This paper extends debates investigating the importance of domestic yards and gardens in shaping identities and the everyday practices and performances of human–nature interaction in a tropical city. It presents findings from a pilot study investigating backyards in a small but ethnically diverse neighbourhood in Cairns,Australia—a site that raises questions about the normative constructions of“nature”in much of the literature. The paper explores how Cairns residents make sense of their backyards, especially in terms of how they relate to them as“tropical”.Living in Cairns means managing excess water during the rainy season, dealing with new kinds of pests, and being critically conscious of the temperate bias of Australian gar-den retailers and house/garden magazines. The paper frames these experiences within a longer tradition of tropicality or a (western) way of making sense of/imagining tropical regions and environmental difference. In so doing, it opens up a new cultural geography of the suburbs, displaces normative constructions of“nature”and shows how the legacies of European colonialism still play out in a dominant Australian culture.

中文翻译：

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热带后院：表现环境差异

本文扩展了关于家庭庭院和花园在塑造身份以及人与自然互动的日常实践和表现方面在热带城市中的重要性的辩论。它展示了一项试点研究的结果，该研究调查了澳大利亚凯恩斯一个小而​​种族多样化的社区的后院——该地点在许多文献中对“自然”的规范构建提出了质疑。这篇论文探讨了凯恩斯居民如何理解他们的后院，尤其是他们如何将后院与“热带”联系起来。住在凯恩斯意味着在雨季管理多余的水，处理新的害虫，并批判性地意识到澳大利亚花园零售商和家庭/花园杂志的温和偏见。这篇论文将这些体验纳入了更长的热带传统或（西方）理解/想象热带地区和环境差异的方式中。这样做，它开辟了郊区的新文化地理，取代了“自然”的规范建构，并展示了欧洲殖民主义的遗产如何在占主导地位的澳大利亚文化中发挥作用。