Seeing the for the : Ontological security and experiences of Tasmanian

by

Rebecca Banham, Dip, B.A.(Hons), GradCert

School of Social Sciences

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

University of

November 2018

Declaration of Originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright.

Rebecca Banham

Statement of Authority of Access This thesis may be made available for loan. Copying of any part of this thesis is prohibited for two years from the date this statement was signed; after that time limited copying is permitted in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.

Rebecca Banham

Statement of Ethical Conduct The research associated with this thesis abides by the international and Australian codes on human and animal experimentation, the guidelines by the Australian Government's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and the rulings of the Safety, Ethics and Institutional Biosafety Committees of the University.

Rebecca Banham

i Publications

I developed the following publications during the course of this research, and elements of each appear in this thesis. While I am the sole author of these publications, I acknowledge that the suggestions and revisions of friends, colleagues, and reviewers alike greatly improved my work.

Refereed conference papers

Banham, R., 2017. ‘A walk among the gum trees’: Bushwalking, place and self-narrative, in:

Fozdar, F., Stevens, C. (Eds.), Conference Proceedings of The Australian Sociological

Association 2017 Conference. University of Western Australia, Australia, pp. 116-121.

Banham, R., 2018. Resisting the marginalisation of the non-human: Interdependency, wonder,

and humility in Tasmanian forests, in Zajdow, G. (Ed.), Conference Proceedings of The

Australian Sociological Association 2018 Conference. Deakin University, Australia, pp.

42–48.

Book chapter

Banham, R., 2020 [forthcoming]. Empathetic positionality and the forest other: Perceiving

violence against Tasmanian trees, in Milstein, T., Castro-Sotomayor, J. (Eds.), The

Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity. Routledge.

The research contained in these publications and this thesis has been supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

ii Acknowledgements

Writing a thesis is an incredible privilege, and one that I have been able to appreciate because of the people who surround me.

To my supervisors – Professors Bruce Tranter, Doug Ezzy, and Libby Lester – thank you. You read my work, encouraged me, and gave me the freedom to find my own academic space. Bruce, you always made me feel that this project was not only doable, but that it was worth doing (and you read many dodgy drafts of my work – sorry!); Libby, your calm presence and helpful insights reassured me; and Doug, you have shown me that it is not only possible, but necessary, to pursue the kind of sociology that I believe in. Thank you each for taking the time to teach me.

I also owe massive thanks to the 27 participants of this study. Thank you for donating your time and your incredible insights, and in doing so making this project what it is. I was blown away by the ideas and experiences that you shared with me, and your words (and photos, paintings, poetry!) inspired me so much.

To my friends and family – thank you. You have each encouraged me, listened to me, and loved me; you have asked questions, offered to read my work, shared coffee, flown from interstate, commiserated the difficulties, and made the past three years a better time. My new family have also been the most wonderful of cheerleaders. I am a very lucky person. And Mum and Dad – you have always been the quiet backbone of me knowing what I could achieve. Love you! This experience also would not have been anywhere near what it was without my Room 581 friends. Thanks for sharing the journey (and the chats and wine).

I dedicate this thesis to the forests of Tasmania, without whose presence and beauty there would be no thesis. Most of all, this thesis is for Alex. Your endless support is what makes all good things happen in my life. I love you and I like you, and you are written into every page.

iii Abstract

This thesis explores Tasmanians’ experiences of forests. Tasmania has been socially and environmentally shaped by decades of conflict popularly and provocatively termed the ‘ wars’. In this context, I examine the link between human-forest engagements and ‘ontological security’ – a sense of familiarity and trust in the world and the self. In critiquing and remodelling Giddens’ conceptualisation of ontological security, I argue that forests do important emotional and existential ‘work’ for people. For most participants, the state’s forests symbolised ontological and emotional aspects of ontological security.

Environmental sociology literature often adopts macro-level, realist, and/or quantitative frameworks which privilege themes of self-interest, rationality, or ‘quantifiable’ experiences of the nonhuman environment. The existing literature regarding Tasmanians’ experiences with/in forests is dominated by political, discursive, and historical perspectives which heavily emphasise the construction of environmental conflict. Sociological approaches to this Tasmanian case study are absent. In contrast to these bodies of literature, I explore human- forest engagements through under-examined themes of vulnerability, ontology, emotion, and relationship.

I conducted semi-structured interviews with 27 Tasmanians across the state. Eleven participants also contributed materials that they felt represented Tasmanian forests, including photographs, lyrics, and written pieces. Almost all participants were critical and distrustful of Tasmanian forestry politics, management, and practices, expressed concerns about local and global environmental issues, and associated forest experiences with processes of wellbeing, immersion, self-identity, and ontology. Yet participants also expressed ambivalent attitudes about Tasmania’s forestry industry. These key findings indicate that Tasmanians’ engagements with/in forests are complex, emotionally significant, and are bound up in experiences of identity, ontology, and vulnerability.

These data illustrate Tasmanian forests as symbolic of six key aspects of ontological security: material constancy; routine and ritual; escape and refuge; self-narrative; the nonhuman; and the future. Through these operationalised points, I argue that participants’ understandings and experiences of Tasmanian forests reflect the construction and experience of ontological security. This thesis contributes a unique micro-sociological approach to understanding human-forest engagements in Tasmania, and in doing so, undermines the polarising and alienating rhetoric of ‘Tasmania’s forestry wars’. This research also contributes a reworked model of ontological security, demonstrating the utility of the concept for qualitative research in environmental sociology.

iv Contents

Publications...... ii

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Abstract ...... iv

Introduction ...... 1

Rationale and research questions ...... 2

Structure ...... 7

Scope and contribution ...... 11

Part One ....