Resisting or reinforcing cultural injustices – reimagining Norfolk Island’s World Heritage area

It is often assumed that the heritage protection values held by heritage consultants, scholars, and governments are in our best interest, but what if these values clash with those of the local community? Griffith University researchers are exploring and championing a cultural justice approach to heritage, as exemplified by work undertaken with descendants of the Pitcairn Islanders on Norfolk Island.

Professor Sarah Baker, based at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, is an esteemed cultural sociologist specialising in critical heritage studies and issues of cultural justice.

Her work champions the idea that heritage preservation should be an inclusive and participatory process, empowering communities and custodians to take an active role in safeguarding their cultural legacies. This includes how heritage value is understood by heritage consultants, scholars, and governments to produce more culturally just heritage management and avoid negative impacts on communities.

This work is exemplified by the recent research project Reimagining Norfolk Island’s Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area (KAVHA), co-led by Dr Zelmarie Cantillon (Western Sydney University) and with significant contribution from Norfolk Islander and Griffth University PhD candidate Chelsea Evans. This Australian Research Council-funded project conducted between 2021–2024 aimed to explore the role living heritage sites play in resisting or reinforcing cultural injustices.

Norfolk Island is located in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,600 km northeast of Sydney, Australia. The island has a rich settlement history, with archaeological evidence of Polynesian occupation (c.1150–c.1450), followed by a British agricultural settlement (1788–1814) before it was re-occupied as a British penal settlement (1825–1855).

In 1856, around 190 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of Tahitian women and mutineers of the HMS Bounty, were relocated to Norfolk Island. The island’s Pitcairn settler descendants are an ethnically, culturally, and linguistically distinct group of people with a rich living heritage related to KAVHA

However, there is a history of tension and cultural injustice between the Pitcairn Islanders and first, the British colony of New South Wales, followed by the Commonwealth of Australia from 1914 onwards, including more recent impacts after the removal of self-governance.

As a result, heritage management of KAVHA has overwhelmingly privileged the preservation and presentation of its convict heritage. Likewise, published scholarly research on Kingston has predominantly focused on the penal settlement.

“What you see on the surface is the built heritage site, with the buildings being regarded as one of the best examples of Georgian architecture in the southern hemisphere, plus you have the evocative penal ruins, the gaols and so forth. Amidst that, there is also a really interesting and important living heritage, with the Pitcairn descendants having made their homes amongst the heritage buildings for over 160 years,” said Professor Baker.

“Ensuring this living heritage is front and centre in heritage management as well as interpretive strategies, whether that be the bus and walking tours that move through KAVHA, interpretive signage or exhibitions, will ensure visitors leave the island with an understanding of the unique culture, language, and heritage of Norfolk Islanders.”

With a focus on living heritage, the Reimagining KAVHA project took a critical cultural justice inquiry approach towards research and practice to explore how cultural injustices are reinforced or resisted in relation to heritage management and interpretation in KAVHA. Key to this was a concern for accessible, timely outputs that could be utilised by community members when advocating for self-determination.