Take My Breath Away Transformations in the Practices of Relatedness and Intimacy Through Australia’S 2019–2020 Convergent Crises
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Take My Breath Away Transformations in the Practices of Relatedness and Intimacy through Australia’s 2019–2020 Convergent Crises Deane Fergie, Rod Lucas and Morgan Harrington ABSTRACT: This article eschews the singularity of much disaster, crisis and catastrophe research to focus on the complex dynamics of convergent crises. It examines the prolonged crises of a summer of bushfi re and COVID-19 which converged in Eurobodalla Shire on the south coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, in 2019–2020. We focus on air and breathing on the one hand and kinship and the social organisation of survival and recovery on the other. During Australia’s summer of bushfi res, thick smoke rendered air, airways and breathing a challenge, leaving people open to refl ection as well as to struggle. Bushfi re smoke created ‘aware breath- ers’. It was aware breathers who were then to experience the invisible and separating threat of COVID-19. These convergent crises impacted the ‘mutuality of being’ of kinship (a er Mar- shall Sahlins) and the social organisation of survival. Whereas the bushfi res in Eurobodalla drew on grandparent-families in survival, the social distancing and lockdown of COVID-19 has cleaved these multi-household families asunder, at least for now. COVID-19 has also made plain how the mingling of breath is a new index of intimacy. KEYWORDS: breath, bushfi re, convergent crises, disaster, kinship, intimacy, pandemic, social distance Periods of signifi cant societal crisis can bring into fo- tion and emergency studies. We seek to counter the cus and make visible the taken-for-granted assump- singularity which typifi es much of this literature. tions and practices of everyday life. Coronavirus did Conventional studies focus on a particular type of not reach Australia in ordinary times. This novel disruption (for example, earthquakes, cyclones, tech- coronavirus was one of a number of signifi cant crises nological disasters), single out particular instances that converged in Australia over 2019–2020. Here, (such as Hurricane Katrina or the Black Saturday we focus on two: an extended ‘summer’ of bushfi res bushfi res) or drill down on particular facets of impact (June 2019 to March 2020) and COVID-19 (focussing and response (such as the management of a virus in here especially from January up until the end of June aged care facilities). 2020). We ask what happens when crises converge Singular views of disasters and disaster types in time and space. Our ethnographic focus is Euro- have recently been challenged by a ention to ‘trans- bodalla Shire on the New South Wales (NSW) south border crises’ (see Ansell et al. 2010; and Quarantelli coast (Figure 1). et al. 2018) and to ‘disasters without borders’ (Hanni- We introduce ‘convergent crises’ as a key concept gan 2012). Importantly, in recent decades the social for a number of reasons. First, we are convinced that dimensions and political foundations of crises – even the analysis of complexity and change must be cen- those thought of simply as ‘natural’ – have been rec- tral to the fi eld of catastrophe, crisis, disaster, disrup- ognised. A ention has also turned to consider risk Anthropology in Action, 27, no. 2 (Summer 2020): 49–62 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action ISSN 0967-201X (Print) ISSN 1752-2285 (Online) doi:10.3167/aia.2020.270208 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons A ribution Noncommercial No Derivatives 4.0 International license (h ps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). For uses beyond those covered in the license contact Berghahn Books. AiA | Deane Fergie, Rod Lucas and Morgan Harrington Figure 1. Eurobodalla Shire and its context (Spatial Design for LocuSAR). and resilience (see, for example, Koslowski and processes that can play out over months or years, like Longstaff 2015; Tierney 2014; and Wilson 2015). But long-term drought, war or the COVID-19 pandemic. in our view, this is not enough. Always complex, cri- And we do not confi ne convergence to the intersec- ses o en compound and interact with others in time tions of causally related crises. Our usage extends and space. With notable exceptions (particularly the to processes like climate change, which unfold over important work of Duan Biggs and colleagues [2011] a much longer durée spawning a plethora of crises and Michael Moseley [1999]), the systematic study of which converge with complex consequences. Our aim convergent crises remains an important gap in un- is to broaden the purview to intersections of challenge derstanding and application. We therefore ask: how and the twists and turns of crises to ask what hap- can we be er understand what happens to risk, resil- pens when things get really complicated. ience and the social and political dimensions of crisis Here, we present a substantive case study of two when a number of crises converge in time and space? convergent crises from Australia – bushfi res and We choose to use ‘crises’ as an ambit term to in- COVID-19 – with a particular focus on the Eurobo- clude a broad range of signifi cant societal challenges dalla Shire in NSW. Our analysis focusses on two (see Hoff man 2020).1 In the framework we are de- interrelated phenomena thrown into relief by these veloping, the process of ‘convergence’ is a fulcrum convergent crises: breathing and air; and kinship and of a ention, analysis and insight. Our usage is not intimacy. limited to sudden events (like earthquakes or hur- An estimated 78.6 per cent of Australians or 15.4 ricanes or eruptions), nor is it limited to catastrophic million adults were impacted directly or indirectly by 50 | Take My Breath Away | AiA Australian bushfi res in 2019–2020 (Biddle et al. 2020). Thirty-four people died as a direct consequence of In the everyday life of most Australians before these the fi res. Some 445 people are estimated to have widespread wildfi res, air was generally invisible and died as a result of smoke from the 2019–2020 fi re breathing taken-for-granted. During the fi res, ‘par- season. In Eurobodalla, the fi rst fi res began north of ticulate ma er’ from bushfi re smoke was blown vast Batemans Bay in late November 2020. One resident distances. Smoke made ordinarily invisible air vis- wrote: “With heavy smoke blanketing the South ible as it shrouded major cities for days, sometimes Coast for weeks on end, the simple act of breathing for weeks on end. Living with dangerously smoky became a challenge” (Guinery 2020: 7). This smoke air turned many Australians into ‘aware breathers’. was like thick grey smog.4 Aware breathers were primed for COVID-19 restric- On NYE, the Eurobodalla experienced a new kind tions, where the virus hangs in the air but cannot be of smoke as the Currawong and Clyde Mountain fi res seen (Se i et al. 2020). developed their own pyro-cumulonimbus weather The fi res, which surged to the sea on New Year’s systems and surged towards the coast. Around the Eve 2019–2020 (NYE) in the peak Christmas summer swirling fi re fronts, acrid black smoke ‘turned day holiday period, also threw into relief a feature of into night’. One survivor account sets the scene: Australian social organisation that o en goes unre- Like everyone on New Year’s Eve we fl ed our house marked: a key extra-household kindred we term a and headed to the beach. I guess just the fact that ‘grandparent-family’. We trace how, in a cruel twist, my sentence can begin with ‘like everyone, we fl ed the grandparent-families that were central in fi re sur- our house’ refl ects the magnitude of our strange vival have been cleaved and fractured along house- existence where fl eeing in fear was the ‘norm’. As hold lines during the coronavirus pandemic. At the we were leaving, we saw fl ames leaping up in the same time, the new boundaries serve to emphasise air as trees ignited. Those black leaves that had been the importance of household insiders. ‘Staying at falling for days were swirling all around us and we home’ orders have formed a ‘bubble’ of shared air had to dodge branches on fi re that were hurtling within households.2 And inside a household bubble, from the sky. the mingling of breath is now a conspicuous act and [T]he heat was so intense that we were forced to head closer to the water. As we cautiously rounded a marker of intimacy. the bend, we saw an ember hit a tree on Pre y Point and watched, stunned, as it burst into angry fl ames. Things were too dangerous here for us to go any fur- ther forward. Fire was everywhere. Fire and Air Within minutes the whole Point was ablaze and we all prayed it didn’t spread to our li le group and Fresh air fi lls spaces invisibly and largely unnoticed. force us into the freezing water. There was so much Fresh air is forgo en (Dennis 2016) and goes with- going on – the heat, the darkness, the smoke. (Julie out saying. We notice air most when it smells or is Steadman qtd in Guinery 2020: 56–57) stained by something in the air. Australia’s extended bushfi re season in 2019–2020 is now known as our ‘Black Summer’. The reference to summer is misleading. Arguably, this fi re season started in Queensland (Qld) during the Australian winter (as early as June 2019). The last fi res were ex- tinguished in May 2020. Over this extended time, a constellation of bushfi res ignited, burnt, smouldered, spread out of control, and stormed around Austra- lia.3 This continental constellation of combustion was unprecedented in Australian history.