The Triangle: A Narrative Portrait of Place-Gathered Monstrousness

Abstract

In this chapter, I consider notions of the sentient landscape from a philosophicallyinspired anthropological perspective, specifically, Edward Casey’s postulation that places ‘gather’. I provide a narrative portrait of the subject of my analysis: a triangular valley in central Australia bordered by ranges on two sides and a storm water drain at its base, crisscrossed by paths and tracks, vegetated by prickles, grasses, and small bushes, and inhabited by insects, small reptiles including poisonous snakes, birds, rock wallabies, and the occasional kangaroo and dingo. To the south, The Triangle is directly bordered by the affluent Alice Springs suburb of Eastside. To its north lies ‘the bush’, stretching for well over a thousand kilometres to the sea. I focus on how The Triangle ‘gathers’ in regards to the relationship between the monstrous and the geographic, and relate this through three case studies: (1) Nature and culture: The Triangle is all that stands between Eastside and ‘the bush’, and its body (‘scarred’ by paths and weed poising, exuding seeds, snakes, and sand) literally constitutes the threshold between the built environment and a perceived untamed nature. (2) Wildness and domestication: During recent drought-like conditions, dingoes flocked to the triangle and began killing the pets of Eastsiders. Critically, the latter often are part-dingo ‘camp dogs’ from Aboriginal communities, adopted by Eastsiders employed in the ‘Aboriginal Industry’. (3) Interwoven history: The Triangle’s neocolonial Indigenous/non-Indigenous entanglements are layered on top of its heritage WW2 site history, and its past as an Arrernte camping and hunting ground adjacent to a major sacred site. The central aim of my chapter is to develop a Triangle-centric narrative from which to consider questions pertinent to the relationship between monstrousness and geography: Can the Triangle express or experience monstrousness, or is monstrousness inscribed on and through it?