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
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.
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
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
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:
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
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
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.
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).
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.
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