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Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Fire

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Sexual Harassment And Gender Discrimination In Wildland Fire Management Must Be Addressed, Christine Eriksen Jan 2016

Sexual Harassment And Gender Discrimination In Wildland Fire Management Must Be Addressed, Christine Eriksen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are behavioral patterns not uncommon in the many varied settings of wildland fire. Whether in the classroom, on the fireline, in a government or non-governmental organization office, women and men are subjected to and are targets of sexual harassment and gender discrimination on a daily basis. The prevalence of this issue, its causes, its impacts, and potential solutions are the foci of this Associa- tion for Fire Ecology (AFE) position paper.


Living With Landscape Fire: Landholder Understandings Of Agency, Scale And Control Within Fiery Entanglements, Amanda Edwards, Nicholas J. Gill Jan 2016

Living With Landscape Fire: Landholder Understandings Of Agency, Scale And Control Within Fiery Entanglements, Amanda Edwards, Nicholas J. Gill

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Around the world, debates over how to manage and adapt to bushfires (or wildfires) are increasingly prominent as more and different people, many of whom have little or no experience with landscape fire or land management, inhabit fire-prone environments. But bushfire events represent only the most visible aspect of complex entanglements which operate across huge temporal and spatial scales and over which humans have very limited control. In this article, we focus on how Australian landholders of settler or migrant heritage understand scalar complexities and agency and control within human/landscape fire entanglements. In view of the fact that the learning …


Colonisation And Fire: Gendered Dimensions Of Indigenous Fire Knowledge Retention And Revival, Christine Eriksen, Don L. Hankins Jan 2015

Colonisation And Fire: Gendered Dimensions Of Indigenous Fire Knowledge Retention And Revival, Christine Eriksen, Don L. Hankins

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This chapter elucidates how gender is entwined in the spatial and temporal knowledge trajectories through which indigenous fire knowledge is retained and revived using a case study of eastern Australia and California, USA. Fire extends its roots far into the past of indigenous cultures worldwide, extending beyond basic domestic needs to responsible environmental stewardship. Fire has played a key role in the land stewardship practices of Aboriginal Australian and Native American women and men for millennia (Stewart et al. 2002; Gammage 2011). This includes cultural and gendered landscapes, such as indigenous sacred and ceremonial sites off-limits to women or men. …


Properties Under Fire: Why So Many Australians Are Inadequately Insured Against Disaster, Kate Booth, Bruce Tranter, Christine Eriksen Jan 2015

Properties Under Fire: Why So Many Australians Are Inadequately Insured Against Disaster, Kate Booth, Bruce Tranter, Christine Eriksen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The fire season has started early. Homes were destroyed last month in bushfires near Lancefield, Victoria, while buildings and lives have been lost as fires continue to sweep through southern Western Australia. Alongside the devastating loss of life and properties, many properties potentially in the path of Australian bushfires are inadequately insured. While we have known about high rates of non-insurance and under-insurance across Australia for some time, there is surprisingly little solid data on the issue. We recently set out to address this gap at both the national and regional level. Early findings from a national survey (which we …


Divergent Approaches To Resolving Pressures On Nrm And Drr Programs: A Case Study Of Sustainable Fire Management Training, Amanda Edwards, Nicholas J. Gill Jan 2015

Divergent Approaches To Resolving Pressures On Nrm And Drr Programs: A Case Study Of Sustainable Fire Management Training, Amanda Edwards, Nicholas J. Gill

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In the contexts of natural resource management (NRM) and disaster risk reduction (DRR), landholders are increasingly expected to take responsibility for issues which extend beyond property boundaries. Numerous programs are being developed to train landholders to meet these expectations, however the ontological underpinnings, goals and outcomes of these programs can be radically different. Using sustainable fire management as a case study, we compare a modernist approach to training, which educates landholders in the scientific and legislative aspects of NRM and DRR with the aim of persuading them towards particular decisions, with a relational framework which aims to develop new ways …


Fire, Water And Everyday Life: Bushfire And Household Defence In A Changing Climate, Carrie Wilkinson, Christine Eriksen Jan 2015

Fire, Water And Everyday Life: Bushfire And Household Defence In A Changing Climate, Carrie Wilkinson, Christine Eriksen

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines how the availability or scarcity of water influenced the survival related decisions of households during the October 2013 State Mine Fire in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. Narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 18 households impacted by the bushfire revealed that drought conditions in the months preceding the bushfire left many households dependent on non-reticulated water supplies vulnerable at the time the fire threat became apparent. Despite considerable preparations for water storage and usage during the fire, "weak links" in planning (e.g., top-ups, failure of pumps, generators and hoses) meant water was not accessible when …


The Retention, Revival, And Subjugation Of Indigenous Fire Knowledge Through Agency Fire Fighting In Eastern Australia And California, Christine Eriksen, Don L. Hankins Jan 2014

The Retention, Revival, And Subjugation Of Indigenous Fire Knowledge Through Agency Fire Fighting In Eastern Australia And California, Christine Eriksen, Don L. Hankins

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article explores the potential impact of training and employment with wildfire management agencies on the retention of Indigenous fire knowledge. It focuses on the comparative knowledge and experiences of Indigenous Elders, cultural practitioners, and land stewards in connection with ''modern'' political constructs of fire in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, and California in the United States of America. This article emphasises the close link between cross-cultural acceptance, integration of Indigenous and agency fire cultures, and the ways in which knowledge types are shared or withheld. While agency fire fighting provides an opportunity for Indigenous people to connect and …


Geographical Fire Research In Australia: Review And Prospects, Christine Eriksen, Lesley Head Jan 2014

Geographical Fire Research In Australia: Review And Prospects, Christine Eriksen, Lesley Head

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

'You live in the bush. You live by the rules of the bush, and that's it.' These were the reflective words of Mrs Dunlop upon seeing the blackened rubble of her home, which made headline news the morning after the first, and most destructive, fire front tore through the Blue Mountains in New South Wales on 17 October 2013 (Partridge and Levy, 2013). While seemingly a simple statement, it goes right to the heart of heated public and political debates - past and present - over who belongs where and why in the fire-prone landscapes that surround Australia's cities. Bushfire …