School of Geography - Theses
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ItemFeeling climate change in Barwon South West: Emotions, place and adaptation governance( 2022)Climate change is experienced in the everyday through relationships with humans, non-humans, and the places that hold them. Despite this, the practice of climate adaptation tends to be understood through the technocratic disembodied lens of global climate science. Climate adaptation professionals working at the local-scale engage with both ways of knowing. This thesis analyses the climate emotions of 10 climate adaptation professionals working in Barwon South West, a region of Victoria, Australia. This region is vulnerable to many climate-change impacts including bushfires, sea-level-rise and heatwaves. Through walking interviews in valued places, associative mapping, narrative-thematic analysis, and poetic methods, I drew out the powerful emotional forces shaping and shaped by these adaptation professionals’ relationships with place, people, climate imaginaries and work. Climate change impacted participants relationships with place, infusing them with a sense of grief, but participants also engaged with place to find solace and relief. Climate emotions were triggered by past, present and future climate imaginaries; dystopian future imaginaries produced anxiety, while local-scale imaginaries were associated with hope and agency. These emotions were consciously and unconsciously managed by participants. Overall, emotions about climate were fundamental features of participants’ lives in and outside the workplace. This thesis illustrates the emotional, peopled practice of adaptation governance, highlights the power of emotions to responses to climate change and reveals how participants find agency and wellbeing in the face of climate change.
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ItemThe water dreamers : how water and silence shaped Australia( 2008)Australia is the most arid continent on earth. This thesis explores how that challenge shaped the ways in which the settlers appropriated the Aboriginal countries, and how those settlers tried to make sense of a land that was so unlike the places from which they came. On the shores of Sydney Cove, the British cut down gum trees. As they crashed to the ground, it seemed as if these trees were shattering the primal silence of Aboriginal Australia - initiating the land into time. The settlers were confident that this process would be repeated in valley after valley until they had brought the whole of this 'silent continent' to life. But in inland Australia, the settlers found that the silence would not disperse. This was the arid zone. The explorers John Oxley and Charles Sturt articulated a core idea when they referred to this region as a place of 'death-like silence'. By the mid-nineteenth century, this silence had become an accepted fact about Australia. But the colonists disagreed about how they should respond. Some argued that the inland was a place of despair, a place to be avoided. Others found consolation in a mythos I have called necronationalism, which imagined that the people who had died in the desert were somehow elevated into the mystery of the land itself. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, the water dreamers began to challenge the very idea of silence. Their optimism was based on the promise that hydroengineering could triumph over the climate itself, creating a new, luxuriant Australia in the silent voids of the desert. By the 1920s, this ethos of 'Australia Unlimited' had become a major site of debate in Australia, when it was challenged by the geographer Griffith Taylor. Taylor insisted that the environment was the determining factor in human settlement. It could not simply be overridden by engineering. The debate took on a patriotic urgency, because many Australians believed that their failure to occupy the inland and the 'open north', left the continent vulnerable to an Asian invader. This debate produced a series of plans for great hydro-engineering schemes, some of which were built and some not. Today, this phase has largely ended, as we face the environmental damage caused by a code of engineering which, for all its idealism, took insufficient account of the environment itself.
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ItemThe coalfields of eastern Australia: an examination of the rise, contemporary character and areal impact of bituminous coal mining( 1965)Traditionally the coal mining industry has resisted innovation. Changes in working methods, in conditions of employment and in productivity have often been achieved only as a result of considerable industrial, discord and community discomfort. In Australia reluctance to change has been all too obvious. Yet, since 194-6, few other industries have been quite so profoundly or so completely modified,so that coal mining in 1965 bears little resemblance to the industry of the immediate post-war years except that it is beset by problems resulting from continuing and intensifying fuel competition. The ramifications of these changes have been widespread. In New South Males a booming economy, highly specialised demands and ruthless price competition from the petroleum industry have brought about a drastic decline in the use of general purpose coal but a marked increase in the demand for specialised qualities e.g. for coke making or the generation of electricity. In consequence the prosperity of particular fields, or mines working specific seams within fields has been much affected. Many old, small, or unprofitable pits have been closed} mechanisation of working methods has become general; new mines have been established to meet particular demands; productivity and quality control have been vastly improved and the average size of collieries has tended to increase. In Queensland less specialised demands and the existence of an omnipotent Coal Board have staved off the worst of these changes until much more recently but there,too, the transformation is under way. The first collieries have how been equipped with mining machinery of a type long common in Mew South Wales, larger mines are in the process of establishment, productivity is beginning to rise and to show some marked differentiation according to mine size and the Coal Board is considering the desirability of closing mines unable to meet and maintain satisfactory price and quality standards. In Victoria, however, change is of a retrograde kind for only two of the handful of pits have any importance and these, as State owned enterprises, have made consistent trading losses for many years, an indication of their difficult working conditions and restricted deposits. With limited lives there is little possibility of change other than by demise. In the coalfield communities the social implications of these changes have been equally as significant. The retrenchment of more then 10,000 mine workers in the space of a decade from the New South Males mines alone has caused a major reorientation of some of the more highly specialised settlements and in others out-mignation or occupational diversification through long distance commuting. Others have begun on the slow decline that leads ultimately to loss of function and complete abandonment. With this has gone a change in settlement form - a revival of local commerce in those fortunate enough to retain their residents, further physical deterioration in some of the already under-maintained settlements, a change in population structure as pensioners move in and the school leavers move out, as families move in on the demise of pensioners, as migrants move in to replace the native born. In some localities these changes have contributed further to the distinctiveness of the coal town, in ethers they have tended to blurr a former distinctiveness. At a different level a blurring of the farmer distinctiveness is also taking place in the major urban areas that have risen with and because of the coal industry. Large scale industrial and residential development in the post-war years has now began to obliterate the last traces of more than a century of coal mining in and around the cities of Newcastle, Wollongong and Ipswich. Pit head gear, mineral railways, subsidence areas relics of all kinds and their distinctive contribution to urban morphology are being submerged in amorphous and omnivorous suburbia.
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ItemThe historical geography of Australian coastal shipping( 1974)This thesis has been made possible by the help and encouragement of many, particularly during my later school years when shipping first became a serious interest, and I should like to thank generally both friends and waterfront personnel who took me on board various vessels or around the Sydney and Melbourne Waterfront complexes. Particular thanks for help during the preparation of this work go to Dr. T, M. Perry for his patient supervision and advice, and thanks to Staff of the Latrobe Library, Melbourne, of the public reference libraries at Adelaide, Launceston and Brisbane, and of university libraries at Melbourne, Monash and Queensland, for access to bound volumes of newspapers and periodicals, to several shipping companies for information about their services and history, and in particular to the Adelaide Steamship Company, the Australian National Line, and the State Shipping Service of Western Australia and their ships' crews for arranging visits to their ships. I should also like to acknowledge access to the Green and Dufty collection of ship photographs for reference.
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ItemRepresentation in the Australian House of Representatives 1890-1901( 1975)This is a study of certain territorial aspects of representation in the first Australian House of Representatives. It consists of two parts. The first part considers the way in which representation was to be divided amongst the States and Territories of the Commonwealth. The second part considers the way in which one State (Victoria) was first divided into constituencies. It is possible to examine the allocation of representation to areas and the selection of electoral boundaries at a variety of scales; from that of the members of an international organisation to that of the ridings of a shire. At the smaller scales, existing boundaries are, in most cases, adopted as electoral boundaries. At the larger scales new electoral boundaries are, in most cases, delimited. Nevertheless, the allocation of representation to areas and the selection of electoral boundaries are always interconnected. Each part of this study consists of two sections. The first section describes what took place, what alternatives were suggested and what arguments were used on both sides (Chapter Two and Chapter Four). The second section is, in each case, an attempt to evaluate what took place. The mechanism for allocating representation to the States and Territories is evaluated in two ways; first by investigating its internal consistency and implications and secondly by comparing the Australian provisions with those of other federations (Chapter Three). The first Victorian electoral distribution is evaluated by comparing it with two alternative distributions prepared at about the same time, both of which were eventually rejected (Chapter Five). The three distributions are compared by applying a range of techniques which together provide a method of evaluating any electoral distribution, or at least any where political parties may readily be identified. This study is limited to the period 1890 to 1901. Its implications are not. The mechanism for allocating representation to the States and Territories was to apply to future apportionments as well as to that of 1900. The questions that were raised by the first federal electoral distribution in Victoria have been echoed time and again in Australia; previously, subsequently and elsewhere.
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ItemA study of some of the relationships between geography and policy in the Australian dairy industry( 1973)No abstract available
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ItemStudy of a quantitative method of delineating physical-geographic regions in interdisciplinary integrated survey: the grid-point method( 1975)Interdisciplinary surveys involve mapping physicalgeographic regions according to readily observable criteria for the purpose of assisting in making a variety of decisions about land use. Difficulties are associated with traditional surveys, which rely on aerial photographic interpretation and purposive sampling, due to the lack of a standardized, quantitative methodology. The grid-point method is proposed as a rigorous, quantitative approach and was applied in the Grampians north-east section (507 sq.km.), the upper Barwon River catchment (977 sq.km.), and on French Island (172 sq.kin.). Variables used reflect obvious distributions of landform, soil, and native vegetation, and quasi-random sampling patterns with circular sampling units and densities between 1 sampling unit per .89 and 2.42 sq.km. were employed. Landform data were gathered from contour maps, and soil samples and vegetation data were gathered in the field; Boil data were obtained by laboratory analyses. Data were subjected to principal components analysis, and standardized data were scored on the first three scaled and first three orthoreormalized vectors. Sampling units were classified on the basis of the scores and then regionalized by SYM�-V proximal mapping. These regionalizations provided a sound basis for physical-geographic description. Inherent features of the grid-point method overcame difficulties associated with traditional surveys. Statistical analyses indicated that sampling densities as low as 1 sampling unit per 4 sq.km. are sufficient to generate interpretable regionalizations of the Grampians north-east section. Comparisons of regionalizations with the land systems map of this area produced by traditional methods reveals that the grid-point method is capable of generating regions similar in level of generalization to the land systems. With respect to selected variables,the regionalizations are in the majority of cases of higher quality than the land systems map. The cost of survey at 1 sampling unit per .97 sq.km. of this area is within the limits of most survey organizations and estimates for surveys at densities of 1 sampling unit per 1.14, 1.51, 2.07, 3.49, 4.15, and 9.74 sq.km. reveal that although there is a significant reduction in cost with decrease in sample size, an economy of scale factor operates. Because the grid-point method is orientated to field data gathering, it is least expensively applied in study areas characterized by undulating plains as well as flat plains and hills, which are for the most part cleared with a dry surface. Estimates for five study areas previously surveyed by the Soil Conservation Authority indicate that the cost of application of the grid-point method at sampling densities of 1 sampling unit per 1 ?q.km. and lower is not excessive. Efficiency of the grid-point method may be enhanced by purposivesystematic sampling near roads and vehicle tracks and purposive stratification of the study area prior to application. The grid-point method should be applied in interdisciplinary surveys carried out in south-eastern Australia. Applications should take the form of reco??aissan?e surveys involving relatively low density sampling. The resulting regionalizations, although probably somewhat coarse, should provide a sound framework for general pbysical-geographic description.
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ItemIn the wake of June 4 : an analysis of the Chinese students' decision-making process to stay in Australia( 2001)This is a study of the Chinese students' efforts to gain the right and chance to stay on in Australia after the June 4 massacre event occurred in Beijing in 1989, when there were about 20,000 of them living in Australia. The specific focus of this study is the experiences of the students over a period of twelve months from 4 June 1989 to 27 June 1990, when the students were virtually allowed to stay permanently. This was a special onshore migration intake. Such an intake once had a significant impact upon Australian humanitarian and refugee immigration policies in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. This is a topic relevant to international and refugee migration and in need of empirical explication and theoretical conceptualisation. A comprehensive study of the decision-making experiences of both international and refugee migrants has many dimensions. To develop an adequate portrayal of the onshore asylum seekers' decision-making process, this study uses the multimethod approach. Information gained from in-depth interviews forms the main empirical basis of this study. The data collected through participant observations is woven in among documentary sources, and both provide context to the main interview-based data. In the course of the literature review, current thinking on identity, especially on strategic identity formation is found to be a most useful theoretical framework to guide this study. By utilising the identity formation framework, this study addresses five aspects of the Chinese students' efforts to form their onshore asylum seekers' identity and to meet the Australian government's migration criteria for gaining the right and chance to stay on in this country permanently. The main features of the onshore asylum seekers' efforts to shape their identity to suit government criteria can be summarised as follows. Firstly, as these asylum seekers are onshore, they necessarily have extensive involvement with the local agencies in dealing with their residence issue. This involvement offers asylum seekers various notions of what a 'refugee identity' is, and this in turn influences how they constitute themselves in this local context. Secondly, the efforts of the onshore asylum seekers are made away from home in a new place. As such, they make their decisions in a newly formed primary social group, instead of within a family which, in current studies, is the most commonly documented decision-making unit. Thus, their decision-making distinguishes itself from the family-based process in many ways. Further, as onshore asylum seekers are not recognised by nor rescued by refugee agencies, they have to provide solid evidence to prove that they fit in with refugee criteria and are qualified to stay. This expectation results in onshore asylum seekers participating in a very self-conscious and more strategic process of constructing a refugee identity. Furthermore, the onshore refugee identity is consolidated and expressed by interactions with the major local agencies. This influences these agencies in terms of the way in which the onshore asylum seeker issue is perceived and solved. In particular, the asylum seekers actively contacted and lobbied the government, the media and the migrant service organisations. Lastly, as a logical development of the onshore asylum seekers' efforts to stay, the seekers take highly organised political actions, which often comply with the main themes of the conflicts in international political ideology.
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ItemWhat is the value of a hole in the ground?: What is the value of discrete choice contingent valuation?( 2001)The inability of market price systems to reflect the social value associated with environmental conservation presents a barrier to the achievement of overall allocative efficiency. Stated preference valuation techniques such as the contingent valuation method have been found to be useful in capturing and measuring unexpressed preferences for environmental protection and enhancement. When applied correctly, these techniques can alleviate some of the most intractable market failures, such as those which involve pure public goods. This thesis explores the theoretical validity of different approaches to contingent valuation questioning through a survey of Victorian households' attitudes to the dereliction of open gold mine pits in the Victorian countryside. The methodological research involves comparison of discrete and continuous models of contingent valuation questioning, including a wide scale test of a new approach to discrete questioning, referred to as the "dissonance minimising choice" method, which seeks to correct the upward bias of yea-saying suspected in dichotomous choice studies. The results reveal a notable level of community concern about present mining practices in Victoria and a considerable willingness to pay for minesite rehabilitation. The results for the contingent valuation method indicate that survey respondents made robust and rational utility-maximimsing choices. The discrete-choice results were still significantly higher than the results for open ended study, with the performance of the dissonance mimimising choice method rather mixed in comparison with the traditional dichotomous choice approach. i
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ItemIf Descartes swam with dolphins: the framing and consumption of marine animals in contemporary Australian tourism( 2000)Cultural geography has become increasingly interested in the ways in which nature is socially constructed within society as other. In more closely examining the broad category of 'nature', the field of animal geography has come about in an attempt to rethink the place of animals in society. The Cartesian culture/nature binary is seen to be one reason for the mistreatment of animals in society. The thesis investigates to what extent the binary is challenged or reinforced through the act of visiting animals within an ecotourism context. To this end the thesis looks at the ways in which marine animals are produced for and consumed by the tourism industry in Australia. Set within a backdrop of the early collection and display of marine animals as a form of imperial expansion, the thesis travels across a spectrum of marine animal tourism experience, from a point of extreme mediation to one of minimum mediation. In investigating the ways in which marine animals are framed and toured in contemporary Australia, the thesis utilises two key case studies, the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island in Victoria, Australia and Wild Dolphin Tours in Port Phillip Bay in Victoria, Australia. At the same time, the case studies act to uncover a key question of the thesis, namely the reasons why people choose to visit marine animals in Australia. Initially the thesis investigates the display of marine animals in early aquaria, modem day theme parks and in Blue Zoos. In then moving on to the first case study, the thesis considers the ways in which penguins are framed as a novelty event, as a threatened animal and as a link 'to the wild' for tourists. Data collection through a visitor survey and participant observation showed that tourists visit the birds as part of a more general family/friends holiday experience. The second case study begins with an examination of the ways in which dolphins are framed through popular culture as at once human like and as better than humans. A visitor survey and participant observation undertaken with tourists who went to sightsee and swim with the bottlenose dolphins of Port Phillip Bay revealed that visitors primarily chose to visit these animals because of a desire to see them unconfined and to learn about them. The thesis found that marine animals are framed for tourism in Australia in a multitude of ways which simultaneously bring the animals closer to humans and set them apart. Environmental education differed between the case studies. Generally tourists felt they learnt about the animals through a combination of seeing them first hand and experiencing some form of interpretation. Overall the culture/nature binary was found to be actively supported but also challenged by the practice of ecomarine tourism examined in the thesis.