As a Senior Research Associate in the Australia Research Council funded project Inside Alice Springs: A New View of Difference, Division, my year-long field research involved a range of activities: following and gaining insights into the work of a diversity of stakeholders in the management, maintenance and planning of town space in Mparntwe/Alice Springs; systematic observations of how different people use and interact various town spaces; participating in major town events and activities of community and interest groups; in-depth interviews with a large number of residents in various professional and community sectors.

Drawing on theories of place-making, urban anthropology and notions of belonging, the analysis examines how residents from a diversity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds come to understand themselves and others as different and similar to varying degrees, depending on the event, location and purpose of the activity. In the process, they emphasize various aspects of their multiple social location - gender, ethnicity, race, occupation, religion, age, level and kind of education, and the depth of their historical relationship to the town and surroundings.