ABSTRACT The former central post office (1900–1904) in the regional Australian city of Newcastle is a substantial public building and significant landmark. Designed by the New South Wales Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon (1846–1914) and constructed in a phase of confident urban growth, it reflects major trends in public architecture of the period. In this sense, it is normative cultural heritage, a major marker of civic progress as traditionally understood, and therefore, a representative place in its community. But its sale by Australia Post in 2002 set in train a sequence of events that unsettled the seemingly stable meaning of the building. The period of obsolescence and dilapidation that followed culminated in a successful land claim by the Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) in 2015 under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1983). This paper investigates the after-life of the Newcastle Post Office and the intertwining of heritage and land rights via the politics and legal process connected with the building. Ultimately, the paper argues that the building’s story and its condition highlight the haunted character of all settler heritage in Australia and the troubled claims of place-based citizenship that are connected with it.

中文翻译：

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不安定：纽卡斯尔邮局的来世

摘要 位于澳大利亚地区城市纽卡斯尔的前中央邮局（1900-1904 年）是一座大型公共建筑和重要地标。它由新南威尔士州政府建筑师 Walter Liberty Vernon (1846–1914) 设计，建造于充满自信的城市发展阶段，反映了该时期公共建筑的主要趋势。从这个意义上说，它是规范的文化遗产，是传统上理解的公民进步的主要标志，因此是其社区中的一个代表性场所。但它在 2002 年被澳大利亚邮政出售，引发了一系列事件，扰乱了这座建筑看似稳定的意义。2015 年，Awabakal 当地土著土地委员会 (LALC) 根据《新南威尔士州土著土地权利法案》（1983 年）成功提出了土地要求。本文通过与该建筑相关的政治和法律程序调查了纽卡斯尔邮局的来世以及遗产与土地权利的交织。最终，该论文认为，该建筑的故事及其状况突出了澳大利亚所有定居者遗产的闹鬼特征以及与之相关的地方公民身份的麻烦主张。