Controversy and Closure: Sydney's Beaches in Crisis

Abstract

In this paper, the controversy over sewage pollution on Sydney beaches and how it should be remedied is used to analyze the concept of `closure', and what it means for technological controversies. Various parties to this controversy attempted to resolve it in several ways: by redefining sewage pollution as an aesthetic problem; by negotiating a consensus at the decision-makers' level about water quality standards; by putting forward what appeared to be `sound arguments'; and by the use of rhetoric. The paper explores the difficulties in applying categories of `closure', and its usefulness as a framework for understanding the dynamics of a controversy, and the power relationships between those involved.