Drought, Endurance and Climate Change 'Pioneers': Lived Experience in the Production of Rural Environmental Knowledge

Deb Anderson

doi:10.5130/csr.v16i1.1439

Cultural Studies Review 16.1 March 2010 Rural Cultural Studies: Research, Practice, Ethics

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v16i1.1439

Keywords:

drought discourse, climate change, lived experience, endurance, risk, environmental knowledge

Deb Anderson

Melbourne University

Abstract

This article explores the politicisation of environmental knowledge on rural Australia, in an analysis of discourse on the lived experience of drought. It draws on research conducted in dryland farm communities in the Mallee wheat-belt of Victoria – where rural histories have presented spirited sagas of community perseverance in ‘battling’ a harsh climate – during a period of marked shift in public awareness of climate change (2004-07). Indeed climate change projections have intensified debate over rural futures in Australia, where droughts have played a powerful role in the mythologizing of rural battlers and landscapes, and where drought discourse has been dominated by the language of war. Cultural engagement with climate is, however, under constant renegotiation, as rural cultural research is apt to reveal.

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2010): Rural Cultural Studies: Research, Practice, Ethics

Section

Rural Cultural Studies (Peer Reviewed)

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Author Biography

Deb Anderson, Melbourne University

Deb Anderson’s interests lie in rural, environmental and cultural studies. She is working on a PhD at the University of Melbourne; she also works for the press. She lives in the city’s political greenbelt but home is still the family farm on which she grew up, in the sticks of north Queensland.

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Deb Anderson, Melbourne University