducting a close reading of a number of

vision statements pertaining to island/ness, economicglobalization and sustainability. My aim in doing so is

to explore (in order to unsettle) the Tasmanian Govern-

ment�s investment in communicative rationality, an

approach to collective action meant to take public par-

ticipation beyond mere consultation, and enable the

constitution of shared and reflexive construction of con-

sensus around agreed meanings and understandings

(Habermas, 1981, 1987; Healey, 1996; Stratford et al.,2003). In my assessment, such investments are problem-

atic because, as McGuirk (2001, p. 195) persuasively

argues, it is difficult to imagine that:

. . . the workings of power can be temporarily sus-pended through communicative planning practiceto produce new consensual planning discourses . . .[when] insufficient attention [is paid] to the prac-tical context of power in which planning ispractised, thereby assuming away, rather thanengaging with, the politics-laden and power-ladeninterests that infiltrate planning practice.

In what follows, then, I want to delve into how Tas-

mania Together has been used to sculpt a harmonious

island identity below whose rhetorical smoothness are

significant fissures. At the same time, I want to set

out the argument that Tasmania Together has been de-ployed as a technology of governmentality (Dean,

1999) by which to fill the cracks of dissent with a gloss

of communicative rationality. I also want to ask how,

despite its almost universal celebration as an obligatory

passage point (Callon, 1999) to enrol people in the task

of fulfilling the 2020 vision, Tasmania Together has

met with limited success. I speculate that its relative

failure to (re)create and rally the island�s people stemsfrom the point that in other domains, and most nota-

bly in the relational spaces between economic global-

ization and sustainability, the island people have not

been able to deal with those matters that most divide

them.

6 Internally, this process was fraught, and in 2001 two members of

the CLG resigned from the Group, citing high levels of bureaucratic

and party-political interference in the project; a loss of faith in the

independence of the CLG; and the attentuation of the scope and

meaning of Tasmania Together (Pafitis, 2001); see also http://home.ipr-

imus.com.au/ltuffin/gerardanna.html.7 Eleven themes were identified in that process: (a) creating jobs and

wealth; (b) social justice and equity; (c) the imaginative island; (d)

education and training for life; (e) ecologically sustainable Tasmania;

health and well-being; (f) inclusive and open government; (g) a creative

Tasmania; (h) revitalizing our rural and regional communities; (i) pride

and confidence; and (j) other issues.

E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286 277

2. Getting it together—the architectonics

of Tasmania�s 2020 vision

In 2001 Tasmania�s 4880 square kilometres of coast-

line and 68,400 square kilometres of land were popu-

lated by 456,652 people, some 3007 or 0.7% less thanat the 1996 Census of Population and Housing (Austra-

lian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). By contrast, Australia�stotal population grew by 6% over the same period. Agri-

culture, forestry and fishing are especially important for

the State�s exports, which provided it with AU$2 451.8

million in 2002–2003, 25% of which was derived from

Japan. In comparison, imports were valued at

AU$776.7 million but, according to the Australian Bu-reau of Statistics (2004), such figures do not rectify the

susceptibility of the island economy and its social com-

munities to the vagaries of economic globalization.

While the imputed abundance to be derived from the is-

land ‘‘may seem beneficial . . . [they] can also make Tas-

mania vulnerable to the uncertainty and constant

change of the world market’’ (Australian Bureau of Sta-

tistics, 2002). Thus, in common with other islanders whoseek alternatives to resource extractive activities, Tasma-

nians are now making substantial investments in tour-

ism and ecotourism. This shift is understandable, given

that visitor expenditure at the end of June 2003 among

652,200 tourists amounted to AU$945.3 million, an in-

crease of 32.8% on June 2002 figures of AU$712 million

among 519900 visitors that year (Tourism Tasmania

Corporate, 2003).Striking any balance—for example among the conser-

vation of public lands, the development of tourism

infrastructure and the extraction of forest resources—

is an effort that inevitably maps onto larger debates

about how to engage over matters of economic global-

ization and sustainability. Not surprisingly, as a people

embedded in the challenges of such a balancing act, Tas-

manians actively engage in a ‘‘strange and verdant pol-itics . . . [in which] the cleavage between green values

and the dominant productivist paradigm represents a

bifurcation that is ongoing’’ (Hay, 2000). The split exists

despite policy instruments such as Resource Manage-

ment and Planning System, a suite of legislation that

was mobilized by the Field Labor Government in the

early 1990s as an explicit commitment to advancing

the internationally agreed principles of sustainability(Parliament of Tasmania, 1993; United Nations, 1992).

The System is meant to promote sustainable develop-

ment per se and the maintenance of diversity; provide

for equitable, ordered and sustainable use and develop-

ment of resources; encourage public participation; facil-

itate economic development—in accordance with such

objectives; and promote intergovernmental and inter-

sectoral cooperation for sustainable development(Parliament of Tasmania, 1993). Notwithstanding such

innovation, there are deep-seated divisions between

those condemned as �bloody Greens� and those chastised

as �bloody developers�. In part, this schism exists because

the System does not extend to forestry, fisheries and

mining exploration. The legislation that does provide

for these industries limits public participation in deci-

sions about the very activities that are most contentiousamong the island�s communities of place and interest

(Gee and Stratford, 2001). Despite being what Rose

(2000, p. 1395), has called a ‘‘politics of conduct that

seeks to reconstruct citizens as moral subjects of respon-

sible communities’’ using the strategies of communica-

tive rationality, on its own Tasmania Together cannot

address these regulatory obstructions to change. Even

so, since the advent of the Bacon Labor GovernmentTasmanians embraced numerous experiments involving

reforms to the structures and processes of governance.

Among the most noteworthy of these are bilateral and

multilateral partnership agreements involving the State,

industry or local governments (Armstrong and Strat-

ford, 2004); growing interest in regional governance

(Davidson et al., in preparation); and Tasmania To-

gether itself (Stratford, 2002).Cabinet assented to the idea of Tasmania Together in

December 1998, and work on the people�s plan began in

May 1999 with calls for nominations for membership of

a Premier�s Community Leaders Group (CLG). From a

field of 140 people who volunteered or were nominated

for appraisal, 24 Tasmanians from diverse backgrounds

were appointed to the CLG in May 1999 and, until Sep-

tember 2001, they worked on a community consultationprocess that was steered by staff from the Department of

Premier and Cabinet and other agencies.6 In July 1999,

the CLG held its first major event, a three-day search

conference with 60 delegates, from which 14,000 copies

of a public discussion paper, Our Vision, Our Future

(Community Leaders Group, 2000) were distributed in

December 1999.7 Between February and May 2000,

CLG consultations also generated lengthy transcriptsfrom 60 public meetings, as well as paperwork from

meetings with 100 organizations, 160 detailed submis-

sions, 4000 comment sheets from a tear-off section at

the back of Our Vision, Our Future, 2500 prepaid post-

cards that could be sent back to the CLG with vision

statements on them, and 6200 Internet messages.

278 E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

A dissident reading of the consultation process sug-

gests that it resulted in a proliferation of specific tech-

nologies of governmentality: a desire to act upon the

seemingly ungovernable subjects of Tasmania; consti-

tute the domains of their government; create new forms

of identity—an island people together; and justify themeans by which to govern or be governed (Dean,

1999). Certainly, the processes of interest-generation

and enrolment in the people�s plan appeared serious,

extensive and full of momentum.

After the release in October 2000 of the final version

of the vision statement and 24 goals of Tasmania To-

gether, a period of six months was used to develop 212

benchmarks, related to the goals. Legislation to createan independent Progress Board8 (the Board) was passed

through Parliament in June 2001 (Parliament of Tasma-

nia, 2001). A Secretariat was formed to assist in the task

of monitoring those benchmarks, and the final Tasma-

nia Together plan was published in September 2001

(Community Leaders Group, 2001).

A creature of government, Tasmania Together is also

meant to be mobilized in the private and third sectors, aswell as by individual citizens; nevertheless it has not

prospered in these domains without significant govern-

ment input. In this regard, like the island itself, the plan

may be vulnerable, particularly in light of the with-

drawal of support from the Liberals in 2001 and the

Greens in 2002. Its long-term future is also uncertain un-

der the Lennon Labor Government. Deputy Premier at

the time Tasmania Together was created, Paul LennonMHA succeeded Premier Bacon when the latter was

forced to resign in early 2004 because of ill health. Len-

non�s protection of forests industries in Tasmania is at

odds with one of most contentious of the plan�s originalgoals to ‘‘end clear felling in areas of high conservation

value old-growth forest by January 1, 2003, and cease all

clear felling in old-growth forests by 2010’’ (Community

Leaders Group, 2001, p. 27). Recall that forestry activ-ities are not regulated under the Resource Management

and Planning System. It became apparent that commu-

nity based (and �communicatively� derived) aspirations

to end old-growth forestry have failed to change the reg-

ulatory constraints of an existing system in which eco-

nomically important minority interests are protected

by delimiting the reach of participatory democracy

(Stratford, in review). McGuirk�s (2001) observationsabout the limits of communicative rationality, which

were noted earlier, gain in salience when the application

of this theory is inevitably confronted by the exercise of

juridical power (Flyvbjerg, 1998).

8 Contention surrounded the announcement of the membership of

the Board when the Secretary of the Department of Premier and

Cabinet (a central member of the Labor Party and close associate of

the then Premier) was appointed to it.

Significant, divisive and difficult issues of forestry

aside, the rhetoric of Tasmania Together still promised

government-community partnerships in the advance-

ment of the plan�s goals and the measurement of its

benchmarks. In this regard, the plan is supposed to pro-

vide a:

framework for setting government policy priori-ties, including the allocation of resources to thosepriorities . . . [and identifying] where service deliv-ery can be improved . . . The State Budget processhas been changed, with agency proposals assessedagainst the objectives of Tasmania Together, whileagencies will be required to report annually ontheir own performance against the benchmarks(Community Leaders Group, 2001, p. 5).

Certainly when the Tasmanian Government released

its first report on Tasmania Together in early June 2002,

each of CLG�s goals was indeed linked to specific budget

strategies. In addition, an agenda for ongoing activity in

social, economic and environmental domains has been

set and largely maintained over subsequent years (Tas-

mania. Department of Premier and Cabinet, 2002).How these undertakings develop over the long term re-

mains to be seen. Therefore, it is perhaps more produc-

tive to examine various narratives from the completed

consultation phase of the plan in order to better compre-

hend the relations among economic globalization, sus-

tainability and island/ness. In this vein, what next

concerns me is an analysis of the narratives produced

during the original consultation phase for the plan thatwere entered into what was, at the time, the largest NU-

D*IST9 database in Australia (Hoysted, 2001). These

narratives provide a means by which to unsettle the rhe-

torical gloss of Tasmania Together and clarify how dis-

sident forms of agency and identity performance gain

effect.

3. Creating Tasmania (anew) through the technologies

of agency and performance

During Tasmania Together�s formative period, com-

munity consultations generated assorted narratives that

are both intrinsically interesting because they problema-

tize or celebrate particular elements of Tasmanian (is-

land) life, and instrumentally noteworthy as momentsin the function of government through technologies of

agency and performance. First, on technologies of

agency, Dean (1999) is worth engaging with at some

length and in what follows I �enter into� his text in order,

at least in part, to ground its theoretical insights in

empirical work. My interpolations in italics are marked

9 NUD*IST is a software for qualitative data analysis.

10 This last point is telling in relation to Tasmania Together. In 1998,

the State Department of Health and Human Services, in conjunction

with the University of Tasmania, sampled 25,000 Tasmanians over 18

years of age for what has become known as the Healthy Communities

Survey. Of the 15,112 people who responded to questions about trust,

56% never or rarely trusted large corporations, with 39% having the

same response to local government, 44% to public servants, 60% to

government, and 20% to people in general.

E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286 279

by [ ] and the passages so marked then inform the frame-

work for my imminent analysis of statements about is-

land and islandness from the Tasmania Together

consultations. The purpose of this �intervention� is to

set Dean in �reaction� to an empirical example of govern-

mentality in practise, and thus ground the technologiesof agency and performance in a material case.

The technologies of agency:

. . . seek to enhance or deploy our possibilities ofagency. There are two broad types . . . [a] the logicof contractualization [such as might be represented

by community consultations] is that once its ethosof negotiated intersubjectivity is accepted, thenall criticism becomes simply a means to retoolingand expanding the logic of the contract [henceannual reports, progress reports, newsletters, meet-

ings, adjustments to some Tasmania Together

benchmarks, the outright rejection by government

of others] . . . [b] . . . �technologies of citizenship� . . .the multiple techniques of self-esteem, of empow-erment and of consultation and negotiation thatare used in activities as diverse as communitydevelopment, social and environmental impactstudies . . . the combating of various forms ofdependency and so on [each of which is enfolded

into the fabric of Tasmania Together and onto the

performance of Tasmanian identity so conceived] . . .Technologies of agency also include the instru-ments of �voice� and �representation� by which theclaims of user groups can enter into the negotia-tion over needs . . . These technologies of citizen-ship engage us as active and free citizens [despiterestrictions on the availability of information about,

for example, private forestry practices] . . . asinformed and responsible consumers, as membersof self-managing communities and organizations,as actors in democratizing social movements, andas agents capable of taking control of our ownrisks (Dean, 1999, p. 168).

The technologies of performance comprise:

. . . the devolution of budgets, the setting of perfor-mance indicators, �benchmarking�, the establish-ment of quasi-markets in expertise and serviceprovision, the �corporatization� and �privatization�of formerly public services, and the contracting-out of services, are all more or less technical meansfor locking the moral and political requirements ofthe shaping of conduct into the optimization ofperformance . . . transforming [us] into �calculatingindividuals� [active citizens in a globalized economy]within �calculable spaces� [the island people ren-

dered whole not fragmented, the island sustained]subject to particular �calculative regimes� . . . Thesetechnologies of performance present themselves as

techniques of restoring trust . . . in the activities offirms, service providers, public services and profes-sionals. As such they presuppose a culture of mis-trust in professionals and institutions that theythemselves contribute to, produce and intensify10

(Dean, 1999, p. 169).

The technologies of agency and performance are cen-

tral to the problematization of Tasmania as recalcitrant,

the use of Tasmania Together as an obligatory passage

point in that problematization, and the subsequent enrol-ment of actors into the network that it now represents:

Tasmania Togethermay be read as a device in the consti-

tution of harmonious island identity and as a disciplining

technology of governmentality. In this sense, the 2020 vi-

sion exemplifies a moment of translation in the geopolit-

ical realignment of the State�s fortunes and directions. A

need was identified inGovernment to work for economic,

social and environmental advancement, and TasmaniaTogether was deployed as the obligatory passage point

through which to avoid externally-produced solutions

to Nixon�s diagnosis of the island as a �basket-case�, itspeople as suffering diminished capacities. Through pro-

cesses of interessement, public, private and third sector

organisations and members of the public were brought

together to form a Community Leaders Group, and to

participate in extensive consultation procedures aboutthe 20 year future of the island and its people[s].

Later, rather more juridical strategies were invoked

to enrol various actors to the task—an Act, a Board,

goals and benchmarks, budget processes, reporting

mechanisms: the logics of contractualization among a

moral citizenry, as Dean might have it. These various

technologies were used to mobilize and then stabilize

support for Tasmania Together to justify as communica-tively rational and consensual a plan whose constituent

parts are riven through with conflict about the island�sfuture and the relative merits of economic globalization

and sustainability for its people. They were, in short, the

technical means to make durable various moral and

political forms of conduct in the calculated space of

the island. Tasmania Together is thus part of a larger

stratagem against peripherality and vulnerability inwhich all Tasmanians are nominally enrolled (parenthet-

ically, it is interesting to speculate about how this strug-

gle affects the ontology of island and islandness, since

they are presently defined by those very characteristics).

280 E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

An examination of how island and islandness are con-

stituted in community-based vision statements in the

Tasmania Together NUD*IST database suggests that

Tasmanians have used that obligatory passage point to

(re)assert numerous dissident ontologies. Interrogating

the data for these terms—island and islandness—pro-vides an output of 190 vision statements drawn from

the consultation process. Below, a selection of 43 of

those which have additional bearing on sustainability

and/or economic globalization is explored using insights

from Dean�s (1999) labours in relation to agency and

identity, Callon�s (1999) work on the sociology of trans-

lation, and Ryan and Bernard�s (2000) counsel on sche-

matic and thematic techniques of analysis.Close reading of the vision statements that follow

suggests first that those responding to the Tasmania

Together consultation process had diverse and diverging

ideas about the future to be forged. Yet the translation

of these narratives via the social and institutional net-

works of Tasmanian policy circles was deployed as a

rationally derived consensus around the vision state-

ment ‘‘Together we will make Tasmania an icon forthe rest of the world by creating a proud and confident

society where our people live in harmony and prosper-

ity’’ (Community Leaders Group, 2001, p. 5). Second,

the vision statements imply that significant rhetorical

and material investments are made by Tasmanians in is-

land and islandness as elemental in the State�s opportu-nities and constraints. These related categories are

decisive in reading how Tasmanians have been rathermore divided than �together�, an observation that begs

the question about whether and to what extent conflict

may be productive if practised agonistically (Mouffe,

2000; Stratford et al., 2003). Finally, interrogating the

vision statements suggests five themes by which to better

understand the complex interrelationships among is-

land/ness, economic globalization, sustainability, agency

and identity. These themes are scale, tensions in the tri-ple bottom line, innovation, belonging, and sense of

place. In what follows, their salience to the wider aims

of the paper is teased out as each is explored by drawing

upon the 43 vision statements from community consul-

tations, which appear in italics in the text.

3.1. Scale

Scale may refer to relative magnitude, ordered stan-

dards, or relations between objects and their representa-

tions. It is inferred in design, measurement, calculation,

regulation or production. It is implied in the relativities

between things (Stratford, 2004). For Tasmanians, sca-

lar considerations are paramount. There are local partic-

ularities as well as different place-based or interest-based

concerns such as those over resource extraction and itssustainability. There are intra-island disparities among

the northern, north-western and southern regions of

Tasmania—islands of interest and geopolitical history

that are inside the coastline�s varied perimeter. There

are manifold considerations about Tasmanians� rela-

tionships with the Australian mainland, with the Asia-

Pacific, the Antarctic, sub-Antarctic and other offshore

regions, and with the practises of economic globaliza-tion that inhere in these relationships. There are con-

cerns about smallness and vulnerability, the island�sspecial qualities and the manifest opportunities in selling

or protecting these (the two generally being presented as

polarized imperatives), or about parochial tendencies

and the apparent need to look outwards.

Select vision statements from Tasmania Together that

are related to scale articulate with larger narrativesabout the constitution of agency and citizenship dis-

cussed above �in conversation� with Dean. Some respon-

dents invoke island identity as a means to distinguish

self from other; to celebrate the island�s diversity and

resilience, and simultaneously to underscore the power

of togetherness as exemplary in a world typified by frag-

mentation; and to mobilize the island�s people as part-

ners in the logics of the contract and the technologiesof citizenship. A compact island of diversity based on

our people not our regions. Vision—we will, in a global

world, become an example of eliminating regional bound-

aries and projecting an island image.

Other respondents constitute the island as remote, as

if to suggest that the performance of agency and identity

requires an audience external to such performance: Our

island is isolated and our reputation does not get around.Islands, of course, are often relatively more isolated

from centres than are the peripheral parts of mainlands

but, in this narrative of seclusion, Tasmania�s antipo-

dean status and its marginality relative to the Australian

mainland imply constraint.

Still others underscore what might be read as the

importance of jurisdictional independence and resilience

(Baldacchino and Greenwood, 1998; Baldacchino andMilne, 2000; Fischer and Encontre, 1998), with one sug-

gesting that the island is small enough to be internally

cooperative and large enough to take on this 2020 vision.

Size is invoked as elemental in jurisdictional capacities

of cooperation and strategic planning, and as crucial in

the success of the vision over time. In terms of the consti-

tution of identity, it is noteworthy that �island� is used to

signify �islanders�: yet it is people who must cooperate—not places, and it is people who must be robust enough to

take on the sorts of changes that a 2020 vision implies.

Either way, the scale of the endeavour being proposed

has not escaped the author of the statement, and neither

have the implications for the performance of citizenship.

3.2. Tensions in the triple bottom line

I noted earlier that Tasmanian resource management

and planning is governed by a suite of legislation meant

11 The State�s only University of Tasmania has a partnership

agreement with the State, its Vice Chancellor meeting regularly with

members of the Tasmania Together Progress Board and with

representatives from industry and the arts. The University�s EDGE

Agenda, an acronym for excellence, differentiation, growth and

enterprise, exemplifies commitments to the trope of the Intelligent

Island.

E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286 281

to advance sustainability processes and outcomes. Pub-

lic policy in the State constantly reinscribes the tenets of

the triple bottom line—balancing economic develop-

ment, social well-being and environmental management.

Apart from the narrowness of this interpretation of sus-

tainability praxis, the triple bottom line tends to privi-lege economic development over other activities, in

part because of deeply entrenched structures and prac-

tices of governance, in part on a presumption that the

net benefits of such development will spill over into

the other domains. Yet, in various locations it has be-

come clear that social and environmental activities are

not advanced without explicit and robustly implemented

policies to ensure distributive justice and even then theirneed presumes a culture of mistrust in government to

which government contributes and which government

produces and intensifies (after Dean, 1999). In the fall-

out after the death of Premier Bacon in mid 2004, and

the subsequent assessment of his legacy (itself a technol-

ogy of performance) no amount of rhetorical devotion

to harmony and sustainability has concealed the State�stendency to unilateral actions far removed from thecommitment to public participation and the logics of

contractualization and communicative rationality.

Granting of a long term poker machine monopolyto Federal Hotels. Continued allowance of clearf-elling of old growth forests for export woodchip-ping for little or no benefit to Tasmanians . . .Sale of the Civil Construction Corporation toDowner EDI without tender . . . Property dealson publicly-owned land, employment of LaborParty people on the public payroll after the lastelection . . . (Fraser, 2004, p. 14).

Nevertheless, the commonly understood legacy of the

Bacon Government is that it moved with energy to estab-

lish partnerships among diverse communities of place and

interest and used Tasmania Together, among other gov-

erning practices, to galvanize the idea of an island peopleworking in concert. It may be the case that for some goals

and benchmarks there is, indeed, a universal accord

among Tasmanians. For others, such as those through

which to deliver distributive justice across the elements

of the triple bottom line, rancour andmistrust remain typ-

ical of the socio-spatial relations and transactions in

which people engage. For instance, the vision to Be a

GM free island suggests that some Tasmanians want toprotect the island using precautionary principles and are

willing tomake a trade-off between the imputed economic

benefits ofGMagriculture and the environmental benefits

of remaining prudent. On this matter, the State�s responsewas to declare a three-year moratorium on GM. On for-

estry, there has been no groundgiven—as yet—to theTas-

mania Together benchmarks to cease logging old growth

forests by 2010. In short, where it has suited the Govern-ment to respond to the people�s vision, it has done so.

In other narratives from the Tasmania Together con-

sultations there are quite complex ambiguities in how

people understand the relationships among economy,

society and environment. Some vision statements stress

the need for the island people to constantly reinscribe

their resilience and capacities to do better with what isalready in place: there are already specific industries

operating—some very successfully and others needing spe-

cialist advice and maybe economic assistance. Some pro-

mulgate the idea that without traditional forms of

development—that is, investment sourced from outside

the island for modern agricultural and industrial activi-

ties—the island and its people will suffer; hence the use

of metaphors such as �shut down� or �lock up� in relationto conflicts with the Greens as they have attempted to

drive the conservation agenda. Others are beginning to

imagine that Tasmanians could justly integrate eco-

nomic, social and environmental needs and be innova-

tive in response to the island�s characteristics: Due to

being an island, industries associated with the sea—ship-

building, sailing, sea adventure tours, aquaculture—must

be encouraged or attract those who can complement the

huge advantages the island can already offer or I see the

island as a forerunner in ecotourism; to be guarded as

our greatest asset.

3.3. Innovation

Be an imaginative island. The notion that the island of

Tasmania is the people�s greatest asset is one on whichthe State Government has capitalized through the 2020

vision process. But Tasmania Together is only one

among a number of innovations, others including (a)

Brand Tasmania, ‘‘established in July 1999 to formulate

and promote a place-of-origin branding initiative for

Tasmania’’ (Brand Tasmania Council, no date); (b)

partnership agreements between the State and various

parties—notably local governments (Tasmania. Depart-ment of Premier and Cabinet. Local Government Divi-

sion, 2004); and (c) the formation of industry councils

and the AU$40 million Intelligent Island strategy, the

aims of which are ‘‘focused on strategic investment in

Tasmania to create higher, long-term sustainable growth

of the state�s ICT industries’’ (Tasmania. Department of

Economic Development, 2004). A formal alliance among

government, tertiary education institutions, business and

the arts to deliver the intelligent island.11

282 E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

In the attribution of island as value/asset, the confla-

tion between island and islander reappears: the calculat-

ing individual and the calculated space are rendered

equivalent, but in practise it is the capacities of the

islanders that will determine the success of innovation

on and for the island relative to other places. Our little

island, blinking intelligently into cyberspace linking up

with other visionary global processes. The capacities of

the island to provide for and absorb the efforts of inno-

vation is another matter, one over which there is much

debate.

Thus, innovative partnerships rely on the logics of

contractualization among active individual, group and

corporate citizens committed to shaping the conductof actions to optimize performance and self-manage-

ment. We need to foster and maintain access to global

and mainland markets, highlighted by our clean, green,

intelligent island image. Yet the island, as Being, has

no standing as a partner in the negotiations, even

though many actual and potential innovations (for clean

technologies, new agricultural production methods, eco-

tourism, or environmental education or other services)may benefit or harm its various ecosystems at the same

time as islanders benefit from or are harmed by new

markets.

3.4. Belonging

Some of the vision statements from the Tasmania

Together consultation process which are constitutive ofisland and islandness, sustainability and economic glob-

alization emphasise different ideas about belonging as a

means by which to differentiate: Being an island Tasma-

nians have become a people completely separate from the

mainland. Here, the phrase �an island� is deployed as a

marker of separation and, again, is substituted for the

term �islanders�. While there is no indication of the effects

of this separation between an island �us� and mainland�them�, the environmental determinism which may be

read into the statement suggests that Tasmanians are

not only engaged in ‘‘the multiple techniques of self-

esteem, of empowerment and of consultation and negoti-

ation’’ (Dean, 1999, p. 168); they have become more than

Australian—they are an island unto themselves.

This profound sense of belonging is also evoked in

vision statements that resist external direction: Peoplefrom outside keep telling us what is best or what we think,

because we�re an island. Leaving aside another exemplifi-

cation of the conflation island/er, this statement implies

that island status produces vulnerability and exposure to

scrutiny—an unavoidable and unwelcome openness

through which mainland prescriptions and directions

gain a colonizing foothold. It suggests a need to care

for the Self and foster jurisdictional independence, andit (re)inscribes a tendency to mistrust the Other. The for-

mer idea of care of the Self is reflected more clearly in

vision statements addressing the pressures on Tasma-

nians to be part of the machinery of the market. We

must not continue to destroy our island and sell it and

its products containing massive amounts of our island to

other countries for nothing. Here is evidence of robust

dissent: resistance to the idea that islandness connotesdiminished ability; celebration of the need for indepen-

dent decision-making and geopolitical nous. With

dissent, island becomes resource: Retain our unique-

ness—our island focus—the advantages of geographic iso-

lation. Islanders become empowered citizens of moral

communities; a collective identity that is effective in etch-

ing the importance of the local and eschewing the pres-

sures of economic globalization: Utilise existing

�invested� township infrastructure and local resources to

put us in position of being able to supply our own basic

needs and to foster intra-island trade, lifestyle and decen-

tralisation. The movement from island/er as resource to

self-managing communities (Dean, 1999) is a short one:

We should focus on Tasmania�s islandness, mingling of rich

cultural and natural landscapes and local identity, rather

than trying to emulate the rest of the developed world.

Island identity and sense of belonging are also instru-

mental in shaping collective conduct in the struggles

against particular manifestations of economic globaliza-

tion. Once big corporations get a GM [genetic modifica-

tion] foothold on our island (it�s already happening) they

will use economic agreements to pressure governments to

let them stay no matter what the public�s opinion is. The

vulnerability of islands qua islands is underscored insuch statements: the effects of GM production is deeply

problematic for islands-as-laboratories. Nevertheless, it

produces and is constitutive of calculating individuals

who understand the calculable space that is the Island

per se. Tasmanians are prudent ‘‘agents capable of tak-

ing control of our own risks’’ (Dean, 1999, p. 168).

However, such narratives of belonging and the rela-

tivities of boundedness are unsettled by others that,while celebrating islandness, underscore the benefits of

global partnerships. These alternative narratives are of-

ten constructed around similar place-based peoples in

small, isolated, remote, peripheral or islanded locations.

We should look at other small countries [sic] with small

populations which have been successful, and learn from

them: i.e. Iceland, Luxembourg, or successful islands—

Lord Howe or Singapore can give us a few pointers on

the intelligent island. These exemplars are safer and more

resonant for Tasmanians than comparisons with main-

land places because they suggest that the strategies of

self-empowerment mobilized by other islanders may be

readily transplanted here.

3.5. Sense of place

We have such narrow experiences: 50% of the popula-

tion has never left the island. We need to overcome our

E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286 283

island mentality—that everything happens elsewhere. The

idea that everything happens elsewhere suggests a need

to pay attention to sense of place: ‘‘that environing lo-

cale within which all action and experience is embedded

and articulated’’ (Malpas, 2004). In contradistinction to

the assertion that Tasmania is an empty signifier andthat anything of note is located outside its borders are

various vision statements and narratives from the Tas-

mania Together consultation process that value the is-

land as place. Some of these privilege the salience of

island and islandness as tropes, although they do not

forget its importance as a geographical/literal category:

A place to rediscover selves or An island jewel and mirror

to the world or This island is to be loved; it is our sense of

place or Being an island makes it ideal. These statements

are utopian, delimiting the good place rather than no

place, a status that renders the island all the more pre-

cious—a gem worth protecting. Associated to them are

enunciations through which �island as refugia� are in-

voked. The Sierra Club (no date) defines refugia as is-

lands of relict habitat in otherwise hostile

environments. Refugia may be located on mainlands,but literal islands are especially important to protect

from various threatening processes (social, economic,

ecological) because of their heightened vulnerabilities.

We will be glad we became the first island in the world

to be totally supplied with solar and wind power or We

will be glad we became the first island in the world where

all our food is produced organically and there are no GM

plants or What about an Isle of Man in the south? . . . asafe little island buffered from unstable Asia by the main-

land . . .Sense of place is also part of the performance of iden-

tity and community. One participant in the Tasmania

Together consultation process wrote simply Identity,

community, island; an equation whose elements are

mutually constitutive, each inferring enrolment into pro-

cesses of moral citizenship and the logic of contractual-ization. Another participant stressed the importance of

these logics—of the technologies of agency and perfor-

mance of identity: It is not enough to educate our children

to be functional units in the present economic status quo,

without also educating them to understand that many of

the currently acceptable economic endeavours harm our

island, our world, our health and our future. Such oblique

critiques of tendencies in late capitalism render educa-tion a functionary of the global market place. They also

create spaces for dissent from such tendencies by mobi-

lizing the idea that the island is at risk from economic

orthodoxies related to, for example, resource extraction.

By necessity, such dissident spaces demand prudent cit-

izens (Dean, 1999) whose collective actions and self-reli-

ance may help to disrupt the status quo. But the appeal

to slow down the pace at which Tasmanians engage withthe global economy is not universally appreciated be-

cause of ongoing tensions in how the islanders under-

stand the meanings and implications of sustainability

praxis. We have the most beautiful island in the world—

ruined. Ruined by development or its lack, by conserva-

tion or its absence?

Certain vision statements are relatively prescriptive

and specific in their visions for Tasmania as a place withparticular qualities or products. One participant sug-

gests that some manufacturing industries would be helpful,

surely: say Australian cotton and Tasmanian wool of

world class reputation for garments locally made. Here,

the word �surely� may be an appeal to resolve ongoing

tensions among political parties over the type, range

and scale of development that Tasmanians should pur-

sue for the island�s economy, with many Tasmaniansarguing that the Greens have shut down this island and

our kids have to get jobs elsewhere or that Children/youth

will have to leave this island for work/education opportu-

nities.Grief over the prospect of the �shut down� is heart-felt among Tasmanians and many have been puzzled at

best and oftentimes angry that the Greens seem to want

to �lock up� the land and its wealth for politico-philo-

sophical reasons to which they cannot (now/yet/ever) re-late. A close examination of the Greens� policies on

social welfare and economic development nevertheless

suggests that it has various strategies to encourage youth

employment and economic activities, albeit in ways that

are not yet commonplace nor well provided for in the

systems of governance and structures of government.

However, such policies receive only scant populist media

coverage and what prevails is a sentiment that We, as an

island have a siege mentality from top to bottom that says

�don�t do it, save it for later�.

4. Enfolding

The aim of this paper has been to appraise aspects of

Tasmania Together in order to unsettle the State Gov-ernment�s partial investment in communicative rational-

ity. I have undertaken these tasks by closely reading 43

vision statements from community consultations that

pertain to three meta-themes—island/ness, economic

globalization and sustainability. My focus on these

meta-themes derives from an interest in arguments

about islands as vulnerable spaces, and about islanders

as resilient people.This composite task has been buttressed by an under-

standing on my part that Tasmania Together has been

used to fashion a normative harmonious island identity

that belies significant tensions among the island�s peo-

ples about their collective future and the relative merits

of economic globalization and sustainability. It has also

been informed by my reading of Tasmania Together as a

technology of governmentality (Dean, 1999) to disci-pline dissent/dissidence: an obligatory passage point to

enrol people in the task of fulfilling the 2020 vision.

284 E. Stratford / Geoforum 37 (2006) 273–286

As a �self-defined� harmonizing device, then, Tasma-

nia Together has met only with partial success. It has

neither (re)created nor coalesced an island people resil-

ient to the vagaries of either endogenous and external

buffetings. At best—and this matter is one deserving

additional inquiry—it has galvanized particular interestgroups around various goals and benchmarks—such as

those related to forestry, or provided the means by

which particular communities of place may work on is-

sues of local concern with State Government officials

through various regular community forums around the

island jurisdiction. In the process, numerous technolo-

gies of agency and performance have been produced

by many actors; an imputed benefit of communicativerationality, trust has not been an especially noteworthy

outcome of these endeavours. Thus, in relation to Bald-

acchino�s (2002) idea that the troika of smallness, insu-

larity and peripherality fosters jurisdictional resilience

and independence Tasmania Together may represent

one expression of resistance to the sorts of �mainlander�solutions to vulnerability that were proposed during

Nixon�s (1996) Commission of Inquiry. But in terms ofscale, the triple bottom line, innovation, belonging and

sense of place, the 43 vision statements that refer to is-

land/ness, economic globalization and sustainability

imply something other than a ‘‘well-defined sense of col-

lective identity and a strong sense of shared history [that

enables] some people to make more effective use of

various levers of political power . . . for their economic

well-being’’ (Srebrnik, 2000, p. 56). Perhaps the entireprocess might have been more robust had its architects

been open to the possibilities beyond a normative har-

monization of an island people who are distinguished

by their diversities.

Acknowledgement

This work has been supported by funds from the

Australian Research Council�s Discovery Grants pro-

gram. My thanks to Andrew Harwood for his particular

insights into the island state of Tasmania and islandness

more generally, and to Julie Davidson and Andrew for

research assistance. Carol Farbotko, Rebecca Jackson,

Denbeigh Armstrong, and members of the International

Small Islands Studies Association and the GlobalIslands Network have been part of many interesting dis-

cussions about islands, and I thank them for their colle-

gial input.

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