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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Social and Behavioral Sciences

Australia

Lesley Head

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Living With Trees – Perspectives From The Suburbs, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir Aug 2011

Living With Trees – Perspectives From The Suburbs, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir

Lesley Head

A study of suburban backyards and backyarders in Sydney and Wollongong revealed evidence of attitudes and behaviours in relation to trees. Attitudes are characterised under themes that indicate conditions of tolerance and belonging. They include attachment/risk, order/freedom and nativeness/alienness. While love is common, high levels of suspicion and intolerance towards trees in the suburban context are more common. Our findings confirm and throw further light on previous work indicating that many Australians have very partitioned views of the world in relationto where humans and nonhuman lifeforms belong. This partitioning must be understood in conceptual as well as spatial terms.


Suburban Life And The Boundaries Of Nature: Resilience And Rupture In Australian Backyard Gardens, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir Aug 2011

Suburban Life And The Boundaries Of Nature: Resilience And Rupture In Australian Backyard Gardens, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir

Lesley Head

Despite an academic shift from dualistic to hybrid frameworks of culture/nature relations, separationist paradigms of environmental management have great resilience and vernacular appeal. The conditions under which they are reinforced, maintained or ruptured need more detailed attention because of the urgent environmental challenges of a humanly transformed earth. We draw on research in 265 Australian backyard gardens, focusing on two themes where conceptual and material bounding practices intertwine; spatial boundary-making and native plants. We trace the resilience of separationist approaches in the Australian context to the overlay of indigeneity/ non-indigeneity atop other dualisms, and their rupture to situations of close …