** Apologies but I am currently not updating this page. Please see my complete profile at: https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/andrea-gaynor ** I am primarily an environmental historian, and pursue various questions relating to the historical relationships between the human and non-human. Although my research topics superficially appear diverse, I have always remained concerned with understanding three main questions: What factors have shaped human dealings with the natural world? How have human activities changed the environment? And how have diverse lives been affected by environmental conditions? My research is also relevant to a range of other fields, including Australian studies, urban history and geography. In my research I bring approaches and knowledges from one area to bear on another, particularly across the humanities/science divide.
Drawing on sources ranging from gardening books and magazines to statistics and oral history, Harvest of the Suburbs challenges some of the widespread myths about food production in Australian cities, and traces the reasons for its enduring popularity.
It describes changing attitudes and techniques, and explores a range of contemporary ideas relating to work, social organisation, gender roles, health and the body, and nature. In doing so, it provides new insights into the tension between the quest for independence and the desire for interdependence in suburban Australia.
This book is a valuable resource for scholars of environmental urban and cultural management, and essential reading for the modern-day gardener interested in learning from more than one hundred years of keeping poultry, goats and cows, and growing fruit and vegetables, in Australian suburbs.
Water is rapidly becoming the crisis area that most directly affects all Australians. This book p... more Water is rapidly becoming the crisis area that most directly affects all Australians. This book provides a multidisciplinary exploration of issues relating to water and its management. The book was developed following a successful international symposium held at The University of Western Australia, where participants from government and various academic disciplines examined case studies from around the world.
Country reflects upon the unique character of people’s experiences in Western Australian landscap... more Country reflects upon the unique character of people’s experiences in Western Australian landscapes. Its 14 essays seek to explain some of the major changes to the environment and its inhabitants over the past two centuries and consider their cultural significance.
This report provides the historical context for Australian urban and suburban development in the ... more This report provides the historical context for Australian urban and suburban development in the period since European colonisation in 1788. The report is a deliverable for Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) project on ‘Understanding social processes to achieve water sensitive cities’ (Project A2.1).
While the major focus is the three key node cities of the CRCWSC (Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth) the report also provides background information on the histories of other Australian cities and locates the Australian urban experience within international contexts of the ‘settler societies’ of the so-called New World.
The key three cities have differing early histories as well as climate and topographic differences – sub-tropical and hilly Brisbane, temperate and flat Melbourne, and Mediterranean and flat Perth. Despite these differences, residents of each of these cities as with residents of all Australian cities - have from at least since the late nineteenth century demonstrated a clear preference for suburban rather than urban living, and a strong preference for low-density, detached dwellings over higher-density attached ones. They have also demonstrated a willingness to wear the elevated private costs associated with these dwelling and ‘lifestyle’ choices.
In this report we draw on the historical concept of ‘path dependency’ - that is the key constraining roles that decisions made or not made in the past have on contemporary practices and policy options. This central concept leads us to argue that as planners, engineers and policy-makers seek to move us towards a more water sensitive future, rather than try to impose new morphologies, habits and practices on a likely unwilling Australian public, they should instead actively work with new and existing suburban communities to adapt received ideas about residential and dwelling cultures to these new hydrological constraints.
While the report makes clear that Australians have traditionally been profligate with water, we also demonstrate that they have always shown a remarkable willingness to adapt water habits and usage during times of crisis. Our report proves that whereas in the past planners and governments have traditionally looked to ‘big engineering’ solutions such as newer and ever-larger dams (or more recently desalination plants) in order to deal with issues around water supply and demand, in practice two important but administratively simple and cheap policy changes have had the greatest impact: water pricing and public education campaigns.
The latter has been especially effective during periods of drought. The historical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that once the impacts of drought and wasteful usage of water have been explained, urban Australians have adapted their water use and behaviours to fit the short-term need for restraint. We see no reason why that should not remain the case into the future. We thus recommend that in a climate change-influenced water constrained-future, public education campaigns about the importance of water sensitivity should become a permanent component of public policy.
The history of the Western Australian wheatbelt is a story of mistaken policies and local adaptat... more The history of the Western Australian wheatbelt is a story of mistaken policies and local adaptation. Sustainability is the next challenge
Places play an essential role in the construction and maintenance of gender identities, as source... more Places play an essential role in the construction and maintenance of gender identities, as sources of imagery and settings for activities that give meaning to masculinity and femininity. Between 1890 and 1950, suburban food production was an important site for the discursive production and reproduction of gender identities in Australian suburbs. It allowed men to ‘perform’ a dominant masculinity tied to independence, productive physical labour and the breadwinner role. As dominant constructions of ideal femininity situated women as consumers and ‘dependent’ wives and mothers, women's relationship with food production was more ambivalent. These stories of suburban food production illuminate the operation of gendered power relations in suburban places, and complicate interpretations of residential suburbs as feminised sites of consumption.
The story of efforts to establish two major nature reserves in the south-eastern wheatbelt of Wes... more The story of efforts to establish two major nature reserves in the south-eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia illuminates some of the many factors shaping the interaction of citizens, scientists, land management bureaucracies, and other stakeholders around the creation of conservation reserves in a semi-arid region in the mid-20th century. This article highlights the significance of citizen scientists as well as professionals in the reservation process, and traces the increasingly strained relationship between Lands and conservation bureaucracies in the context of the rise of the new environment movement. It also points to the importance of international ideas about conservation aims and methods, and suggests that although shifting appraisals of the productive potential of the land were critical to the outcome of negotiations over the proposed reserves, in this period these semi-arid lands were increasingly valued for their scientific and intrinsic qualities.
What can works of landscape art tell us about past ecologies? This article describes a pilot stud... more What can works of landscape art tell us about past ecologies? This article describes a pilot study in which a method for systematically recording the aesthetic, ecological and environmental content of landscape artworks was investigated. Using database software that allows for the identification and evaluation of relationships between aesthetic criteria (such as style) and environmental content (such as vegetation characteristics), we surveyed landscape artworks of the Swan River region of Western Australia created between 1827 and 1950. The database was first populated with aesthetic and ecological surveys of selected artworks, then the data was analysed in order to identify patterns of ecological change that are readily amenable to historical explanation. The veracity of such explanations was supported by a more fine-grained analysis of a specific site, for which the depiction of the environment in artworks was compared with that in written and photographic sources. Collectively, the artworks appeared to reflect probable changes in the prevalence of large trees and the broad composition of flora, with the site-specific study finding more specific correspondences between artworks and other sources. Although further research is required in order to expand and verify findings, these initial results suggest that there is scope for more extensive use of fine art in the production of the environmental histories and historical ecologies that increasingly inform ecological restoration and management projects.
... Today, about 5% of metropolitan households in Australia keep fowls, and it may be that the re... more ... Today, about 5% of metropolitan households in Australia keep fowls, and it may be that the recent renaissance in home food production (Gaynor, 2006) is challenging and refiguring imaginative geographies in some quarters. ...
Environmental issues featured prominently in the leadup to the Western Australian state election ... more Environmental issues featured prominently in the leadup to the Western Australian state election held in February 2001, with then opposition leader Geoff Gallop making a range of election promises relating to old growth forest, ecotourism and conservation, coastal development and dryland salinity. Among the promises was a proposal to create a marine park in the state’s south-west, which would encompass Geographe Bay, the coast between Capes Leeuwin and Naturaliste, and Hardy Inlet. The proposed park included several sanctuary zones in which fishing would be prohibited. Gallop won the election and the planning process for the park was commenced but later stalled after the period of public consultation, as the increasingly beleaguered Labor government pursued other priorities. The Ngari Capes Marine Park was finally declared in 2012, including 15 sanctuary zones in which fishing will be prohibited. At this time the region was also subject to a marine bioregional planning process being undertaken by the Commonwealth Government. The planning and proclamation of marine parks in the region has generated considerable public debate, with both proponents and opponents increasingly turning to historical records to support claims of degradation and depletion over time on the one hand, or sustained and effective fisheries management for ecosystem health on the other. In this context, there is an obvious need to better understand the history of fish and fishing in the region.
Although the region’s fisheries have been the subject of considerable scientific research over the past four decades, there is still much to learn about the biology and ecology of the region’s marine life. Less still is known of the of the way in which the region’s marine resources have been exploited in the past. Some archaeological and anthropological studies have shed a little scholarly light on the long history of Aboriginal fishing; a few researchers have considered aspects of commercial and recreational fishing in the region as part of broader studies; and research reports have employed fisheries data stretching back to the 1970s in order to evaluate the condition of fish stocks. However, to date no historical study has focused on fishing in the region from Aboriginal times to the 1970s and placed recent trends in the context of this longer history.
This chapter therefore aims to evaluate evidence of change in the region’s fish populations over the long run, and account for it with reference to social contexts, fishing intensity and practices, and change in the regional environment. That is, it endeavours to explore, as far as the evidence will allow, the relationship between fish, fishing and environmental variation in the region. It ultimately suggests that the movements and abundance of fish have varied considerably over time due to biophysical and ecological influences, and claims of depletion have sometimes reflected cultural anxieties rather than environmental change. However, there is also a long history of human interventions in the region’s marine ecosystems. Such interventions, shaped by complex cultural and economic factors, have left short- and longer-term imprints on the region’s ecosystems.
This essay argue that the 'wilderness' that is now the Western Australian Wheatbelt was eaten as the result of a political vision for the region arising from cultural, political and economic sources. This vision motivated a small army of prospective farmers and resourced them to cut, burn, plough and sow the wilderness. In the process, there were misgivings, and now some of the areas less consumed are highly valued. Through technological ingenuity and consolidation of business operations we have been able to keep eating the wilderness. As wheatbelt communities struggle to protect their integrity and sustainability, the food produced by the region is becoming an increasingly critical global resource. But can the current production model be sustained?
At present, in many societies, engineers play a significant role in solving problems of energy, t... more At present, in many societies, engineers play a significant role in solving problems of energy, transport, accommodation and production; but similar problems have been solved through technical and non-technical means for thousands of years. Numerous historical examples therefore exist, in which the ends of different approaches to problem-solving are apparent: some producing socially just and/or ecologically sustainable outcomes, and some less positive. Historians do not simply narrate the past, they explain and interpret changes and continuities by paying attention to larger issues of, for example, class, gender, polity and economy. Such historical narratives, we argue, may have a useful role to play in efforts to shift the perspective of engineering students away from a narrow focus on complex technical solutions, towards the broader context in which their problem-solving will take place. This ability to assess the relationships between engineering problem-solving and the broader social and environmental context is critical to the development of a more sustainable and socially-just engineering practice.
Drawing on sources ranging from gardening books and magazines to statistics and oral history, Harvest of the Suburbs challenges some of the widespread myths about food production in Australian cities, and traces the reasons for its enduring popularity.
It describes changing attitudes and techniques, and explores a range of contemporary ideas relating to work, social organisation, gender roles, health and the body, and nature. In doing so, it provides new insights into the tension between the quest for independence and the desire for interdependence in suburban Australia.
This book is a valuable resource for scholars of environmental urban and cultural management, and essential reading for the modern-day gardener interested in learning from more than one hundred years of keeping poultry, goats and cows, and growing fruit and vegetables, in Australian suburbs.
Water is rapidly becoming the crisis area that most directly affects all Australians. This book p... more Water is rapidly becoming the crisis area that most directly affects all Australians. This book provides a multidisciplinary exploration of issues relating to water and its management. The book was developed following a successful international symposium held at The University of Western Australia, where participants from government and various academic disciplines examined case studies from around the world.
Country reflects upon the unique character of people’s experiences in Western Australian landscap... more Country reflects upon the unique character of people’s experiences in Western Australian landscapes. Its 14 essays seek to explain some of the major changes to the environment and its inhabitants over the past two centuries and consider their cultural significance.
This report provides the historical context for Australian urban and suburban development in the ... more This report provides the historical context for Australian urban and suburban development in the period since European colonisation in 1788. The report is a deliverable for Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) project on ‘Understanding social processes to achieve water sensitive cities’ (Project A2.1).
While the major focus is the three key node cities of the CRCWSC (Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth) the report also provides background information on the histories of other Australian cities and locates the Australian urban experience within international contexts of the ‘settler societies’ of the so-called New World.
The key three cities have differing early histories as well as climate and topographic differences – sub-tropical and hilly Brisbane, temperate and flat Melbourne, and Mediterranean and flat Perth. Despite these differences, residents of each of these cities as with residents of all Australian cities - have from at least since the late nineteenth century demonstrated a clear preference for suburban rather than urban living, and a strong preference for low-density, detached dwellings over higher-density attached ones. They have also demonstrated a willingness to wear the elevated private costs associated with these dwelling and ‘lifestyle’ choices.
In this report we draw on the historical concept of ‘path dependency’ - that is the key constraining roles that decisions made or not made in the past have on contemporary practices and policy options. This central concept leads us to argue that as planners, engineers and policy-makers seek to move us towards a more water sensitive future, rather than try to impose new morphologies, habits and practices on a likely unwilling Australian public, they should instead actively work with new and existing suburban communities to adapt received ideas about residential and dwelling cultures to these new hydrological constraints.
While the report makes clear that Australians have traditionally been profligate with water, we also demonstrate that they have always shown a remarkable willingness to adapt water habits and usage during times of crisis. Our report proves that whereas in the past planners and governments have traditionally looked to ‘big engineering’ solutions such as newer and ever-larger dams (or more recently desalination plants) in order to deal with issues around water supply and demand, in practice two important but administratively simple and cheap policy changes have had the greatest impact: water pricing and public education campaigns.
The latter has been especially effective during periods of drought. The historical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that once the impacts of drought and wasteful usage of water have been explained, urban Australians have adapted their water use and behaviours to fit the short-term need for restraint. We see no reason why that should not remain the case into the future. We thus recommend that in a climate change-influenced water constrained-future, public education campaigns about the importance of water sensitivity should become a permanent component of public policy.
The history of the Western Australian wheatbelt is a story of mistaken policies and local adaptat... more The history of the Western Australian wheatbelt is a story of mistaken policies and local adaptation. Sustainability is the next challenge
Places play an essential role in the construction and maintenance of gender identities, as source... more Places play an essential role in the construction and maintenance of gender identities, as sources of imagery and settings for activities that give meaning to masculinity and femininity. Between 1890 and 1950, suburban food production was an important site for the discursive production and reproduction of gender identities in Australian suburbs. It allowed men to ‘perform’ a dominant masculinity tied to independence, productive physical labour and the breadwinner role. As dominant constructions of ideal femininity situated women as consumers and ‘dependent’ wives and mothers, women's relationship with food production was more ambivalent. These stories of suburban food production illuminate the operation of gendered power relations in suburban places, and complicate interpretations of residential suburbs as feminised sites of consumption.
The story of efforts to establish two major nature reserves in the south-eastern wheatbelt of Wes... more The story of efforts to establish two major nature reserves in the south-eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia illuminates some of the many factors shaping the interaction of citizens, scientists, land management bureaucracies, and other stakeholders around the creation of conservation reserves in a semi-arid region in the mid-20th century. This article highlights the significance of citizen scientists as well as professionals in the reservation process, and traces the increasingly strained relationship between Lands and conservation bureaucracies in the context of the rise of the new environment movement. It also points to the importance of international ideas about conservation aims and methods, and suggests that although shifting appraisals of the productive potential of the land were critical to the outcome of negotiations over the proposed reserves, in this period these semi-arid lands were increasingly valued for their scientific and intrinsic qualities.
What can works of landscape art tell us about past ecologies? This article describes a pilot stud... more What can works of landscape art tell us about past ecologies? This article describes a pilot study in which a method for systematically recording the aesthetic, ecological and environmental content of landscape artworks was investigated. Using database software that allows for the identification and evaluation of relationships between aesthetic criteria (such as style) and environmental content (such as vegetation characteristics), we surveyed landscape artworks of the Swan River region of Western Australia created between 1827 and 1950. The database was first populated with aesthetic and ecological surveys of selected artworks, then the data was analysed in order to identify patterns of ecological change that are readily amenable to historical explanation. The veracity of such explanations was supported by a more fine-grained analysis of a specific site, for which the depiction of the environment in artworks was compared with that in written and photographic sources. Collectively, the artworks appeared to reflect probable changes in the prevalence of large trees and the broad composition of flora, with the site-specific study finding more specific correspondences between artworks and other sources. Although further research is required in order to expand and verify findings, these initial results suggest that there is scope for more extensive use of fine art in the production of the environmental histories and historical ecologies that increasingly inform ecological restoration and management projects.
... Today, about 5% of metropolitan households in Australia keep fowls, and it may be that the re... more ... Today, about 5% of metropolitan households in Australia keep fowls, and it may be that the recent renaissance in home food production (Gaynor, 2006) is challenging and refiguring imaginative geographies in some quarters. ...
Environmental issues featured prominently in the leadup to the Western Australian state election ... more Environmental issues featured prominently in the leadup to the Western Australian state election held in February 2001, with then opposition leader Geoff Gallop making a range of election promises relating to old growth forest, ecotourism and conservation, coastal development and dryland salinity. Among the promises was a proposal to create a marine park in the state’s south-west, which would encompass Geographe Bay, the coast between Capes Leeuwin and Naturaliste, and Hardy Inlet. The proposed park included several sanctuary zones in which fishing would be prohibited. Gallop won the election and the planning process for the park was commenced but later stalled after the period of public consultation, as the increasingly beleaguered Labor government pursued other priorities. The Ngari Capes Marine Park was finally declared in 2012, including 15 sanctuary zones in which fishing will be prohibited. At this time the region was also subject to a marine bioregional planning process being undertaken by the Commonwealth Government. The planning and proclamation of marine parks in the region has generated considerable public debate, with both proponents and opponents increasingly turning to historical records to support claims of degradation and depletion over time on the one hand, or sustained and effective fisheries management for ecosystem health on the other. In this context, there is an obvious need to better understand the history of fish and fishing in the region.
Although the region’s fisheries have been the subject of considerable scientific research over the past four decades, there is still much to learn about the biology and ecology of the region’s marine life. Less still is known of the of the way in which the region’s marine resources have been exploited in the past. Some archaeological and anthropological studies have shed a little scholarly light on the long history of Aboriginal fishing; a few researchers have considered aspects of commercial and recreational fishing in the region as part of broader studies; and research reports have employed fisheries data stretching back to the 1970s in order to evaluate the condition of fish stocks. However, to date no historical study has focused on fishing in the region from Aboriginal times to the 1970s and placed recent trends in the context of this longer history.
This chapter therefore aims to evaluate evidence of change in the region’s fish populations over the long run, and account for it with reference to social contexts, fishing intensity and practices, and change in the regional environment. That is, it endeavours to explore, as far as the evidence will allow, the relationship between fish, fishing and environmental variation in the region. It ultimately suggests that the movements and abundance of fish have varied considerably over time due to biophysical and ecological influences, and claims of depletion have sometimes reflected cultural anxieties rather than environmental change. However, there is also a long history of human interventions in the region’s marine ecosystems. Such interventions, shaped by complex cultural and economic factors, have left short- and longer-term imprints on the region’s ecosystems.
This essay argue that the 'wilderness' that is now the Western Australian Wheatbelt was eaten as the result of a political vision for the region arising from cultural, political and economic sources. This vision motivated a small army of prospective farmers and resourced them to cut, burn, plough and sow the wilderness. In the process, there were misgivings, and now some of the areas less consumed are highly valued. Through technological ingenuity and consolidation of business operations we have been able to keep eating the wilderness. As wheatbelt communities struggle to protect their integrity and sustainability, the food produced by the region is becoming an increasingly critical global resource. But can the current production model be sustained?
At present, in many societies, engineers play a significant role in solving problems of energy, t... more At present, in many societies, engineers play a significant role in solving problems of energy, transport, accommodation and production; but similar problems have been solved through technical and non-technical means for thousands of years. Numerous historical examples therefore exist, in which the ends of different approaches to problem-solving are apparent: some producing socially just and/or ecologically sustainable outcomes, and some less positive. Historians do not simply narrate the past, they explain and interpret changes and continuities by paying attention to larger issues of, for example, class, gender, polity and economy. Such historical narratives, we argue, may have a useful role to play in efforts to shift the perspective of engineering students away from a narrow focus on complex technical solutions, towards the broader context in which their problem-solving will take place. This ability to assess the relationships between engineering problem-solving and the broader social and environmental context is critical to the development of a more sustainable and socially-just engineering practice.
The title of this issue of Studies in Western Australian History echoes that of one of the giants... more The title of this issue of Studies in Western Australian History echoes that of one of the giants of environmental historiography, Alfred Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange, which deals with the interchange of plants, animals and infectious agents between the Old and New worlds after the voyage of Columbus in 1492. However, in framing this collection we were not so much concerned with material exchanges as intellectual ones. In the last collection of essays on Western Australian environmental history, Country: Visions of Land and People in Western Australia, Mathew Trinca and Andrea Gaynor positioned those essays as ‘belonging to a new global story-telling about the nature of human cultures and their impacts upon the Earth’.1 We share a similar hope for the essays collected here, all of which speak to established or emerging themes in the global historical scholarship on place, environment and ecology: how ‘environment’ is negotiated by urban dwellers; the motivations, methods and outcomes of advocacy for environmental protection; how we understand and measure environmental change over time; and how we respond to place and might come to feel ‘at home’ there. They appear at a time when, as J.R. McNeill has noted, the prominence of American environmental history is waning, and environmental history has become a thoroughly global enterprise.2
1 M. Trinca and A. Gaynor, ‘Visions of Land and People in Western Australia’, in A.Gaynor, A. Haebich and M. Trinca (eds), Country: Visions of Land and People in Western Australia, W.A. Museum, Perth, 2002, p.12.
2 J.R. McNeill, ‘The State of the Field of Environmental History’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, vol. 35, 2010, p. 351.
Historical perspectives on the natural environment are useful in determining the kind, extent and... more Historical perspectives on the natural environment are useful in determining the kind, extent and causes of environmental change, and therefore constitute an important resource for policy-makers in the areas of conservation and natural resource management. Such perspectives can often be derived from documentary and photographic sources, though oral histories may yield information not otherwise available. This research project therefore sought to collect local knowledge of change and continuity in the marine and coastal environments of the South-West Capes region through the recording of oral history interviews with fifteen fishers and a dive operator, each with at least 20 years’ experience.
The Cambridge History of Australia offers a comprehensive view of Australian history from its pre... more The Cambridge History of Australia offers a comprehensive view of Australian history from its pre-European origins to the present day. Over two volumes, this major work of reference tells the nation's social, political and cultural story. Volume 1 examines Australia's indigenous and colonial history through to the Federation of the colonies in 1901. Volume 2 opens with the birth of the twentieth century, tracing developments in the nation through to the present day. Each volume is divided into two parts. The first part offers a chronological treatment of the period, while the second examines the period in light of key themes, such as law, religion, the economy and the environment. Both volumes feature detailed maps, chronologies and lists of further reading. This is a lively and systematic account of Australia's history, incorporating the work of more than sixty leading historians. It is the ideal work of reference for students, scholars and general readers.
The paper addresses cultural assumptions about ‘nativeness’ and ‘belonging’ to place as they are ... more The paper addresses cultural assumptions about ‘nativeness’ and ‘belonging’ to place as they are implicated in notions of ‘ecological restoration’. Given the centrality of complex notions of ‘indigeneity’ to the issue of what ecological ‘restoration’ means in Australia, this is a rich area for cultural and historical analysis. Case materials illustrate the negotiated and ambiguous nature of Australian ideas about what ‘belongs’ ecologically and culturally across the broad continent of this relatively young post-Settler nation. We seek to foreground these issues through consideration of what ‘restoring’ nature might mean in the context of debates about native plants, the re-introduction of an iconic species of ground dwelling bird, the removal of cane toads that are demonised as highly ‘alien’, and the multiple ways in which the dingo is regarded ambiguously as both native and a ‘pest’ that needs to be controlled and culled. By showing how ‘restoration’ can be understood and mobilised in a variety of ways – in terms of the ‘re-naturing’, ‘re-valuing’ and/or ‘repatriating’ of indigenous species, as well as impassioned rejection of ‘exotics’ – we emphasise the importance of social science for building a well-grounded sense of how environmental management priorities and approaches are informed by a wider set of cultural assumptions.
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Drawing on sources ranging from gardening books and magazines to statistics and oral history, Harvest of the Suburbs challenges some of the widespread myths about food production in Australian cities, and traces the reasons for its enduring popularity.
It describes changing attitudes and techniques, and explores a range of contemporary ideas relating to work, social organisation, gender roles, health and the body, and nature. In doing so, it provides new insights into the tension between the quest for independence and the desire for interdependence in suburban Australia.
This book is a valuable resource for scholars of environmental urban and cultural management, and essential reading for the modern-day gardener interested in learning from more than one hundred years of keeping poultry, goats and cows, and growing fruit and vegetables, in Australian suburbs.
While the major focus is the three key node cities of the CRCWSC (Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth) the report also provides background information on the histories of other Australian cities and locates the Australian urban experience within international contexts of the ‘settler societies’ of the so-called New World.
The key three cities have differing early histories as well as climate and topographic differences – sub-tropical and hilly Brisbane, temperate and flat Melbourne, and Mediterranean and flat Perth. Despite these differences, residents of each of these cities as with residents of all Australian cities - have from at least since the late nineteenth century demonstrated a clear preference for suburban rather than urban living, and a strong preference for low-density, detached dwellings over higher-density attached ones. They have also demonstrated a willingness to wear the elevated private costs associated with these dwelling and ‘lifestyle’ choices.
In this report we draw on the historical concept of ‘path dependency’ - that is the key constraining roles that decisions made or not made in the past have on contemporary practices and policy options. This central concept leads us to argue that as planners, engineers and policy-makers seek to move us towards a more
water sensitive future, rather than try to impose new morphologies, habits and practices on a likely unwilling Australian public, they should instead actively work with new and existing suburban communities to adapt received ideas about residential and dwelling cultures to these new hydrological constraints.
While the report makes clear that Australians have traditionally been profligate with water, we also demonstrate that they have always shown a remarkable willingness to adapt water habits and usage during times of crisis. Our report proves that whereas in the past planners and governments have traditionally looked to ‘big engineering’ solutions such as newer and ever-larger dams (or more recently desalination plants) in order to deal with issues around water supply and demand, in practice two important but administratively simple and cheap policy changes have had the greatest impact: water pricing and public education campaigns.
The latter has been especially effective during periods of drought. The historical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that once the impacts of drought and wasteful usage of water have been explained, urban Australians have adapted their water use and behaviours to fit the short-term need for restraint. We see no reason why that should not remain the case into the future. We thus recommend that in a climate change-influenced water constrained-future, public education campaigns about the importance of water sensitivity should become a permanent component of public policy.
Although the region’s fisheries have been the subject of considerable scientific research over the past four decades, there is still much to learn about the biology and ecology of the region’s marine life. Less still is known of the of the way in which the region’s marine resources have been exploited in the past. Some archaeological and anthropological studies have shed a little scholarly light on the long history of Aboriginal fishing; a few researchers have considered aspects of commercial and recreational fishing in the region as part of broader studies; and research reports have employed fisheries data stretching back to the 1970s in order to evaluate the condition of fish stocks. However, to date no historical study has focused on fishing in the region from Aboriginal times to the 1970s and placed recent trends in the context of this longer history.
This chapter therefore aims to evaluate evidence of change in the region’s fish populations over the long run, and account for it with reference to social contexts, fishing intensity and practices, and change in the regional environment. That is, it endeavours to explore, as far as the evidence will allow, the relationship between fish, fishing and environmental variation in the region. It ultimately suggests that the movements and abundance of fish have varied considerably over time due to biophysical and ecological influences, and claims of depletion have sometimes reflected cultural anxieties rather than environmental change. However, there is also a long history of human interventions in the region’s marine ecosystems. Such interventions, shaped by complex cultural and economic factors, have left short- and longer-term imprints on the region’s ecosystems.
https://griffithreview.com/articles/eat-wilderness/
This essay argue that the 'wilderness' that is now the Western Australian Wheatbelt was eaten as the result of a political vision for the region arising from cultural, political and economic sources. This vision motivated a small army of prospective farmers and resourced them to cut, burn, plough and sow the wilderness. In the process, there were misgivings, and now some of the areas less consumed are highly valued. Through technological ingenuity and consolidation of business operations we have been able to keep eating the wilderness. As wheatbelt communities struggle to protect their integrity and sustainability, the food produced by the region is becoming an increasingly critical global resource. But can the current production model be sustained?
Historians do not simply narrate the past, they explain and interpret changes and continuities by paying attention to larger issues of, for example, class, gender, polity and economy. Such historical narratives, we argue, may have a useful role to play in efforts to shift the perspective of engineering students away from a narrow focus on complex technical solutions, towards the broader context in which their problem-solving will take place. This ability to assess the relationships between engineering problem-solving and the broader social and environmental context is critical to the development of a more sustainable and socially-just engineering practice.
Drawing on sources ranging from gardening books and magazines to statistics and oral history, Harvest of the Suburbs challenges some of the widespread myths about food production in Australian cities, and traces the reasons for its enduring popularity.
It describes changing attitudes and techniques, and explores a range of contemporary ideas relating to work, social organisation, gender roles, health and the body, and nature. In doing so, it provides new insights into the tension between the quest for independence and the desire for interdependence in suburban Australia.
This book is a valuable resource for scholars of environmental urban and cultural management, and essential reading for the modern-day gardener interested in learning from more than one hundred years of keeping poultry, goats and cows, and growing fruit and vegetables, in Australian suburbs.
While the major focus is the three key node cities of the CRCWSC (Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth) the report also provides background information on the histories of other Australian cities and locates the Australian urban experience within international contexts of the ‘settler societies’ of the so-called New World.
The key three cities have differing early histories as well as climate and topographic differences – sub-tropical and hilly Brisbane, temperate and flat Melbourne, and Mediterranean and flat Perth. Despite these differences, residents of each of these cities as with residents of all Australian cities - have from at least since the late nineteenth century demonstrated a clear preference for suburban rather than urban living, and a strong preference for low-density, detached dwellings over higher-density attached ones. They have also demonstrated a willingness to wear the elevated private costs associated with these dwelling and ‘lifestyle’ choices.
In this report we draw on the historical concept of ‘path dependency’ - that is the key constraining roles that decisions made or not made in the past have on contemporary practices and policy options. This central concept leads us to argue that as planners, engineers and policy-makers seek to move us towards a more
water sensitive future, rather than try to impose new morphologies, habits and practices on a likely unwilling Australian public, they should instead actively work with new and existing suburban communities to adapt received ideas about residential and dwelling cultures to these new hydrological constraints.
While the report makes clear that Australians have traditionally been profligate with water, we also demonstrate that they have always shown a remarkable willingness to adapt water habits and usage during times of crisis. Our report proves that whereas in the past planners and governments have traditionally looked to ‘big engineering’ solutions such as newer and ever-larger dams (or more recently desalination plants) in order to deal with issues around water supply and demand, in practice two important but administratively simple and cheap policy changes have had the greatest impact: water pricing and public education campaigns.
The latter has been especially effective during periods of drought. The historical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that once the impacts of drought and wasteful usage of water have been explained, urban Australians have adapted their water use and behaviours to fit the short-term need for restraint. We see no reason why that should not remain the case into the future. We thus recommend that in a climate change-influenced water constrained-future, public education campaigns about the importance of water sensitivity should become a permanent component of public policy.
Although the region’s fisheries have been the subject of considerable scientific research over the past four decades, there is still much to learn about the biology and ecology of the region’s marine life. Less still is known of the of the way in which the region’s marine resources have been exploited in the past. Some archaeological and anthropological studies have shed a little scholarly light on the long history of Aboriginal fishing; a few researchers have considered aspects of commercial and recreational fishing in the region as part of broader studies; and research reports have employed fisheries data stretching back to the 1970s in order to evaluate the condition of fish stocks. However, to date no historical study has focused on fishing in the region from Aboriginal times to the 1970s and placed recent trends in the context of this longer history.
This chapter therefore aims to evaluate evidence of change in the region’s fish populations over the long run, and account for it with reference to social contexts, fishing intensity and practices, and change in the regional environment. That is, it endeavours to explore, as far as the evidence will allow, the relationship between fish, fishing and environmental variation in the region. It ultimately suggests that the movements and abundance of fish have varied considerably over time due to biophysical and ecological influences, and claims of depletion have sometimes reflected cultural anxieties rather than environmental change. However, there is also a long history of human interventions in the region’s marine ecosystems. Such interventions, shaped by complex cultural and economic factors, have left short- and longer-term imprints on the region’s ecosystems.
https://griffithreview.com/articles/eat-wilderness/
This essay argue that the 'wilderness' that is now the Western Australian Wheatbelt was eaten as the result of a political vision for the region arising from cultural, political and economic sources. This vision motivated a small army of prospective farmers and resourced them to cut, burn, plough and sow the wilderness. In the process, there were misgivings, and now some of the areas less consumed are highly valued. Through technological ingenuity and consolidation of business operations we have been able to keep eating the wilderness. As wheatbelt communities struggle to protect their integrity and sustainability, the food produced by the region is becoming an increasingly critical global resource. But can the current production model be sustained?
Historians do not simply narrate the past, they explain and interpret changes and continuities by paying attention to larger issues of, for example, class, gender, polity and economy. Such historical narratives, we argue, may have a useful role to play in efforts to shift the perspective of engineering students away from a narrow focus on complex technical solutions, towards the broader context in which their problem-solving will take place. This ability to assess the relationships between engineering problem-solving and the broader social and environmental context is critical to the development of a more sustainable and socially-just engineering practice.
1 M. Trinca and A. Gaynor, ‘Visions of Land and People in Western Australia’, in A.Gaynor, A. Haebich and M. Trinca (eds), Country: Visions of Land and People in Western Australia, W.A. Museum, Perth, 2002, p.12.
2 J.R. McNeill, ‘The State of the Field of Environmental History’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, vol. 35, 2010, p. 351.