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Community resistance to climate change:

Discourses of Tasmanian farmers

Aysha Jean Fleming, BA(Hons), BTeach(Hons)

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

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Declaration

This thesis contains no material that has been accepted for the award of any other

higher degree or graduate diploma in any tertiary institution. To the best of my

knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or

written by another person, except when due reference is made in the text of the

thesis.

Aysha Fleming

Statement for copying

This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance

with the Copyright Act 1968.

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Abstract

Climate change is a major issue for agriculture. Changes in farming practices will

be necessary to reduce emissions and to adapt to a changing climate and to new

social expectations. The way the agricultural community is able to respond is

particularly important for the promotion of action. This thesis examines farmers’

responses and resistance to climate change, with the primary aim to improve

relevant communication in agricultural extension. The research demonstrates how

the use of discourse analysis creates opportunities to increase the agency of

farmers and overcome resistance to change.

An examination of the published literature on climate change communication and

behaviour demonstrates that currently the literature constructs three dominant

discourses. A review using the principles of critical literacy illustrates the ways in

which these discourses create resistance in farming communities and shows that

the discourses in the literature do not include the views of farmers. Consequently,

this thesis develops discourses specific to two Tasmanian farming communities

developed from interviews conducted in 2008. The 68 respondents included 22

apple growers, 29 dairy farmers, 12 agricultural consultants and 5 climate

scientists working on fine scale climate projections for agriculture.

This research is cross-disciplinary in its application of poststructural theory in an

agricultural context, and in its use of discourse analysis techniques to examine

farmers’ capacities to act and their resistance to change. The discourse analysis is

informed by poststructural theory with a focus on language, individual capacities

for action and possibilities for change. The study uses constructivist grounded

theory (Charmaz 2006) and a genealogical discourse analysis (Carabine 2001) to

construct four dominant discourses which inform farmers’ perspectives of climate

change. Farmers are located across the range of these discourses. The discourses

are the Discourse of Money, an issue of business viability; the Discourse of The

Earth, an environmental concern; The Discourse of Human Responsibility, a call

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information. The features and competing concerns of each discourse contribute to

resistance to act on climate change by limiting farmers’ possibilities for action.

Practitioners working on agricultural policy and extension programs involving

climate change can improve their methods of communication by varying their

approaches based on the knowledge of how different discourses shape farmers’

responses.

The key proposition of the thesis is to argue for multiple understandings of

climate change and the potential of awareness of discourse to increase the agency

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Publications deriving from this thesis

Peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters:

Fleming, A & Vanclay, F 2009a, ‘Discourses of climate change: understanding farmer resistance’ in J Martin, M Rogers & C Winter (eds), Climate change responses across regional Australia: social learning and adaptation, VURRN Press, Ballarat, pp. 155-176.

Fleming, A & Vanclay, F 2009b, ‘Using discourse analysis to better inform the practice of extension’ Extension Farming Systems Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1-10.

Fleming, A & Vanclay, F 2010, ‘Farmer responses to climate change and sustainable agriculture: a review’, Agronomy for Sustainable Development vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 11-19.

Other:

Submission to the Inquiry into the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change, March 2009, available at:

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Table of contents

Declaration ii

Abstract iii

Publications deriving from this thesis v

Table of contents vi

Table of figures vii

Glossary of terms, acronyms and abbreviations viii

Acknowledgments x

Preface xi

Chapter 1 – Key concepts and overview: discourse,

resistance, agricultural extension 1

Chapter 2 – Readings for resistance: climate change in

a social context 39

Chapter 3 – From concept to interview:

constructivist grounded theory and discourse analysis 79

Chapter 4 – Preliminary analysis: from transcripts to

categories 92

Chapter 5 – The analysis: interrogating discourse 122

Chapter 6 – Moving towards agency: applications for

extension and policy 165

Chapter 7 – Conclusion 184

References 189

Appendix: Papers published

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List of Figures, Tables and Boxes

Figure 1: The ‘Diffusion of Innovations Model’ 47

Figure 2: Screenshot showing coding 93

Figure 3: Screenshot showing the hierarchy of codes, categories and themes

or potential discourses 98

Table 1: Summary of the key considerations of education for sustainability,

critical literacy and extension 72

Table 2: Scripts about climate change that limit action 74

Table 3: Initial codes 96

Table 4: Categories 101

Table 5: Summary of the four discourses 157

Box 1: Carabine’s steps for analysis 84

Box 2: Charmaz’s steps for analysis 84

Box 3: Typical interview prompts 88

Box 4: Memo excerpt 94

Box 5: Memo excerpt 100

Box 6: Memo excerpt 120

Box 7: Categories into themes/potential discourses 120

Box 8: Discourse of Money transcript excerpt 124

Box 9: Discourse of The Earth transcript excerpt 133

Box 10: Discourse of Human Responsibility transcript excerpt 139

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Glossary of terms, acronyms and abbreviations

ABARE is the Australia Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Adaptation is changes in practices that aim to reduce the adverse impacts of on anticipated or actual change in the operating environment and take advantage of any opportunities that may arise (Gunasekera 2007, p. 498).

Agency is how an individual is able to act, including awareness of options and capacity to implement those options.

APEN is the Australasia Pacific Extension Network.

ARIES is the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability.

CFT is the Climate Futures for Tasmania project.

CSIRO is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

CO2 is carbon dioxide. When it is written CO2, it is because the interviewee said the letters and the number, instead of the words carbon dioxide.

CPRS is the carbon pollution reduction scheme in Australia that is similar to emissions trading.

Critical literacy is a theory and method of teaching that foregrounds issues of power and positioning in learning and aims to open up possibilities for other, multiple, alternatives.

Discourse is a particular use of language. ‘A discourse provides a set of possible

statements about a given area, and organises and gives structure to the manner in which a particular topic, object, process is to be talked about. In that it provides descriptions, rules, permissions and prohibitions of social and individual actions’ (Kress 1985, p. 7).

Discursive is the adjective term for discourse and means created by discourse.

DPIPWE is the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment.

DPIW is the Department of Primary Industries and Water.

EFS is education for sustainability. EFS is a particular educational philosophy.

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Gender is the ‘socially constructed identities, roles and expectations associated with males and females’ (Patt et al. 2009, p. 83).

Ideology is what society values as truth and the truth effects created by particular discourses.

IPCC is the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC produces reports on climate change for governments collated from the scientific data.

Mitigation is human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (Gunasekera 2007).

Myths are stories that capture familiar assumptions about reality (Hulme 2009)

Poststructural is the theoretical framework for this research, where the implications of language are privileged and multiple views encouraged.

Resistance is a potential site for change and transformation, ‘the means through which individuals change social processes and structures and build alternatives’ (Sage 2007, para. 2).

SELN is the State Extension leaders Network.

Scripts are words that people latch on to from public discourses that justify their own views such as ‘climate change is just a natural cycle’. Scripts and agriculture are explored by Vanclay & Silvasti (2009) and Vanclay et al. (2007).

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Acknowledgements

I have a great many people to thank. Most will never read this declaration, nevertheless I must acknowledge that everyone I met with, talked to, and worked with during this project contributed to my ideas and energy and I am sincerely grateful.

Everyone I interviewed was welcoming, supportive and fascinating. Speaking to them and using their voices has been my privilege.

Frank – I am lucky to have been able to work with you and I wish you all the best for your new life. Thank you.

Claire – you have done so much, given me so much and are a constant inspiration. Without you I could not have achieved this project. Andrea – thanks for your edits!

CSIRO – thanks for the financial support, getting me started and networking opportunities, special thanks to Shaun Lisson and Mark Howden.

CFT – thanks for financial support and including me in your project. Thanks especially to Suzie, your friendship has been a delight!

Fellow PhD students – Thanks for sharing the good time and good luck.

Last but certainly not least to my family: Steve – thanks for giving me the idea in the first place and for endless, invaluable help along the way.

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Preface

I first became concerned with climate change through the media when it was

already an established issue in the science. I was struck by the level of confusion

and anxiety and the lack of decisive action. I wanted to help improve

communication and learning about climate change using my training as a teacher.

I have always lived in Tasmania and associated strongly with it and I felt that the

people most at risk of climate change in Tasmania were farmers. In 2007 farmers

were dealing with an unprecedented extended drought and they seemed

particularly vulnerable to many other impacts of climate change. When it was

suggested that I compare two different agricultural industries, the dairy and apple

industries, I was intrigued. How would the two industries approach climate

change? Coming as I did from a background outside of climate change science or

agriculture, I expected that farmers would probably know far more about climate

change than I and I was fascinated to find out what farmers thought and how they

were learning and changing.

Over the course of my research, several issues seemed to me to be strikingly

similar between my new context researching farmers’ views of climate change

and my previous context of teaching. The first was the importance of language

and the way different uses of language can have a profound and fundamental

impact on the way we view the world, our place, and our capacity to act. The

second was the importance of valuing different types of knowledge in order to

help people to change. Just as it had been important for me to recognise that

students in the classroom already had valuable knowledge, I found that

recognition of farmers’ own ways of framing issues, problems and solutions for

climate change was crucial to understanding their reasons for action and

resistance. Recognition of farmers’ perspectives can help people working to

communicate climate change to engage with farmers. It is the goal of this

research to provide this recognition and to improve climate change

References

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