Affective energies: Sensory bodies on the beach in Darwin, Australia Michele Lobo * Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia article info Article history: Received 10 May 2013 Received in revised form 11 December 2013 Accepted 15 December 2013 Keywords: Affective energies Australia-Darwin Indigenous and migrant bodies Suburban beach Whiteness abstract Emerging debates on anti-racism within white majority cultures centre emotion and affect to explore the visceral nature of racialised encounters that unfold in public spaces of the city. This paper builds on such understandings by conceptualising whiteness as a force that exerts affective pressures on bodies of colour who are hypervisible in public spaces. I show that these pressures have the potential to wound, numb and immobilise bodies affecting what they can do or what they can become. This paper argues, however, that affective energies from human and non-human sources are productive forces that are also sensed in public spaces such as the suburban beach. These energies entangle sensuous bodies with the richness of a more-than-human world and have the potential to offer new insights into exploring how racially differentiated bodies live with difference. The paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in Darwin, a tropical north Australian city at the centre of politicised public debates on asylum seeker policy, migrant integration and Indigenous wellbeing. My attention to affective pressures and affective energies contributes to understanding how bodies with complex histories and geographies of raciali- sation can inhabit a world of becoming. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction All over the world, the warm, sunny beach is a fantasy space of freedom and adventure where ‘just about everyone wants to be’ (Freeman, 2008; Godfrey and Arguinzoni, 2012; Saldanha, 2007; Taussig, 2000: 252). In Australia, the suburban beach is an icon of a ‘laid back’ lifestyle portrayed vividly in tourist brochures, glossy travel magazines and promotional images on the Internet (Cousins, 2011; Wise, 2009). In summer, white Australian-ness is performed by wetsuit-clad athletic bodies surfing, bronzed bodies wearing bikinis or board shorts swimming, sun-tanning or reading, ener- getic bodies running or walking dogs and animated children building sandcastles with buckets and spades (Wise, 2009). Such beach activities that centre the human in its relationship with na- ture are regulated by unspoken rules embodied in rituals of social behaviour that demonstrate politeness and respect for privacy (Noble, 2009). From an early age Anglo-Australians know that the dry sandy area is a place for relaxation, the firm sandy area near the water’s edge is for frivolity and activity takes place in the water (Wise, 2009). Today, however, the suburban beach attracts resi- dents and visitors of diverse ethnic minority backgrounds who use this public space in different ways e ways that do not always conform to acceptable norms of dress and social behaviour. As shown in research that focuses on race and class tensions that unfold on beaches in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by Freeman (2008), beaches in Australia are also public spaces of enforced togetherness where intercultural tensions simmer and unfold (Noble, 2009; Wise, 2009). These simmering interethnic tensions and emotional insecurities surfaced and erupted on Cronulla beach, Sydney in 2005, when Lebanese-Australian bodies of Middle-Eastern physical appearance disrupted familiar cultural norms through their style of dress, soccer activity and ‘rowdy’ behaviour (Johns, 2008; Wise, 2009). Moral panic, fear and anxiety fuelled by media reports of global terrorism surfaced in ‘beach riots’ and vitriolic public de- bates on Australian values and Australian-ness. These debates privileged whiteness as a historically and socially constructed normative position, a set of cultural practices and an ‘Anglo- inspired cultural orientation’ (Hage, 2012: 2); the non-Anglo body was racialised. This paper draws attention to the hypervisible non-Anglo body to explore the visceral nature of racialised encounters that unfold in public spaces of the city such as the suburban beach. In Australia, such hypervisibility continues to result in increased vulnerability to racism among bodies of colour, evident when a long-term resident of South Asian heritage working with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was called a “black c—“ and told to go back to his country (Levy, 2013). The event was reported widely in the media and stimulated public debate on the need for targeted anti-racist policies. There was little focus, however, on how skin played an important part in the unfolding of this visceral event. Price (2012) * Tel.: þ61 3 9244 3872. E-mail address: Michele.Lobo@deakin.edu.au. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Emotion, Space and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emospa 1755-4586/$ e see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2013.12.012 Emotion, Space and Society xxx (2014) 1e9 Please cite this article in press as: Lobo, M., Affective energies: Sensory bodies on the beach in Darwin, Australia, Emotion, Space and Society (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2013.12.012