Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T15:32:58.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No one to fill my shoes: narrative practices of three ageing Australian male farmers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2015

ZOE O'CALLAGHAN  and
JENI WARBURTON
ZOE O'CALLAGHAN*
Affiliation:
John Richards Initiative, La Trobe University, Wodonga, Australia.
JENI WARBURTON
Affiliation:
John Richards Initiative, La Trobe University, Wodonga, Australia.
*
Address for correspondence: Zoe O'Callaghan, La Trobe University – Health Sciences, PO Box 821 Wodonga, Wodonga, Victoria 3689, Australia E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ageing Australian farmers face many uncertainties associated with wider social, economic and climate change. Significantly for many farmers, ageing means the end not only of a life-long occupation but the end of the farm that has often been in the family for many generations. In turn, the prospect of this discontinuity breaches long-held cultural images of Australian farming and farmers. For individual male farmers approaching retirement age, the lack of succession and discontinuation of the family's ownership of, and attachment to the land, poses threats for social and personal identity. This paper examines the narratives of three male, baby-boom Australian farmers to tease out the impact of ageing and the possible loss of the family farm on the ways that they construct their situations and their self-identity. It illustrates the narrative practices that these men employ as they work to validate their self-identities within particular narrative environments, and through a range of outmoded and contemporary material conditions that mediate their selves and lives. The approach exemplified in this paper focuses on the processes and phases of analysis to show how the farmers craft their narrative as well as the individuality, complexity and coherence of their accounts.

Keywords

narrative practicefarmingidentitysuccessful ageing
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , March 2017 , pp. 441 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alston, M. 2004. Who is down on the farm? Social aspects of Australian agriculture in the 21st century. Agriculture and Human Values, 12, 1, 37–46.Google Scholar
Alston, M. 2010. Rural male suicide in Australia. Social Science & Medicine, 74, 4, 515–22.Google Scholar
Alston, M. 2011. Gender and climate change in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 47, 1, 53–70.Google Scholar
Alston, M. and Kent, J. 2009. Generation X-pendable: the social exclusion of rural and remote young people. Journal of Sociology, 45, 1, 89–107.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006. 7104.0.55.001 – Agriculture in Focus: Farming Families. Australian Government, Canberra.Google Scholar
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2010. A Snapshot of Men's Health in Regional and Remote Australia. Rural Health Series, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra.Google Scholar
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2012. Australia's Health 2012. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra.Google Scholar
Barr, N. 2002. Social trajectories for rural landscaping. Connections: Farm, Food and Resource Issues, 2, 37–45.Google Scholar
Barr, N. 2009. The House on the Hill: The Transformation of Australia's Farming Communities. Land and Water Australia in association with Halstead Press, Canberra.Google Scholar
Barr, N. and Cary, J. 1992. Greening a Brown Land: The Australian Search for Sustainable Land Use. MacMillan Education Australia, Sydney.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartlett, H., Warburton, J., Lui, C., Peach, L. and Carroll, M. 2013. Preventing social isolation in later life: findings and insights from a pilot Queensland intervention study. Ageing & Society, 33, 7, 1167–89.Google Scholar
Bell, S. 2005. The wheatbelt in contemporary rural mythology. Rural Society, 15, 2, 176–90.Google Scholar
Brandth, B. and Haugen, M. 2005. Doing rural masculinity – from logging to outfield tourism. Journal of Gender Studies, 14, 1, 13–22.Google Scholar
Brumby, S., Chandrasekara, A., McCoombe, S., Kremer, P. and Lewandowski, P. 2012. Cardiovascular risk factors and psychological distress in Australian farming communities. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 20, 3, 131–7.Google Scholar
Bryant, L. and Garnham, B. 2013. Beyond discourses of drought: the micro-politics of the wine industry and farmer distress. Journal of Rural Studies, 32, 1–9.Google Scholar
Cattan, M., White, M., Bond, J. and Learmouth, A. 2005. Preventing social isolation and loneliness among older people: a systematic review of health promotion interventions. Ageing & Society, 25, 1, 41–67.Google Scholar
Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health 2007. Tackling Tough Times: Through Drought and Beyond. Final Report of the NSW Drought Mental Health Assistance Package. Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health, Orange, Australia.Google Scholar
Clark, J. 1985. Naturalism and nationalism. In Clark, J. and Whitelaw, B. (eds), Golden Summers: Heidelberg and Beyond. National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria, 128–49.Google Scholar
Cocklin, C. and Dibden, J. 2002. Taking stock: farmers’ reflections on the deregulation of Australian dairying. Australian Geographer, 33, 1, 29–42.Google Scholar
Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P. 1996. Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complimentary Research Strategies. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.Google Scholar
Coldwell, I. 2010. Masculinities in the rural and the agricultural: a literature review. Sociologia Ruralis, 50, 2, 171–97.Google Scholar
Drought Policy Review Expert Social Panel 2008. It's About People: Changing Perspectives. A Report to Government by an Expert Panel on Dryness. Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Canberra.Google Scholar
Fraser, C., Smith, K., Judd, F., Humphreys, J., Fragar, L. and Henderson, A. 2005. Farming and mental health problems and mental illness. International Journal of Social Psychology, 51, 4, 340–9.Google Scholar
Geldens, P. 2007. Out-migration: young Victorians and the family farm. People and Place, 15, 1, 80–7.Google Scholar
Gray, I. and Phillips, E. 2001. Beyond life in ‘the bush’: Australian rural cultures. In Lockie, S. and Bourke, L. (eds), Rurality Bites: The Social and Environmental Transformation of Rural Australia. Pluto Press, Annandale, Australia, 52–60.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. 1995. Voice, context and narrative in aging research. Canadian Journal on Aging, 14, 1, 68–81.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. 1997. The New Language of Qualitative Method. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. 1998. Narrative practice and the coherence of personal stories. The Sociological Quarterly, 39, 1, 163–25.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. 1999. Constructionist perspectives on aging. In Bengtson, V. L. and Schaie, K. W. (eds), Handbook of Theories of Aging. Springer, New York, 287–305.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. 2008. Narrative ethnography. In Hesse-Biber, S. and Leavy, P. (eds), Handbook of Emergent Methods. Guilford Press, New York.Google Scholar
Gullette, M. 2003. From life storytelling to age autobiography. Journal of Aging Studies, 17, 1, 101–11.Google Scholar
Gullifer, J. and Thompson, A. P. 2006. Subjective realities of older male farmers: self-perceptions of ageing and work. Rural Society, 16, 1, 80–97.Google Scholar
Heenan, D. 2006. The factors influencing access to health and social care in the farming communities of County Down, Northern Ireland. Ageing & Society, 26, 3, 373–91.Google Scholar
Holstein, J. A. and Gubrium, J. F. 2000. The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Holstein, J. A. and Gubrium, J. F. 2007. Constructionist perspectives on the life course. Sociology Compass, 1, 1, 1–18.Google Scholar
Horton, G., Hanna, L. and Kelly, B. 2010. Drought, drying and climate change: emerging health issues for ageing Australians in rural areas. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 29, 1, 2–7.Google Scholar
Hughes, M. and Heycox, K. 2010. Older People, Ageing and Social Work: Knowledge for Practice. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.Google Scholar
Inder, K., Berry, H. and Kelly, B. 2011. Using cohort studies to investigate rural and remote mental health. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 19, 4, 171–8.Google Scholar
Judd, F., Jackson, H., Fraser, C., Murray, G., Robins, G. and Komiti, A. 2006. Understanding suicide in Australian farmers. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 41, 1, 1–10.Google Scholar
Kennedy, A., Maple, M., McKay, K. and Brumby, S. 2014. Suicide and accidental death in Australia's rural farming communities: a review of the literature. Rural and Remote Health, 14, 2517.Google Scholar
Lawrence, G. 2005. Globalisation, agricultural production systems and rural restructuring. In Cocklin, C. and Dibden, J. (eds), Sustainability and Change in Rural Australia. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 104–38.Google Scholar
McAdams, D. 1993. The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self. Guilford Press, New York.Google Scholar
McColl, L. 2007. The influence of bush identity on attitudes to mental health in a Queensland community. Rural Society, 17, 2, 107–24.Google Scholar
Mendham, E. and Curtis, A. 2010. Taking over the reins: trends and impacts of changes in rural property ownership. Society and Natural Resources, 23, 7, 653–68.Google Scholar
Ní Laoire, C. 2005. ‘You're not a man at all!’ Masculinity, responsibility, and staying on the land in contemporary Ireland. Irish Journal of Sociology, 14, 2, 94–114.Google Scholar
O'Callaghan, Z. E. 2014. Men on the land: the identities of baby boom farmers in the border country. A narrative ethnography investigating how male farmers within the first wave of baby boomers see themselves in old age. Unpublished thesis, La Trobe University, Wodonga, Australia.Google Scholar
Ozanne, E. 2009. Negotiating identity in late life: diversity among Australian baby boomers. Australian Social Work, 62, 2, 132–54.Google Scholar
Page, A. and Fragar, L. 2002. Suicide in Australian farming, 1988–1997. Australasian Psychiatry, 36, 1, 81–5.Google Scholar
Phoenix, C. and Griffin, M. 2013. Narratives at work: what can stories of older athletes do? Ageing & Society, 33, 2, 243–66.Google Scholar
Phoenix, C. and Sparkes, A. 2006. Keeping it in the family: narrative maps of ageing and young athletes’ perceptions of their futures. Ageing & Society, 26, 4, 631–48.Google Scholar
Pollner, M. and Stein, J. 1996. Narrative mapping of social worlds: the voice of experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. Symbolic Interaction, 19, 3, 203–23.Google Scholar
Ramirez-Ferrero, E. 2005. Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P. 1991. Life in quest of narrative. In Wood, D. (ed.), On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative Interpretation. Routledge, London, 20–33.Google Scholar
Rogers, M., O'Callaghan, Z., Barr, N., Brumby, S. and Warburton, J. 2013. Healthy ageing: farming into the twilight. Rural Society, 22, 3, 251–62.Google Scholar
Sartore, G. M., Kelly, B., Stain, H., Albrecht, G. and Higginbotham, N. 2008. Control, uncertainty, and expectations for the future: a qualitative study of the impact of drought on a rural Australian community. Rural and Remote Health, 8, 3, 950–64.Google Scholar
Silvasti, T. 2003. The cultural model of ‘the good farmer’ and the environmental question in Finland. Agriculture and Human Values, 20, 2, 143–50.Google Scholar
Spector-Mersel, G. 2006. Never-aging stories: Western hegemonic masculinity scripts. Journal of Gender Studies, 15, 1, 67–82.Google Scholar
Stehlik, D. 2004. From ‘snowball’ to ‘rhizome’: a rethinking of method. Rural Society, 14, 1, 36–45.Google Scholar
United Nations 2002. Madrid Delegation Report to the World Assembly on Ageing. United Nations, Valencia, Spain.Google Scholar
Vanclay, F. 2004. Social principles for agricultural extension to assist in the promotion of natural resource management. Animal Production Science, 44, 3, 213–22.Google Scholar
Vanclay, F., Silvasti, T. and Howden, P. 2007. Styles, parables and scripts: diversity and conformity in Australian and Finnish agriculture. Rural Society, 17, 1, 3–8.Google Scholar
Walker, J., Orpin, P., Baynes, H., Stratford, E., Boyer, K., Mahjouri, N., Patterson, C., Robinson, A. and Carty, J. 2013. Insights and principles for supporting social engagement in rural older people. Ageing & Society, 33, 6, 938–63.Google Scholar
Ward, R. 1992. The Australian legend. In Whitlock, G. and Carter, D. (eds), Images of Australia. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Australia.Google Scholar
Wenger, G. C. and Burholt, V. 2004. Changes in levels of social isolation and loneliness among older people in a rural area: a twenty-year longitudinal study. Canadian Journal on Aging, 23, 2, 115–28.Google Scholar
Winterton, R. and Warburton, J. 2011. Does place matter? Reviewing the experience of disadvantage for older people in rural Australia. Rural Society, 20, 2, 187–97.Google Scholar
Wythes, A. J. and Lyons, M. 2006. Leaving the land: an exploratory study of retirement for a small group of Australian men. Rural and Remote Health, 6, 3, 531.Google Scholar