Dr Zelmarie Cantillon
Dr Zelmarie Cantillon is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in the Institute for Culture and Society. Her research focuses on the intersections of heritage, space and place, urban cultures, tourism, and cultural policy. Zelmarie’s most recent work explores heritage through the lens of cultural justice, as well as the role heritage initiatives play in urban transformations.
Zelmarie is currently CI on ‘Reimagining Norfolk Island's Kingston and Arthur's Vale Historic Area’ (SR200200711, 2021–24), a project funded through the ARC Special Research Initiative for Australian Society, History and Culture scheme. This project considers how living heritage sites can resist or reinforce cultural injustices for Pitcairn settler descendants on Norfolk Island.
She is also CI on the ARC Linkage Project ‘The Collaborative Museum: Embedding Cultural Infrastructure in the City’ (LP200301481, 2022–25) in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. This project analyses the complex processes of collaboration needed to embed the new Powerhouse Parramatta in place.
Dr Cantillon also publishes in the field of popular music heritage. In this area, her work has explored: popular music heritage institutions, practices and events in relation to their social, affective and political dimensions; the sustainability of community-based heritage initiatives; DIY (do-it-yourself) heritage institutions as sites of ‘serious leisure’ that promote well-being for volunteers; the costs and rewards of career volunteering in DIY heritage institutions; the role of mainstream and community-based institutions for the preservation and celebration of histories of marginalised groups; the tensions between generating economic value and cultural value; and how popular music’s past factors into cultural policy and urban renewal strategies, particularly in deindustrialising cities.
Zelmarie’s book, Resort Spatiality: Reimagining Sites of Mass Tourism (Routledge, 2019), is the first scholarly monograph to theorise beachside ‘resorts’ as distinct kinds of urban milieux. The book discusses how globalised processes play out in local contexts, drawing on fieldwork undertaken in six resorts across four continents: Miami, USA; Cancún, Mexico; Ibiza, Spain; Gold Coast, Australia; and Phuket and Koh Phangan, Thailand. Taking a cultural studies approach to urban analysis, the book examines the material and symbolic production of resort spaces, attending to the complex ways that such places are imagined, represented and lived.
Qualifications
- PhD, 2017, Griffith University
- BComm (Hons), 2012, Griffith University
- BComm, 2011, Griffith University
Research Focus
- Urban cultural studies
- Space and place
- Cultural policy
- Critical heritage studies
- Popular music heritage
- Tourism
Awards and Recognition
- 2020: PVC Arts, Education & Law Group Research Excellence Awards – Popular Music Heritage Team, Griffith University
- 2018: Arts, Education & Law Group Learning and Teaching Citation – teaching team for Understanding the Social World, Griffith University
- 2012: University Medal, Griffith University
- 2011: Communication Medal, Griffith University
Selected Publications
Baker, S & Cantillon, Z 2022, ‘Zines as Community Archive (opens in a new window) Archival Science. doi:10.1007/s10502-022-09388-1.
Baker, S, Cantillon, Z, Istvandity, L & Long, P 2022, ‘The Values and Value of Community Heritage: Visitor Evaluation of Do-it-yourself Museums and Archives of Popular Music in Europe, Australasia and the United States of America (opens in a new window) Journal of Heritage Tourism, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 190–203.
Cantillon, Z & Baker, S 2022, ‘DIY Heritage Institutions as Third Places: Caring, Community and Wellbeing Among Volunteers at the Australian Jazz Museum (opens in a new window) Leisure Sciences, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 221–239.
Cantillon, Z, Baker, S & Nowak, R 2021, ‘A Cultural Justice Approach to Popular Music Heritage in Deindustrialising Cities (opens in a new window) International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 73–89.
Cantillon, Z 2020, ‘Urban Heritage Walks in a Rapidly Changing City: Tensions Between Preservation and Development on the Gold Coast, Australia (opens in a new window) Journal of Heritage Tourism, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 149–163.
Cantillon, Z & Baker, S 2020, ‘Career Volunteering as Good Work in Do-It-Yourself Heritage Institutions: A Serious Leisure Perspective (opens in a new window) Journal of Sociology, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 356–371.
Baker, S & Cantillon, Z 2020, ‘Safeguarding Australia’s Community Heritage Sector: A Consideration of the Institutional Wellbeing of Volunteer-Managed Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Historical Societies (opens in a new window), Australian Historical Studies, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 70–87.
Cantillon, Z 2019, Resort Spatiality: Reimagining Sites of Mass Tourism, Routledge, London.
Istvandity, L, Baker, S & Cantillon, Z (eds) 2019, Remembering Popular Music’s Past: Memory–Heritage–History, Anthem Press, London.
Baker, S, Istvandity, L, Strong, C & Cantillon, Z (eds) 2018, The Routledge Companion To Popular Music History And Heritage, Routledge, London.
