Roadside Memorials: Interpreting New Deathscapes in Newcastle, New South Wales KATE V. HARTIG AND KEVIN M. DUNN Over recent years, roadside memorials to commemorate people killed in motor vehicle accidents have become increasingly noticeable in parts of the Australian landscape. In Newcastle, New South Wales, roadside memorials are placed for young people. The age/gender group most at risk of road death, and those most memorialised, are young men. This is linked to spatially specific constructions of masculinity which circulate within youth milieux of Newcastle. Like other memorials and monuments these ‘deathscapes’ have multiple meanings, differing between those who build, maintain and interpret them. They function as conservative memorials of youth machismo; of heroic aggression, disregard for safety and egocentrism. Roadside memorials need to be re-read as symbolic of societal flaws; of a wasteful road toll, and a testament to dominant and problematic strains of masculinity. Roadside memorials to people killed in motor vehicle accidents have become increasingly noticeable in the Australian landscape. These small and private memorials usually appear in the form of a cross and flowers. At ever greater frequencies they can be read along the highways and by-ways of Australia, including those around the city of Newcastle and the surrounding Hunter Region of New South Wales (NSW). Our case study area covers the Newcastle, Greater Cessnock, Maitland, Wyong and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas (LGAs), a grouping that we have categorised as the greater Newcastle area (Figure 1). Roadside memorials are read by passing motorists, and they are tolerated by some key institutions. Geographers have revealed the con- tested but also hegemonic meanings generated by memorials and other public monuments. Roadside memorials generate interpretations and impacts well beyond an intended private expression of grief. Like other memorials their meanings vary, even becoming contradictory. Roadside memorials are symbolic of societal flaws. They are landscapes imbued with meanings; contradictory discourses condemning and condoning youth machismo circulate around these deathscapes. The first aim of this paper is to unravel the multiplicity of meanings within roadside memorials. This involves an examination of what these recent Australian 5 Australian Geographical Studies • March 1998 • 36(1):5-20 Kate Hartig is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, New South Wales 2308, Australia. Kevin Dunn is a Lecturer in the School of Geography, The University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales 2052, Australia.