@article {BF-4275, title = {Bushfires are {\textquotedblleft}men{\textquoteright}s business{\textquotedblright}: The importance of gender and rural hegemonic masculinity}, journal = {Journal of Rural Studies}, volume = {30}, year = {2013}, month = {04/2013}, pages = {110-119}, chapter = {110}, abstract = {This paper offers a critical review of the international literature on gender, disaster and rural masculinities. Empirical reference is made to bushfires in Australia, offering new evidence from the State of Victoria. Bushfires loom large in the Australian imagination and there is an increasing amount of research now being conducted in relation to bushfire events. A significant gap remains, however, with regard to the issue of gender. Despite increasing evidence that gender plays a significant role with reference to disaster risk assessment, preparation and response, a gendered analysis of bushfire preparation and response has not been a sustained research priority. Building on the writing of others, a critical assessment is provided of the concept of a specifically Australian, rural hegemonic masculinity as a possible way of better understanding the social dimensions of gender, and bushfire preparation and response in the Australian context. This conceptual consideration is extended to draw attention to the process whereby alternative conceptions of masculinities may emerge. This recognition provides a basis for further research on gender and disaster internationally.}, keywords = {Bushfire, Community Fireguard, Gender, Masculinity, Wildfire}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2013.01.002}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016713000041}, author = {Meagan Tyler and Peter Fairbrother} } @article {BF-4276, title = {Creating {\textquotedblleft}Community{\textquotedblright}? Preparing for Bushfire in Rural Victoria}, journal = {Rural Sociology}, volume = {78}, year = {2013}, month = {02/2013}, pages = {186-209}, chapter = {186}, abstract = {The term {\textquotedblleft}community{\textquotedblright} has a long and contested lineage in social analysis and debate. This lineage, however, is not generally recognized in policy and public debates on community and bushfire in Australia. {\textquotedblleft}Community{\textquotedblright} is thought to be central to bushfire preparedness in Australia, especially in rural areas, but what {\textquotedblleft}community{\textquotedblright} actually means in this context is vague at best. There is an ever-present tension between the use of {\textquotedblleft}community{\textquotedblright} as a reference to locality, a {\textquotedblleft}sense of community{\textquotedblright} as experienced by residents, and the use of {\textquotedblleft}community{\textquotedblright} as a rhetorical tool by governments and state agencies. We argue that a rigorous analysis of the concept of {\textquotedblleft}community{\textquotedblright} is critical to an understanding of the processes involved in preparing for the challenges associated with disaster, in this case bushfires. These broader issues are supported by research (a series of surveys, interviews, and focus groups) carried out with residents living in (predominantly rural) bushfire-prone areas in the state of Victoria, Australia. Ultimately, we assert that social participation and social networks are likely to be the crucial aspects of community that play a central role in effective bushfire preparedness.}, doi = {10.1111/ruso.12006}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ruso.12006/abstract}, author = {Peter Fairbrother and Meagan Tyler and Alison Hart and Bernard Mees and Richard Philips and Julie Stratford and Keith Toh} } @proceedings {BF-4363, title = {Moving Beyond {\textquotedblleft}women are the problem{\textquotedblright}: How Can We Better Understand the Gendered Nature of Bushfire in Australia?}, year = {2013}, url = {http://www.bushfirecrc.com/resources/research-report/moving-beyond-\%E2\%80\%9Cwomen-are-problem\%E2\%80\%9D-how-can-we-better-understand-gendered-na}, author = {Meagan Tyler and Peter Fairbrother} } @proceedings {BF-3755, title = {Community adaptation to bushfire in a changing climate: Developing a toolkit for local government in Tasmania}, year = {2012}, pages = {83-86}, publisher = {IAWF}, abstract = {to capture the dimensions of social life at a local level (Wellman, 1999). It also draws attention to the way understandings are developed in relation to the specificity of localities in the context of disaster (Paton and Jackson, 2002). Thus the term community refers to many aspects of social life, spatiality, symbolic reference, and political decision making and social activity. Despite the divergent uses of the concept of community, there are three main ways of understanding community, which encompass much of the available sociological research: (i) community as locality; (ii) community as a shared sense of belonging; and (iii) community as a social network (Blackshaw, 2010).}, url = {http://www.iawfonline.org/pdf/3rd\%20Human\%20Dimensions\%20Conference\%20Proceedings\%20-\%20FINAL.pdf}, author = {Suasan Chaplin and Peter Fairbrother} } @article {BF-3136, title = {Gender matters: Applying a gendered analysis to bushfire research in Australia}, year = {2012}, institution = {RMIT}, abstract = {The study of gender and associated questions about the social construction of masculinity and femininity have become established as important elements of social science research. While gender has often been a focus in disciplines such as sociology and anthropology, the social construction of gender is now analysed in areas ranging from criminology to international political economy. The importance of gender is also recognised in the trend towards {\textquoteleft}gender mainstreaming{\textquoteright} evident in many national and international policy discourses (Walby 2005). Disaster studies adopted the use of gendered analysis quite late, however, and it was not until the late 1990s that the influential collection The Gendered Terrain of Disaster (Enarson \& Morrow 1998) was published. Since then, there has been a steady increase in international literature dealing with the relationship between gender and disaster. Australian research on bushfire has yet to make use of the insights from this literature and this discussion paper offers ways in which a gendered analysis of bushfire in Australia might be developed. There is a very limited amount of work which mentions gender in the context of bushfire in Australia (Poiner 1990; Cox 1998; Beaston \& McLennan 2005; Beaston et al. 2008; DeLaine et al. 2008; Maleta 2009; Eriksen et al. 2010) and, for the most part, gender is a peripheral rather than central theme (cf. Eriksen et al. 2010). Given the lack of available research dealing with the Australian context, this discussion paper draws on two other major areas of literature that are likely to provide the most suitable frameworks for applying gendered analyses. The first is the critical, academic literature on gender and disaster which is still rather limited in volume but has strong conceptual grounding. The second is literature on gender and rurality which is fed by the disciplines of rural sociology and gender studies. Both are relatively new areas of academic interest and feature significant research gaps which would be suitable for further study. This discussion paper aims to draw on the international literature regarding gender, disaster, masculinity and rurality and suggest ways in which insights from these areas may be used to better understand bushfire preparedness, communication, response and recovery in Australia as well as avenues for future research. The latter sections of this paper offer ways of developing a theoretical framework to understand how and why bushfire preparation, response and recovery are heavily gendered in the Australian context. This aims to move beyond simply looking at women and bushfire, and instead adopting an understanding that gender is fundamentally relational. This approach means men and masculinity must become part of the analysis as well. The paper concludes by considering how bushfires in Australia have become socially constructed as {\textquoteleft}men{\textquoteright}s business{\textquoteright}. }, url = {http://www.bushfirecrc.com/resources/gender-matters-applying-gendered-analysis-bushfire-research-australia}, author = {Keith Toh and Richard Philips and Meagan Tyler and Peter Fairbrother and Suasan Chaplin and Bernard Mees} } @proceedings {BF-3055, title = {Capturing Community Members{\textquoteright} Bushfire Experiences: The Lake Clifton (WA) Fire}, year = {2011}, month = {2011}, publisher = {Bushfire CRC}, address = {Sydney, Australia}, issn = {978-0-9806759-9-3}, url = {http://www.bushfirecrc.com/resources/pages-272-277-capturing-community-members-bushfire-experiences-lake-clifton-fire}, author = {Patrick Dunlop and Jim McLennan and Elliott, Glenn and Leanne Kelly and Riseborough, K and Meagan Tyler and Peter Fairbrother} }