MHIS202 Australian Environmental History D2 2012
Modern History, Politics and International Relations
Contents Disclaimer General Information 2 Macquarie University has taken all reasonable measures to ensure the information in this Learning Outcomes 2 publication is accurate and up-to-date. However, the information may change or become out-dated as a result of change in University policies, Assessment Tasks 3 procedures or rules. The University reserves the right to make changes to any information in this Delivery and Resources 5 publication without notice. Users of this publication are advised to check the website Unit Schedule 6 version of this publication [or the relevant faculty or department] before acting on any information in Policies and Procedures 7 this publication. Graduate Capabilities 8 Tutorial Readings 13 Changes since First Published 36
https://unitguides.mq.edu.au/unit_offerings/2525/unit_guide/print 1 Unit guide MHIS202 Australian Environmental History
General Information
Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit Convenor Alison Holland [email protected] Contact via [email protected] W6A 417 TBA
Credit points 3
Prerequisites 12cp or (3cp in HIST or MHIS or POL units)
Corequisites
Co-badged status
Unit description Australian environmental history explores the multifaceted history of human interaction with the diverse natural environment of Australia from per-contact to now. Changing environmental patterns from Gondwanaland to climate change will be included, as will questions like the degree of Indigenous impact pre-contact to contemporary questions of sustainability. The approach will be thematic. Topics will include ‘discovery’ and settlement of the land and the emotional and practical responses to it, exploration and mapping, ideas about the interior and outback, the discovery of native flora and fauna, the ‘bush’, population debates, water, urban development and the rise of conservation, environmental and land rights movements. The unit will consider the connection between science, society and environment through an historical lens. While the methodology will be social history, it will draw on insights from a range of other disciplines including geography, politics, sociology, cultural studies and art.
Important Academic Dates Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://students.mq.edu.au/important-dates Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now.
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Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. Development of research techniques. Engage effectively in group work with peers. Participate actively in group discussions. Assessment Tasks
Name Weighting Due
Tutorial Participation 20% Assessed across semester
Take-Home Exam 20% 16th November
Tutorial Essay 20% The week following discussion
Research Essay 40% Friday, 19th October
Tutorial Participation Due: Assessed across semester Weighting: 20%
Quality of class participation. This is an important part of assessment because it assesses your abilities in communication, peer review and collaboration, listening, organisation and comprehension. Working in a group or singly you will be required to choose one tutorial topic from the list of 12 provided to introduce to the class. This will not be a formal presentation. Rather, you will need to think of a creative way into the topic. You can do this in any number of ways. Perhaps you'd like to organise a class debate or small group discussion. Perhaps you'd like to bring in a document or object, a painting or film clip as stimulus. Your task will be to highlight the key issues and questions for your chosen week. In addition, everyone is required to do the essential readings each week.
Criteria for assessment are:
• Preparation (reading, research, planning and development of idea) • Organisation (clear aims/objectives, clear guidelines/instructions) • Creativity/originality • Responsiveness (how well did you engage your classmates?)
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On successful completion you will be able to: • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques. • Engage effectively in group work with peers. • Participate actively in group discussions.
Take-Home Exam Due: 16th November Weighting: 20%
A 1000 word response to a question. Submit via Turnitin in iLearn unit.
On successful completion you will be able to: • Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence.
Tutorial Essay Due: The week following discussion Weighting: 20%
A short written paper on a tutorial topic. Submit via Turnitin in iLearn unit.
On successful completion you will be able to: • Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques.
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Research Essay Due: Friday, 19th October Weighting: 40%
An indepth research essay on chosen topic using primary/ secondary sources. This will be accompanied by a bibliography which is worth 10% of the overall mark.
I have provided a select bibliography to get you started. Your task is to augment the bibliography with an extra 5 items (at least), in addition to writing the essay.
Submit via Turnitin in iLearn unit.
On successful completion you will be able to: • Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques. Delivery and Resources Submission and Return of Assignments All assignments in this unit will be submitted, marked and returned electronically. There will be no hard copies. For details, please refer to your iLearn unit. Required and Recommended Texts The required reading for this unit is the UNIT READER which can be purchased from the CourseNotes outlet, near the University Co-Op bookshop. This contains the essential readings for each week's tutorial topic which are compulsory weekly reading.
Recommended Texts
There is now a vast and growing literature applicable to Australian Environmental History. Below is a list of some key texts which are highly recommended but not compulsory reading.
• Geoffrey Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers: A History of Australians Shaping Their Environment, Allen & Unwin, 1992. • Tim Bonyhady, The Colonial Earth, Melbourne University Press, 2000. • Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism. The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900,
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Cambridge University Press, 2004. • Stephen Dovers, Australian Environmental History, Essays and Cases, Oxford University Press, 1994. • Donald Garden, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific. An Environmental History, ABC-CLIO, 2005. • Tom Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors. The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 1996. • Drew Hutton and Libby Connors, A History of the Australian Environmental Movement, Cambridge University Press, 1999. • William Lines, Taming the Great South Land. A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia, Allen & Unwin, 1992. • Stephen Pyne, Burning Bush. A Fire History of Australia, Holt, US, 1991. • Libby Robin and Tom Griffiths (eds), Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, Melbourne University Press, 1999. • Tim Sherratt et al, (eds), A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, National Museum of Australia, 2005. • Richard Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia, Curtin University Press, 2005. Unit Schedule * Guest Lecturer
Academic Calendar LECTURES TUTORIALS
Week 1 1. Introductory Lecture 1. I NTRODUCTION
2. Gondwanan Landscape: Nature of Australia DVD
Week 2 3. Aboriginal Environmental Impacts 2.What is Environmental History?
4. British Environmental Preconceptions
Week 3 5. Exploration 3. Acclimatisation
6. Land and Settlement
Week 4 7. Pastoralism * Dr Julia Miller 4. Climate and Character
8. Water/Irrigation *Dr Julia Miller
Week 5 9. The Nature Study Idea *Dorothy Kass 5. Pastoralism
10. Heidelberg Painters
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Week 6 11. The Empty North 6. Towards Conservation
12. The Rise of the City
Week 7 13. Soldier Settlement 7. Australia Unlimited?
14. Researching Your Essay * Arts Liaison Librarian, Emma Lawlor
BREAK BREAK BREAK
Week 8 15. Centre and Outback 8. Fire
16. Suburbanisation
Week 9 17. Australia As Quarry 9. Suburbia
18. Aboriginal Land Rights
Week 10 19. Modern Environmental Movement 10. Little Desert Campaign
20. LECTURE FREE (research essay due)
Week 11 21. Green Bans (Film) 11. Minerals and Resources
22. Fighting for Wilderness
Week 12 22. Climate Change *Dr Julia Miller 12. Wilderness
24. Green Politics* Professor Geoff Hawker
Week 13 25. Decolonising Land* Professor Deborah Bird Rose 13. Green Politics
26. SUMMING UP
Policies and Procedures Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central. Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:
Academic Honesty Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html
Assessment Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy.html
Grade Appeal Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html
Special Consideration Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/special_consideration/policy.html
In addition, a number of other policies can be found in the Learning and Teaching Category of Policy Central. Student Support Macquarie University provides a range of Academic Student Support Services. Details of these services can be accessed at: http://students.mq.edu.au/support/.
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UniWISE provides:
• Online learning resources and academic skills workshops http://www.mq.edu.au/learnin g_skills/ • Personal assistance with your learning & study related questions. • The Learning Help Desk is located in the Library foyer (level 2). • Online and on-campus orientation events run by Mentors@Macquarie.
Student Enquiry Service Details of these services can be accessed at http://www.student.mq.edu.au/ses/. Equity Support Students with a disability are encouraged to contact the Disability Support Unit who can provide appropriate help with any issues that arise during their studies. IT Help If you wish to receive IT help, we would be glad to assist you at http://informatics.mq.edu.au/hel p/.
When using the university's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students and it outlines what can be done. Graduate Capabilities Discipline Specific Knowledge and Skills Our graduates will take with them the intellectual development, depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content in their chosen fields to make them competent and confident in their subject or profession. They will be able to demonstrate, where relevant, professional technical competence and meet professional standards. They will be able to articulate the structure of knowledge of their discipline, be able to adapt discipline-specific knowledge to novel situations, and be able to contribute from their discipline to inter-disciplinary solutions to problems.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history.
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• Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques. Assessment tasks
• Take-Home Exam • Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking We want our graduates to be capable of reasoning, questioning and analysing, and to integrate and synthesise learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments; to be able to critique constraints, assumptions and limitations; to be able to think independently and systemically in relation to scholarly activity, in the workplace, and in the world. We want them to have a level of scientific and information technology literacy.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques. • Engage effectively in group work with peers. • Participate actively in group discussions. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Participation • Take-Home Exam • Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
Problem Solving and Research Capability Our graduates should be capable of researching; of analysing, and interpreting and assessing data and information in various forms; of drawing connections across fields of knowledge; and they should be able to relate their knowledge to complex situations at work or in the world, in order to diagnose and solve problems. We want them to have the confidence to take the initiative
https://unitguides.mq.edu.au/unit_offerings/2525/unit_guide/print 9 Unit guide MHIS202 Australian Environmental History in doing so, within an awareness of their own limitations.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Participation • Take-Home Exam • Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
Creative and Innovative Our graduates will also be capable of creative thinking and of creating knowledge. They will be imaginative and open to experience and capable of innovation at work and in the community. We want them to be engaged in applying their critical, creative thinking.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Development of research techniques. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Participation • Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
Effective Communication We want to develop in our students the ability to communicate and convey their views in forms
https://unitguides.mq.edu.au/unit_offerings/2525/unit_guide/print 10 Unit guide MHIS202 Australian Environmental History effective with different audiences. We want our graduates to take with them the capability to read, listen, question, gather and evaluate information resources in a variety of formats, assess, write clearly, speak effectively, and to use visual communication and communication technologies as appropriate.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Critical reflection including the presentation of argument and debate and evaluation of primary evidence. • Engage effectively in group work with peers. • Participate actively in group discussions. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Participation • Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
Engaged and Ethical Local and Global citizens As local citizens our graduates will be aware of indigenous perspectives and of the nation's historical context. They will be engaged with the challenges of contemporary society and with knowledge and ideas. We want our graduates to have respect for diversity, to be open-minded, sensitive to others and inclusive, and to be open to other cultures and perspectives: they should have a level of cultural literacy. Our graduates should be aware of disadvantage and social justice, and be willing to participate to help create a wiser and better society.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Engage effectively in group work with peers. • Participate actively in group discussions. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Participation • Take-Home Exam • Tutorial Essay
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• Research Essay
Socially and Environmentally Active and Responsible We want our graduates to be aware of and have respect for self and others; to be able to work with others as a leader and a team player; to have a sense of connectedness with others and country; and to have a sense of mutual obligation. Our graduates should be informed and active participants in moving society towards sustainability.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. • Engage effectively in group work with peers. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Participation • Take-Home Exam • Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
Capable of Professional and Personal Judgement and Initiative We want our graduates to have emotional intelligence and sound interpersonal skills and to demonstrate discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgement. They will exercise initiative as needed. They will be capable of risk assessment, and be able to handle ambiguity and complexity, enabling them to be adaptable in diverse and changing environments.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Engage effectively in group work with peers. Assessment tasks
• Tutorial Essay • Research Essay
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Commitment to Continuous Learning Our graduates will have enquiring minds and a literate curiosity which will lead them to pursue knowledge for its own sake. They will continue to pursue learning in their careers and as they participate in the world. They will be capable of reflecting on their experiences and relationships with others and the environment, learning from them, and growing - personally, professionally and socially.
This graduate capability is supported by: Learning outcomes
• Understand the history of the interaction between humans and the Australian environment from pre-colonisation to now. • Reflect on patterns of change and continuity in that history. • Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of contemporary debates concerning the Australian environment. • Critical reflection on aspects of Australian environmental history. Tutorial Readings WEEK 1 (30 July – 3 August) Introductory (Compulsory)
This will be an introductory tutorial where we meet each other and discuss the general requirements of the unit. It is also the time you should ask any questions that you might have about any aspect of the unit.
PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU BUY THE UNIT READER IN THE FIRST WEEK.
Week 2 (6 -10 August) What is Environmental History?
Environmental history emerged in the Academy in the 1970s and 1980s as a conscious sub- discipline of history. Its institutional influences include historical geography, ecology and the geographic inspiration of the French Annales school of history (especially Braudel). In Australia the thrust toward environmental history was influenced by the postwar discovery of Australian antiquity, the rise of ‘green’ politics and environmentalism and the growth of environmental history in America. In this tutorial we explore the origins and antecedents of environmental history and think about any distinguishing features of the genre in the Australian context.
Essential Reading:
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Richard H Grove, ‘Environmental History’, Peter Burke (ed), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001: 261-282.
Libby Robin, ‘Environmental History in Australasia’, Environment and History, 10, 2004: 439-74.
Recommended Reading:
Geoffrey Blainey, ‘Australia: A Bird’s-Eye View’, Daedalus, vol.114, no.1. Australia Terra Incognita?, Winter, 1995, 1-27.
Stephen Dovers, ‘Australian environmental history: introduction, review and principles’, in Stephen Dovers (ed), Australian Environmental History. Essays and Cases, Oxford University Press, 1994, 2-19.
Stephen Dovers, ‘Sustainability and Pragmatic Environmental History: A Note From Australia’, Environmental History Review, vol.18, no.3, Autumn, 1994: 21-36.
Don Garden, ‘The Wide Brown Land’, in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. And Environmental History, Abc-Clio, 2005, 1-26.
Tom Griffiths, ‘The Nature of Culture and the Culture of Nature’, in Hus-Ming Teo and Richard White (eds), Cultural History in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, 2003: 67-80.
Tom Griffiths, ‘Epilogue’ in Griffiths, Forests of Ash. An Environmental history Cambridge University Press, 2001, 183-195.
Tom Griffiths, ‘Discovering Hancock. The Journey to Monaro’, Journal of Australian Studies, no.62, 1999, 171-81.
JD Hughes, What Is Environmental History?, Polity Press, 2006.
Gillian Martin, ‘Harmony and Discord: The Relationship between Australian Societies and their Environment’, Journal of Historical Geography, 14, 4 (1988): 420-424.
E Pawson and
S Dovers, ‘Environmental History and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity: An Antipodean Perspective”, Environment and History 9 (2003):53-76.
John Rickard, ‘The Environment’, Australia. A Cultural History, Longman, 1989, 430-73.
Libby Robin and
Mike Smith, ‘Australian Environmental History: Ten Years On’, Environment and History, 14, 2008: 135-143.
Graeme Wynn, ‘Settler Societies in Geographical Focus’, Australian Historical Studies, 20
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1983:353-366.
Focus Questions:
1. How did environmental history develop in the Academy?
2. What are the influences?
3. What, if any, is the difference between the way scientists and humanities scholars use the term ‘environmental history’?
4. What does the study of the environment from the vantage point of history bring to appreciation of the environment?
5. Does Australian environmental history have particular constraints, urgencies or questions it must address? Is it driven by particular constraints?
Tutorial Essay Question:
According to Tom Griffiths, one way of defining environmental history is as an expanding circle of empathy and ethics which goes beyond the human to embrace all life (Epilogue in his Forests of Ash, p.191). To what extent is this true of Australian environmental history?
Week 3 (13 - 17 August) Acclimatization
Acclimatization is the process by which an organism adapts to its surroundings. By the mid to late nineteenth century in Australia, acclimatization societies had sprung up in most of the Australian colonies. Many were responsible for the introduction of plants and animals ‘familiar’ to the English settlers but unfamiliar in the Australian environment including monkeys, rabbits, cane toads, deer, salmon, carp and the list goes on. In this tutorial we consider how and why acclimatization developed in Australia and what it tells us about the environmental sensibilities of the colonial settlers.
Essential Reading:
Tim Low, ‘To Our Hearts Content’, The Mad Dreams of the Acclimatisers’, Feral Future: The Untold Story of Australia’s Exotic Invaders, Viking, 1999: 30-38.
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TR Dunlap, ‘Remaking the Land: The Acclimatization Movement and Anglo Ideas of Nature’, Journal of World History, vol.8, no.2, 1997:303-319.
Recommended Reading:
James Boyce, ‘Canine Revolution: The Social and Environmental Imact of the Introduction of the Dog to Tasmania’, Environmental History, 11, January, 2006: 102-129
Jodi Frawley, ‘Prickly Pear Land. Transnational Networks in Settler Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, vol.38, 2007: 3232-338
Ian Tyrrell, ‘Acclimatization and Environmental Renovation: Australian Perspectives on George Perkins March’, Environment and History, 10, 2004: 153-67.
G Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers, Australians Make TheirEnvironment 1788-1980, George Allen & Unwin,Sydney, 1981, ch. 4.
P Brandon, 'Wealdon Nature and the role of London in thenineteenth century artistic imagination', Journal ofHistorical Geography, 10, 1984, pp. 53-74.
Alfred Grosby, Ecological Imperialism: the biological expansion of
Europe 900-1900, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1986.
R Grove Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, TropicalIsland Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.
G. Seddon and
M. Davis (eds), Man And Landscape: Towards an Ecological
Vision,Australian Government Publishing Service,Canberra, 1976.
WJ Lines, Taming the Great South Land, Allen & Unwin,Sydney, 1991
Tim Low, Feral Future: The Untold Story of Australia's ExoticInvaders, Viking, Melbourne, 1999, ch. 5.
Powell, J.M, Environmental Management in Australia, OxfordUniversity Press, Melb.1976, Part 3.
Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific, YaleUniversity Press, New Haven, 1988, chs 1 and 6.
Watson, E. et.al, Pest Animals in Australia, Sydney, 1992.
Ann Young, Environmental Change in Australia since 1788,Oxford University Press, Sydney 1991.
Document:
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Edward Wilson, 'On the introduction of the British Songbird', Transactions,
1857, pp.77-88.
Focus Questions:
1. Identify some of the species introduced to Australia. Which have survived,
which have not and how did indigenous species respond to their arrival?
2. What circumstances led to the ‘environmental colonization’ of Australia?
3. Were the acclimatisers spoilers or improvers?
4. Is the landscape itself an ideological construct? Why and in what way did
perceptions of the bush change through the nineteenth century?
Tutorial Question:
What does the nineteenth century acclimatisation movement tell us about the relationship between the European settlers and the Australian environment?
Week 4 (20 - 24 August) Climate and Character
While initially seeing the Australian environment as something entirely alien and new, the British began to see the climate itself as something of a boon. Indeed, in England Australia’s sunny clime was used to promote emigration, with messages of good health and, even, a more fit and robust Anglo-Saxon race. However, climate could also be a problem when it came to settlement and development of the north. Either way, climate has played a strong role in conceptualisations of Australian character. In this tutorial we consider the various theories about climate and the way the discourses of science, medicine and race became imbricated in this process.
Essential Reading:
Warwick Anderson, ‘Antipodean Britons’, The Cultivation of Whiteness. Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2002, pp.11-40.
David Walker, ‘Climate, Civilisation and Character in Australia, 1880-1940’, Australian
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Cultural History, no.16, 1997/98, 77-95.
Recommended Reading:
Warwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness. Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2002.
Warwick Anderson, ‘Race, Geography and Nation: re-mapping tropical Australia, 1890-1920’, Historical Records of Australian Science 11, 1997, pp.457-68.
Carol Bacchi, ‘The nature-nurture debate in Australia, 1900-1914’, Historical Studies, 19, 1980, pp.199-212.
Alison Bashford, Imperial Hygiene: a Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health, Palgrave, London, 2004.
Alison Bashford, “ ‘Is White Australia Possible?’ Colonialism, Race and Tropical Medicine”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 23, 2000, pp.112-135.
Geoffrey Blainey, ‘Climate and Australia’s History’, Melbourne Historical Journal, 10, 1971, pp.5-9.
Nancy J. Christie, ‘Environment and race: geography’s search for a Darwinian synthesis’, in Roy MacLeod and Philip Rehbock (eds), Darwin’s Laboratory: Evolutionary Theory and Natural history in the Pacific, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1994, pp.426-73.
GA Edwards, ‘Sunstroke and Insanity in nineteenth century Australia’, Harold Attwood and Geoffrey Kenny (eds), Reflections on Medical History and Health in Australia, Melbourne History Unit, University of Melbourne, 1987, pp.35-42.
Douglas Gordon, Man Dogs and Englishmen Went Out in the Queensland Sun: Health Aspects of the Settlement of Tropical Queensland, Amphion Press, 1990.
Tom Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors. The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Nikki Henningham, ‘Hat’s Off, Gentlemen, to Our Australian Mothers!, Representations of White Femininity in North Queensland in the Early Twentieth Century’, Australian Historical Studies, no.117, October, 2001, pp.311-321.
David Livingstone, ‘Climate’s moral economy: science, race and place in post-Darwinian British and American geography’, Anne Godlewska and Neil Smith,(eds), Geography and Empire, Blackwell, 1994, pp.132-54.
Roy MacLeod and
Milton Lewis (eds), Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion, Routledge, London, 1988.
Tim Sherratt et al (eds), A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, National
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Museum of Australia Press, 2005.
Richard White, Inventing Australia. Images and Identity, 1688-1980, Allen & Unwin, 1996.
David Walker, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939, University of Qld Press, 1999.
Helen Woolcock, ‘Our Salubrious Climate’: attitudes to health in colonial Queensland’, in Roy MacLeod and Milton Lewis (eds), Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion, Routledge, London, 1988, pp.176-93.
Focus Questions:
1. How was the Australian climate viewed by transplanted British men and women?
2. What was the role of medicine in the process of British expansion and settlement?
3.
4. What was the ‘intimate connections of race, environment and well-being’ which Anderson refers to?
Tutorial Essay Question:
How did the Australian climate shape conceptualisations of Australian character in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
Week 5 (27 - 31 August ) Pastoralism
The Australian land was transformed by pastoralism, the dominant industry underpinning Australia’s wealth well into the twentieth century. It also underpinned the dominant notion of ‘Australianness’ until very recent times. In this tutorial we think about the historical antecedents of pastoralism. We consider how it developed, its social, cultural and political meaning and its environmental impact.
Essential Reading:
Richard Waterhouse“Agrarian Ideals and Pastoral Realities: the Use and Misuse of Land in Rural Australia”, Martin Crotty, Great Mistakes of Australian History, UNSW Press, 2006. NOT IN
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READER. IN E-RESERVE
John Weaver, “Beyond the Fatal Shore: Pastoral Squatting and the Occupation of Australia, 1826-1852”, The American Historical Review, vol.101, no.4, October, 1996, pp.981-1007.
Recommended Reading:
Geoffrey Bolton, ‘The Pastoral Impact’, in Spoils and Spoilers, Allen & Unwin, 1992, 81-96.
Karl Butzer and
David Helgren, ‘Livestock, Land Cover and Environmental History: The Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, 1820-1920’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol.95, no.1, March 2005, pp.80-111.
Warwick Frost, ‘Did They Really Hate Tress? Attitudes of Farmers, Tourists and Naturalists towards Nature in the Rainforests of Eastern Australia’, Environment and History 8, 2002, pp.3-19.
D Garden, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific: An Environmental History. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
Tom Griffiths, “100 Years of Environmental Crisis’, Rangelands Journal, 23, 1, 2001, pp.5-14.
WK Hancock, Discovering Monaro
Rodney Harrison, Shared Landscapes. Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, UNSW Press, 2004, Esp. Chapters 1 and 2.
John Hirst, ‘The Pioneer Legend’, Australian Historical Studies, vol.18, no.71, 1978, pp.316-37.
Mark Letnic, ‘Dispossession, degradation and extinction: environmental history in arid Australia, Biodiversity and Conservation, 9, 2000: 295-308.
William Lines, ‘Dark Deeds in a Sunny Land’, in Taming The Great South Land, The University of Georgia Press, 1999, pp.89-126.
Michael Quinn, “Committed to Conserve: the Western Lands Act 1901 and the Management of the Public Estate of the Western Division of NSW:, Australian Geographical Studies, 35, 2, 1997, pp.183-194.
ME Robinson, ‘The Robertson Land Acts in NSW, 1861-84, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, no.61, March, 1974, pp.17-33.
Eric Rolls, A Million Wild Acres: 200 Years of Man and An Australian Forest, Nelson, 1981.
https://unitguides.mq.edu.au/unit_offerings/2525/unit_guide/print 20 Unit guide MHIS202 Australian Environmental History
Focus Questions:
1. What was the environmental ethic driving pastoralism in the nineteenth century?
2. Do settler societies like America and Australia share common features in terms of land settlement and distribution? If so, what? If not, why not?
3. What, if any, were the environmental constraints on pastoralism in Australia?
4. To what extent were nineteenth century pastoralists, settlers and farmers environmental vandals?
Tutorial Essay Question:
Australia’s pastoral industry was built on greed and individualism without any long-term environmental considerations. Discuss.
Week 6 (3 - 7 September) Towards Conservation
Conservation of the environment began to emerge in the Australian colonies after the Gold Rushes of the 1850s. In this tutorial we consider how and why this came and what it can tell us about states of colonial environmental knowledge. We also consider what a late nineteenth century notion of conservation actually amounted to and how it manifested itself in the Australian colonies.
Essential Reading:
Geoffrey Bolton, ‘Towards Conservation’ in Spoils and Spoilers. A History of Australians Shaping the Environment, Allen & Unwin, 1992, 97-108.
D Hutton and
C Connors, ‘Sane Citizens and Sanitarians’, A History of the Australian Environmental Movement, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1999: 61-88.
Recommended Reading:
Don Garden, ‘The Tragic Ring-Barked Forests”, Australia 1788-1900”, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. An Environmental History, ABC Clio, England, 2005:63-98
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Alan Gilpin, Environment Policy in Australia, University of Queensland Press, 1980.
Tom Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1996, Part 3, pp.195-277.
JG Mosley, ‘Towards a History of Conservation in Australia’, Amos Rapaport (ed), Australia as Human Setting, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1972: 136-56.
R Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967.
JM Powell, Environmental Management in Australia, 1788-1914, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1976: 53-81, 113-115.
Libby Robin, ‘Nature Conservation as a National Concern: The Role of the Australian Academy of Science’, Historical Records of Australian Science, 10 (1), June, 1994: 1-24.
John Shultis, ‘Improving the Wilderness: Common Factors in Creating National Parks and Equivalent Reserves in the Nineteenth Century’, Forest and Conservation History, vol.39, no.3, July, 1995: 121-129.
Robin Walker, “Fauna and Flora Protection in New South Wales, 1866-1948”, Journal of Australian Studies 15: 28, 1991: 17-28.
Derek Whitelock, Conquest to Conservation: History of the Human Impact on the South Australian Environment, Hakefield Press, 1985.
Brett Stubbs, ‘Land Improvement or Institutional Destruction? The Ringbark Controversy, 1879-1884 and the Emergence of a Conservation Ethic”, Environment and History 4, 1998: 145-167
Focus Questions:
1. What were the factors that gave rise to conservation? To what extent was it a reaction to notions of improvement?
2. How do we explain the rise of the field naturalist movement in Australia?
3. Why was the movement stronger in Victoria than elsewhere?
4. Bolton argues that the movement was ‘paradoxical’. In what sense was this so?
5. Was the field naturalist movement the precursor of ‘modern’ environmental values?
Tutorial Essay Question:
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How do we explain the movement toward conservation in Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century? Is ‘protection’ a more appropriate term for these developments than ‘conservation’?
Week 7 (10 - 14 September) Australia Unlimited
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia's estimated resident population in 2007 of 21 million people is projected to increase to between 30.9 and 42.5 million people by 2056, and to between 33.7 and 62.2 million people by 2101. In 2011 the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard was the first Australian prime minister to talk about needing a more sustainable population policy something, she argued, Australia has never had. In this tutorial we consider the complex politics and debates over population in Australia, comparing these at the beginning of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to identify the dynamics and issues behind the rhetoric.
Essential Reading:
Warwick Frost, ‘Australia Unlimited? Environmental Debate in the Age of Catastrophe, 1910-1939’, Environment and History, 10:3, 2004, 285-303.
Tim Flannery, ‘Unbounded Optimism’, The Future Eaters. An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and its People, Reed Books, Sydney, 1994, 357-375 AND Flannery, ‘Australia: Overpopulated or Last Frontier’?, Politics of the Life Sciences, vol.16, no.2, 1997, pp.198-199.
Plus
Julianne Schultz, ‘Confusion with Numbers. Striving for Balance in Population Growth’, Griffith Review, 29, 2010.
David Ritter, ‘Population Debate Clouds Out the Real Issues’, http://www.abc.net.au/unl eashed/36640.html
Web Resource: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/populationpuzzle/ (Dick Smith’s Documentary)
Recommended Reading:
G Aplin et al, Global Environmental Crisis: An Australian Perspective, Oxford University Press, 1995.
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NF Barr & JW Cary, Greening a Brown Land: The Australian Search for Sustainable Land Use, Macmillan, 1992.
Alison Bashford, ‘World Population and Australian Land: demography and sovereignty in the twentieth century’, Australian Historical Studies, 38, 2007, pp.211-27.
S Beder, The Nature of Sustainable Development, Scribe Publications, 1993.
B Beele & P Fay, The Vanishing Continent: Australia’s Degraded Environment, Hodder and Stoughton, Sydney, 1990.
R Birrell et al (eds), Populate and Perish, Fontana, Melbourne, 1984.
HR Clarke, ‘Immigration Growth and the Environment: Australian Studies’ in Clarke et al, Immigration, Population Growth and the Environments, AGPS, Canberra, 1990.
D Cocks, People Policy: Australia’s Population Choices, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1996.
P Curson, ‘Population and environment in Australia – Facing the Next Century, Australian Biologist, vol.4, no.2, 1991, 36-52.
W da Silva, ‘Long dry spells, outlook gloomy’, New Scientist, vol.12, October, 1996, 9.
JM Powell, Griffith Taylor and ‘Australia Unlimited’, UQP, 1993.
P Newman (ed), Australai’s Population Carrying Capacity: An Analysis of Eight Natural Resources, Murdock University, 1994.
HA Nix, ‘The Environmental Base’, International Agriculture (Special Issue of Agricultural Science) 1990, 22-27.
PC Sharma, ‘The Resource Base’, in WH Richmond and PC Sharma (eds), Mining and Australia, UQP, 1983.
David Smith, Saving a Continent, UNSW Press, 1992, Chapter 8.
David Walker, ‘Lilies and Dragons’, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939, UQP, 1999, 127-140.
C Young, Population Policies in Developed Countries: How do Australia’s Policies Compare?’, Journal of the Australian Population Association, vol.6, no.1, 1989, 38-56.
Focus Questions:
1. Why did white Australians feel so urgent a need to populate the ‘empty North’?
2. What impact was the environment thought to have on the white Australian’s physical and psychological development?
3. What pressures does a large population pose of the Australian environment? Why do estimates of a sustainable population differ so dramatically?
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Tutorial Essay Question:
Compare and contrast the debate over Australia’s population size in the early and late twentieth centuries?
Week 8 (1 – 5 October) Fire
Australia is understood as a land of drought and flooding rains. But it is also a land of wind, dust and fire. The way Australians have dealt with fire tells us much about human responses and interactions with nature and vice versa. In this tutorial we get to interact with history via the Black Friday website. Black Friday relates to the fires which engulfed the Australian Alps in the forests of Victoria in January 1939. They were the most terrifying fires since the European occupation of Australia and they shocked Australian society to its core. More fires raged through these forests in 2002-3 and, of course, more recently again, on Black Saturday, February 2009. In this tutorial we think about the interaction between nature, culture and history in these cataclysmic events.
Essential Reading:
Tom Griffiths, ‘Black Friday’, in Forests of Ash. An Environmental History, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp.129-149.
The other main resource for this tutorial is the Black Friday website: http://www.abc.net.au/blackf riday/home/default.htm.
You might also like to compare it to the ABC coverage of the 2009 bushfires at http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/
See also the Centre for Environmental History at ANU’s site called The Victorian Bushfire Research Project at http://www.ceh.environmentalhistory-au-nz.org/research/steels-creek and an interview between Tom Griffiths and Michael Cathcart about the Victorian fires of 2009 at http://ceh.environmentalhistory-au-nz.org/files/2009_cathcart_griffiths_black-saturday.mp3.
Recommended Reading:
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DS Bowman, Australian Rainforests: Islands of Green in a Land of Fire, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Tom Griffiths, Forests of Ash. An Environmental history, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Tom Griffiths, ‘An Unnatural Disaster’? Remembering and Forgetting Bushfire”, History Australia, vol.6, 2, November, pp.35.1-35.7
David Horton, The Pure State of Nature, Sacred Cows, Destructive Myths and the Environment, Allen and Unwin, 2000.
Stephen Pyne, Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1992.
Stephen Pyne, The Still-Burning Bush, Scribe Short Books, 2006.
Mary White, The Greening of Gondwana, Reed Books, 1986.
Focus Questions:
1. What happened on Black Friday?
2. What are the competing interpretations of the fire between bush folk and urban dwellers?
3. What did Tom Griffiths mean when he said that he wasn’t sure if Black Friday was natural or cultural?
4. What is the relationship between nature and human beings in times of natural catastrophe?
5. What was the aftermath of the fire?
6. What is the role of history in such moments?
Tutorial Essay Question:
Acccording to Tom Griffiths Black Friday was a moment when settlers had to confront and reform their whole relationship with nature. What did they confront and what did they reform?
Week 9 (8 - 12 October) Suburbia
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Despite romantic depictions of Australia’s outback and bush, we are one of the most urbanised societies in the world. Cities have played an important role in who we are as a nation and people. It is therefore to the profound Australian belief in the ‘Great Australia Dream’ that we must focus if we are to understand Australia’s urban past. In this tutorial we consider the rise of suburbia and consider some of the social and cultural impacts of suburban space.
Essential Reading:
Jennifer Craig, ‘Verandahs and Frangipani: Women in the Colonial House’, in Gail Reekie(ed), On the Edge: Women’s Experience of Queensland, University of Queensland Press, 1993, pp.145-167.
Ian Hoskins, ‘Constructing Time and Space in the Garden Suburb’ in Sarah Ferber, et al (eds), Beasts of Suburbia: Reinterpreting Cultures in Australian Suburbs, Melbourne, 1994, pp.1-18.
Recommended Reading:
Paul Ashton, The Accidental City: Planning Sydney Since 1788, Sydney, 1993.
Geoffrey Bolton, Daphne Street, Perth, 1997.
Robyn Boyd, Australia’s Home, Sydney 1968.
Raymond Brunker, ‘A Reappraisal of Australian Suburbia’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol.13, no.25, 1989, pp.73-84.
Lionel Frost and
Tony Dingle, ‘Sustaining Suburbia: An Historical Perspective on Australia’s Urban Growth’, Patrick Troy (ed), Australian Cities. Issues, Strategies and Policies for Urban Australia in the 1990s, Cambridge Uni Press, 1995, pp.20-38.
Robyn Boyd, ‘Pioneers and Arboraphobes’ in The Australian Ugliness, Text Publishing, Australia, 2010 (50th Edition), pp.93-123.
Graeme Davison, “Australia. The First Suburban Nation?”, Journal of Urban History, November, 1995, pp.40-71.
Graeme Davison, ‘Driving to Austerica: The Americanization of the Postwar Australian City’, in Harold Bolitho and C Wallace-Crabbe (eds), Approaching Australia, Harvard University Press, 1998, pp.159-183.
Graeme Davison, ’The Great Australian Sprawl’, Historic Environment, vol.13, no.1, 1997, pp.10-17.
Graeme Davison et al (eds), The Cream Brick Frontier. Histories of Australian Suburbia,
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Monash Publications in History, no.19, 1995.
Tony Dingle, ‘Electrifying the kitchen in inter-war Victoria’ Journal of Australian Studies, vol.22, no.57, 1998, pp.119-127
R Evans and
K Saunders (eds), ‘No Place Like Home: the Evolution of the Australian Housewife’ Gender Relations in Australia, pp.175-196.
Janet McCalman, Struggletown: Public and Private Life in Richmond, 1900-1965, Melbourne, 1984.
Clem Macintyre, ‘Now You’re In The Family Zone: Housing and Domestic Design in Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol.15, no.30, 1991, pp.58-71.
Seamus O’Hanlon, ‘Cities, Suburbs and Communities’, Martyn Lyons and Penny Russell (eds), Australia’s History. Themes and Debates, UNSW Press, 2005, pp.172-189.
Kerreen Reiger, The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernising the Australian Family 1880-1940, Melbourne, 1985.
Frank Stilwell, Reshaping Australia. Urban Problems and Policies, Pluto Press, 1993, especially pp.83-98
Sopie Watson, Accommodating Inequality: Gender and Housing, Sydney, 1988, chapter1.
Focus Questions:
1. What factors shaped the growth of Australian suburbs between the wars?
2. What role did the state play in determining the pace and shape of suburban development?
3. How far were local and imported ideas about urban development and living standards reflected in the design of suburbs?
4. What were the most popular designs for domestic houses in the inter-war period? Why?
5. How much regional and class variation was there in housing design and construction?
Tutorial Essay Question:
In what ways were ideas about gender, family and community reflected in the design of Australian houses and suburbs? You may restrict your answer to a particular time period if you wish, but this must be clearly stated in the introduction.
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Week 10 (15 – 19 October) Little Desert Campaign
In the 1960s in Victoria a suburban housewife started a campaign to save some bushland from clearing and farming. This sparked a major community debate over the ‘Little Desert’s’ conservation. This was arguably the first time that a conservation debate became both a major community issue in Victoria and gained political significance. In this week’s tutorial we examine this moment to consider whether it was one of the first instances of the modern environmental movement and, if so, what made it so.
Essential Reading:
Libby Robin, ‘Of desert and watershed: The rise of ecological consciousness in Victoria, Australia’, Michael Shortland, Science and Nature: Essays in the history of the Environmental Sciences in Australia, British Society for the History of Science, 1993.
Drew Hutton and
Libby Connors “Old Meets New”, in A History of the Environmental Movement, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Recommended Reading:
Libby Robin, Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1998.
Drew Hutton and
Libby Connors, A History of the Australian Environmental Movement, Cambridge University Press, 1999, Chapts.3,4 & 5, esp, pp.108-112.
Martin Mulligan and
Stuart Hill, Ecological Pioneers: A Social history of Australian Ecological Thought and Action, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Geoffrey Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers: Australians Make Their Environment 1788-1980, 1992, Chapts.14 and 15, esp. pp.160 & 163.
Mary White, Listen … our land is crying: Australia’s Environment: problems and solutions, Kangaroo Press, 1997.
Colin Thiele, The Little Desert, Rigby, 1975.
Tim Bonyhady, Places Worth Keeping: Conservationsits, Politics and the Law, Allen & Unwin, 1993.
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JM Powell, An Historical Geography of Modern Australia: The Restive Fringe, Cambrdige University Press, 1988, pp.234-45.
JM Powell, Watering the Garden State: Water, Land and Community in Victoria 1834-1988, Sydney, 1989.
Focus Questions:
1. What was the Little Desert campaign about?
2. In what way, if any, was it different to earlier conservation efforts?
3. To what extent does it represent a point of transition in the environmental movement?
4. What was the role of science in the campaign?
Tutorial Essay Question:
To what extent did the Little Desert campaign signify the emergence of modern environmental activity and consciousness in Australia? If so, in what ways?
Week 11 (22 - 26 October) Minerals and Resources
Up until the 1950s Australia’s wealth was generated by pastoralism and its primary industry base. The second world war changed this for good as it exposed the underdeveloped nature of our secondary industry base. Now Australia’s wealth is derived from her mineral and energy resources, industries which have grown exponentially in the post-war period. Such growth has been at a cost in both human and environmental terms. For Aboriginal people, on whose land much of the resources are based, the mining frontier has represented a very intrusive frontier. In this tutorial we consider the developmental, environmental and social costs of Australia’s post- war economic restructuring with a particular focus on Aboriginal communities in the North.
Essential Reading:
Richie Howitt, ‘Resource Development and Aborigines: the case of Roebourne,
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1960-1980’, Australian Geographical Studies, 27, 1989, pp.155-169
Graeme Aplin, “Kakadu National Park World Heritage Site: Deconstructing the Debate, 1997-2003”, Australian Geographical Studies, 42 (2), June, 2004, pp.152-174.
Recommended Reading:
Alice Cawte, Atomic Australia, UNSW Press, 1992.
Les Dalton, ‘The Fox Inquiry: Public Policy Making in Open Forum’, Labour History, no.90, May, 2006, pp. 137-154.
Douglas Holdstock and
Frank Barnaby , The British Nuclear Weapons Program, 1952-2002, Routledge, 2003.
Gerald Manners, ‘Unresolved Conflicts in Australian Mineral and Energy Resource Policies’, The Geographical Journal, vol.158, part 2, July, 1992, pp.129-144
Christobel Mattingley, Maralinga: The Anangu Story, Allen & Unwin, 2009.
Ann Mozley Moyal, ‘The Australian Atomic Energy Commission: A Case Study in Australian Science and Government’, Search, vol.6, no.9, September, 1975, pp.365-384.
Wayne Reynolds, Rethinking the Joint Project: Australia’s Bid for Nuclear Weapons, 1945-1960’, The Historical Journal, vol.41, no.3, September, 1998, pp.853-873.
Noel Sanders, ‘The Hot Rock in the Cold War: Uranium in the 1950s’, Ann Curthoys and John Merritt (eds), Better Dead than Red, Allen & Unwin, 1984, pp.155-169.
Keith Sutor, “The Uranium Debate in Australia”, The World Today, vol.34, no.6, June 1978, pp.227-235.
Colin Tatz, Aborigines, Uranium and Other Essays, Heinemann Educational Australia, 1982.
Focus Questions:
1. What is the environmental ethic underpinning post-war resource
development?
2. What impacts do such processes have environmentally?
3. What are the land rights issues around uranium mining?
4. What are the contesting views of conservationists and developers in
the mining industry?
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5. To what extent are these about long-term and short-term
environmental interests?
Tutorial Essay Question:
The mining frontier represents a second dispossession for Aboriginal people. Assess this in the light of the post-war mining boom.
Week 12 (29 October – 2 November) Wilderness
When the environmental movement emerged in the 1960s and 70s it did so with a particular ethic about what were perceived to be pristine environments which needed protection from humans. The leading campaigns of that era around Lake Pedder and the Franklin River are examples of this notion of wilderness framing environmentalism. In this tutorial we consider the term wilderness, its meaning and place in the modern environmental movement and the various uses to which it has been put. We also consider possibilities for tensions and conflicts within such an ethic.
Essential Reading:
Drew Hutton and
Libby Connors, A History of the Australian Environment Movement, Cambridge University Press, 1999, Chapter 6 – Fighting For Wilderness.
Tom Griffiths, ‘History and Natural History’, in Hunters and Collectors. The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.255-277.
RF Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, Yale University Press, 2001, Prologue, pp.1-7 and Epilogue, pp.379-390.
See also Noel Pearson Brands Wild Rivers Law ‘Colonialism’, The Australian.
Recommended Reading:
Verity Burgmann, Power and Protest: Movements for Social Change in Australian Society,
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Allen & Unwin, 1993, Chapt 4.
William Cronon, ‘The trouble with Wilderness’ in his Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, Norton and CO, New York, 1996.
Richard Flanagan, ‘Wilderness and History”, in SJ Smith and MR Banks (eds), Tasmanian Wilderness – World Heritage Values, Royal Society of Tasmania, 1990
Tom Griffiths, ‘History and Natural History: Conservation Movements in Conflict?’, DJ Mulvaney (ed), The Humanities and the Australian Environment, Canberra, 1991.
Colin Hall, Wasteland to World Heritage: Preserving Australia’s Wilderness, Melbourne University Press, 1992, esp, pp.137-39.
Marcia Langton, “The European Construction of Wilderness’, Wilderness News, Summer, 1995/96, no.143.
William Lines, Patriots: Defending Australia’s Natural Heritage, University of Queensland Press, 2006.
Ian McNiven and
Lynette Russell, ‘Place with a Past: Reconciling Wilderness and the Aboriginal Past in World Heritage Areas”, Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal XV, 11, 1995, pp.505-19.
Vance Martin and
Mary Inglis (eds), Wilderness: The Way Ahead, Findhorn Press, 1984.
Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology, Yale University Press, 1991.
Deborah Bird Rose, Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness, Australian Heritage Commission, 1996.
John Terry, ‘Damned Wilderness and Special Laws’, Aboriginal Law Bulletin, 1,8, 1983, pp.1-2.
Focus Questions:
1. What is wilderness?
2. Is wilderness an ethnocentric term?
3. What are the conflicting views of wilderness in Australia between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal people?
4. How have these differences manifested themselves?
5. What are the problems with ‘wilderness’ as Griffiths sees it?
6. How do these relate to the concept of wilderness that Nash is referring to?
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Tutorial Essay Question:
According to Tom Griffiths there is a tension between movements to preserve natural and cultural heritage. Using wilderness as a case study demonstrate how this might be so.
Week 13 (5 – 9 November) Green Politics
In July 2011 the Greens Party, led by Senator Bob Brown, took the balance of power in the Senate, delivering an unprecedented amount of power to the Greens. This ‘success’ was the result of a much longer campaign, led by Brown, to give voice in Australia to green issues and concerns. By any estimation it was a remarkable achievement. However, commentators have already suggested that this will be the pinnacle of the Greens success and that, in the reality of Australian politics, their ‘star’ will soon be eclipsed. In this tutorial we consider the rise of green politics in Australia and consider the conditions which gave rise to the movement, how we interpret its impact and long-term viability.
Essential Reading:
V & M Burgmann, ‘A Rare Shift in Public Thinking’: Jack Mundey and the NSW Builders Labourers’ Federation’, Labour History, no.77, 1999, pp.44-63.
Clive Bean and
Jonathan Kelley, ‘The Electoral Impact of New Politics Issues: The Environment in the 1990 Australian Federal Election’, Comparative Politics, vol.27, no.3, April, 1995, pp.339-356.
Recommended Reading:
Clive Bean et al (eds), The Greening of Australian Politics: The 1990 Federal Election, Longman, Melbourne, 1990.
Geoffrey Bolton, ‘The Squaring of the Green’, Spoils and Spoilers, Allen & Unwin, 1992, pp.169-178.
Bob Brown, Memo for a Saner World, Penguin, 2004.
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Verity Burgmann, Power and Protest. Movements for Change in Australian Society, Allen & Unwin, 1993.
Verity Burgmann, Green Bans Red Union. Environmental Activism and the NSW Builders Labourers’ Federation, UNSW Press, 1998.
Daniel Connell, Water Politics in the Murray-Darling Basin, Federation Press, 2007.
TJ Doyle, Green Power: the environment movement in Australia, UNSW Press, 2000.
TJ Doyle and
JK Aynsley, Environmental Politics and Policy Making in Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, Australia, 1995.
Murray Goot, “The Forests, the Trees and the Polls’, Clive Bean et al (eds), The Greening of Australian Politics: The 1990 Federal Election, Longman, Melbourne, 1990.
Drew Hutton and
Libby Connors, ‘Green Politics’, in A History of the Australian Environment Movement, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp.
Drew Hutton (ed), Green Politics in Australia, Angus and Robertson, 1987.
Kathleen McPhillips (ed), Local Heroes: Australian Crusades from the Environmental Frontline, Pluto Press, 2002.
James Norman, Bob Brown: a gentleman revolutionary, Allen & Unwin, 2004.
Ariel Salleh, ‘Shades of Green in Australian Politics’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol.25, no.17, April, 1990, pp.937-938.
Bruce Shaw, ‘Was the Wilderness Society Tricked? Into Supporting the Coalition at the 1996 Federal Election, The Australian Quarterly, vol.69, no.2, Winter, 1997, pp.59-66.
LP Thiele, Environmentalism for a New Millennium: The Challenge of Coevolution, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Focus Questions:
1. What role did Jack Mundey and the Builders Labourers’ Federation have in the rise of a green politics?
2. What do Verity and Meredith Burgmann mean by a ‘subaltern counterpublic;?
3. What were the conditions which gave rise to green politics?
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4. What are the electoral issues around their rise to power and their continuing electoral presence?
5. Is their prominence fleeting and if so, what, if any, are the legacies?
Tutorial Essay Question:
What were the circumstances which gave rise to green politics and what are the political issues facing the long-term viability of the environmental movement? Changes since First Published
Date Description
20/07/ Technical Team has corrected bug regarding the numbering of Learning 2012 Outcomes.
13/07/ The Description was updated. 2012
30/01/ The Description was updated. 2012
30/01/ The Description was updated. 2012
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