Article Facades of diversity Susan Leong, Thor Kerr and Shaphan Cox Curtin University, Australia Abstract This article focuses on urban space and heritage. Our aim is to understand how ordinary streets in Perth respond to urban change and how much these urban streets represent Western Australia’s heritage. The intention is to eschew the dominant branding of WA as Australia’s mining state and shift the spotlight so that in addition to the economic and material, light is also shed on the socio-cultural in the everyday and the vernacular. This project uses Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis approach to explore a contrapuntal reading of heritage that disrupts the deserving, dominant and fixed histories of High Road in Will- etton and High Street in Fremantle. Amid the tides of migration, commerce, and cultures, heritage facades on High Street Fremantle appear singular and fixed, whereas multiple cultures have been extracted for sale on High Road. Superficially High Road seems diverse, but the overarching impulse across both sites is commerce – ‘Business as usual’ reigns. Keywords capital(ism), contrapuntal reading, everyday heritage, rhythmanalysis, urban streetscape Facades of difference: From High Road to High Street During the last week of April 1833, a settler travelling through Yagan’s territory fired at an inoffensive group of Aborigines gathered off High Road near Bull Creek on the Canning River. ‘Damn the rascals’, said he, ‘I’ll show you how we treat them in Van Dieman’s Land’. (Green, 1984: 82) At Fremantle on the night of 29 April 1833, several Aborigines attempted to break into what they thought was an unattended store. Peter Chidlow, the caretaker who was awakened by the sounds of entry, fired and mortally wounded Domjum*[sic], Yagan’s brother. The law of retaliation demanded a life for a life. After hearing news of the shooting Yagan moved his Corresponding author: Susan Leong, School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia. Email: susan.leong@curtin.edu.au Thesis Eleven 2016, Vol. 135(1) 115–133 ª The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0725513616657888 the.sagepub.com