Creating Space for Protest and Possibility: Nimbin, Australia, from 1973

This article brings together the ideas of protest and counterculture in a productive engagement. If protest is understood as publicly bearing witness in opposition to something, then countercultures often do this as rejections of dominant cultures that are folded into everyday life in order to create spaces for possible futures. The countercultural experiments undertaken in the region around Nimbin, Australia, are an example of such space creation. Using interviews, presentations, and archival materials collected at a 2013 community conference marking the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Nimbin Aquarius Festival, I will explore these experiments in the context of countercultural protest. The Festival not only gathered together people under the banner of the counterculture, but provided a unique space for gathering around common matters of concern to create an ongoing countercultural community. This community continues to develop practical knowledge regarding sustainable living and innovations in grassroots environmental protest. Keywords: counterculture, environmentalism, social experiments, learning, Nimbin Aquarius Festival, student protest
Introduction Nimbin, in the far northeast corner of New South Wales, Australia, has since the 1970s been the center of a vibrant and adaptive countercultural community. It is, as Australian [...]