Resource Management and Geography - Theses
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Item'Women in agriculture': A geography of Australian agricultural activism( 1996-01)This thesis argues that the multiple geographies of political practice are an important feature of activism. It investigates the women in agriculture movement, which is an informally connected web of groups and events working to increase the recognition and participation of women in Australian agriculture. By approaching agriculture as a political and social activity, as well as and economic one, the study demonstrates diverse relations to place, in the mobilisation of the women in agriculture movement. The thesis argues that the movement is challenging Australian agriculture through actions over a variety of sites, scales and spheres. The thesis sets out to explain the development and impact of women in agriculture activism. In doing so it studies both the contexts and effects of the movement. Multiple dimensions of the movement’s contexts are examined: agricultural, political, discursive and locational dimensions are shown to have shaped its development and character. These dimensions have then been challenged by the movement as it acts on its agenda of recognition and participation. Three case groups within the movement were investigated to demonstrate the personal, farm and public scales at which the activism of women in agriculture has had an impact. First, the individual and collective agency of participants, at a personal level, is noted as women negotiate diverse subject positions and experience the collective relational aspects of ‘movement politics’. Second, the impact of the movement is analysed at the level of the farm unit where it challenges many of the conventional arrangements operating within family farms. Third, the movement’s impact is described within a number of spheres of agricultural and community affairs. It is argued that the movement applied specific political strategies to farmer, industry, media and state spheres which resulted in the varying success of their goals for women’s increased recognition and participation in agriculture. Analysis of the multiple geographies of activism illustrated by the women in agriculture movement reveals the political and discursive processes that operate to construct family farming. Moreover, it demonstrates the impact of activism where a movement strategically operates in multiple places and spaces to effect the social change and desires.