Documentary and resistance : There Goes Our Neighbourhood, #WeLiveHere2017 and the Waterloo estate redevelopment

This paper is about a documentary that formed one component of a project to draw attention to and contest the redevelopment of Sydney’s Waterloo public housing estate. There Goes Our Neighbourhood is a strategic impact documentary that chronicles residents’ efforts to resist or reshape the redevelopment project. It was part of, and followed, the #WeLiveHere2017 campaign – a campaign which also involved the collective production of a protest artwork via the illumination of two towers with LED lights, and digital storytelling via social media. Following reflections from both the filmmaker and a participant in the campaign, we interrogate the impacts of There Goes Our Neighbourhood, including how it challenges the stigmatisation of public housing tenants and estates, and critically discuss the producers’ approach to engaging different audiences and navigating competing interests. We conclude by suggesting that while There Goes Our Neighbourhood and #WeLiveHere2017 may not have changed the course of the redevelopment, they have had – and may yet have – positive impacts in other ways