A/Prof. Nicholas Gill1

1University Of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

 

Weed management by  landowners is conventionally seen as a chore, as task driven by legal obligations, social norms, keeping neighbours happy, or meeting  property management goals. At best it may be a means to an end. Previous research has framed weed management as a burden; a factor in selling land, an unexpected obstacle or cost to land use goals, a source of neighbourly friction, and a negative point of distinction between different types of landholders.

An alternative is to consider weed management in terms the processes of learning, struggle, care, and transition that owning and managing land embodies. This framing of weeds will be considered in terms of weed management by lifestyle-oriented rural land owners. Interviews and property walks with lifestylers in southern NSW suggest that weed management offers certain pleasures and benefits. Weeding is a means by which they explore, learn about, and (sometimes literally) uncover their land. More than just a chore, weeding embodies and cements relations of care and potentially the knowledge and experience for managing landscapes that have been formed by almost two centuries of farming, weedy forest regrowth, and lifestyle. ‘resettlement’.

anagement in terms the processes of learning, struggle, care, and transition that owning and managing land embodies. This framing of weeds will be considered in terms of weed management by lifestyle-oriented rural land owners. Interviews and property walks with lifestylers in southern NSW suggest that weed management offers certain pleasures and benefits. Weeding is a means by which they explore, learn about, and (sometimes literally) uncover their land. More than just a chore, weeding embodies and cements relations of care and potentially the knowledge and experience for managing landscapes that have been formed by almost two centuries of farming, weedy forest regrowth, and lifestyle. ‘resettlement’.


Biography:

I am a human geographer with interests in environmental management and rural cultures. My research focuses on rural areas, particularly on cultural and social aspects of land management, land use change, and environmental conflict. In my research I aim to bridge conventional natural resource management research and research on cultures of nature. I am interested in how people occupy landscapes and seek to inhabit, use, protect, and conserve those landscapes, usually simultaneously, and in ways that defy neat compartmentalisation of these activities.

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