@mastersthesis {bnh-8089, title = {Taking fire: the historical and contemporary politics of Indigenous burning in Australia and the western United Statest}, year = {2021}, month = {02/2021}, school = {Australian National University}, address = {Canberra}, abstract = {

Large bushfires in recent years around the world have sparked debate and interest in fire management; a world warming through industrial combustion is a world turning to Indigenous fire practices for solutions. Yet even as Indigenous Australians increasingly assert pyro-identities, non-Indigenous Australians have struggled to understand Indigenous burning practices and the nature of antipodean fire. This thesis examines the historical and contemporary politics of fire and how they relate to\ changing understandings of Indigenous burning in Australia and the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. It examines public and institutional debates after large bushfires, discussions about management of public lands and shifting representations of Indigenous burning through analysis of royal commission transcripts, newspaper articles and other public discourse, policy submissions, institutional archives and academic published material. The thesis explores the relationship of environmentalism to fire and Indigenous burning, the contradictions of {\textquoteright}wilderness{\textquoteright} and the politics of race and identity. It charts the development of competing understandings of fire and Indigenous burning in academic disciplines as well as the entanglement of Indigenous burning with the politics of land management and institutional rivalries. Through a comparison of the mutual entanglements and divergences of Australian and American fire management and conceptualisations of Indigenous burning, the thesis demonstrates the historical and transnational context of Australian fire. It argues for localised understandings of fire and fire management, perspectives that are attentive to cultural and ecological specificities. Perceptions of Indigenous burning have inspired policy-making and they have also been appropriated for legitimation, with profound consequences for cultural politics and ecological communities. Finally, the thesis charts how Indigenous burning has been transformed in the imagination and discourses of non-Indigenous Australia: from academic curiosity to political incendiary - and, increasingly, to a lived reality.

}, keywords = {Australia, burning, contemporary, historical, indigenous, politics, US}, doi = {10.25911/MA4M-SN80}, url = {https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/222852}, author = {Daniel May} } @inbook {bnh-6976, title = {Shallow Fire Literacy Hinders Robust Fire Policy: Black Saturday and Prescribed Burning Debates}, booktitle = {Disasters in Australia and New Zealand: Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe}, year = {2020}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, organization = {Palgrave Macmillan}, edition = {1}, chapter = {7}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Disasters in Australia and New Zealand\ brings together a collection of essays on the history of disasters in both countries. Leading experts provide a timely interrogation of long-held assumptions about the impacts of bushfires, floods, cyclones and earthquakes, exploring the blurred line between nature and culture, asking what are the anthropogenic causes of {\textquoteleft}natural{\textquoteright} disasters? How have disasters been remembered or forgotten? And how have societies over generations responded to or understood disaster? As climate change escalates disaster risk in Australia, New Zealand and around the world, these questions have assumed greater urgency. This unique collection poses a challenge to learn from past experiences and to implement behavioural and policy change. Rich in oral history and archival research,\ Disasters in Australia and New Zealand\ offers practical and illuminating insights that will appeal to historians and disaster scholars across multiple disciplines.

}, keywords = {Australia, disaster impacts, disasters, history, new zealand}, isbn = {978-981-15-4381-4}, doi = {10.1007/978-981-15-4382-1}, url = {https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811543814$\#$aboutBook}, author = {Daniel May} }