Places and spaces for circus performers and show people as Australian migratory workers

Abstract

This article draws on an 18-year continuing empirical and qualitative study of the educational opportunities and experiences of Australian circus performers and show people to engage with broader questions about the intersection among rural mobilities, fixities and inequalities. In particular, the distinction between place as the source of the centre's power and space as the scene of operation of various tactics of resistance to that power is deployed to demonstrate that place and space are actually mobile concepts that highlight the relational and situated character of such supposedly fixed binaries as mobile and permanently resident on the one hand and rural and urban on the other. This conceptual fluidity and mobility are both useful and crucial in understanding the life-worlds of migratory workers such as circus performers and show people and more broadly in engaging with rural mobilities, fixities and inequalities, in Australia and elsewhere.