Maxine Newlands

Knitting Nannas and Frackman: A gender analysis of Australian anti-coal seam gas documentaries (CSG) and implications for environmental adult education

ABSTRACT Frackman (FM) and Knitting Nannas (KN) are two documentaries about the anti-coal seam gas movement in Australia. Frackman features a former construction worker turned eco-activist, Dayne Pratzky (DP), fighting coal seam gas extraction. Knitting Nannas follows a group of women also protesting fracking. In this article, we set a challenge to environmental adult educationists to expose gender agendas embedded in environmental education documentaries. A scene-by-scene analysis of these two documentaries through a poststructuralist ecofeminist evaluation reveals there are lessons to be learned because of the repetition of gender blindness in FM, whereas KN offers potential solutions for greater inclusivity in environmental education. The article concludes with recommendations for community-based approaches in environmental adult education.

Coral Battleground? Re-examining the ‘Save the Reef’ campaign in 1960s Australia

Today’s campaigns to protect the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have parallels with historical campaigns. With hindsight, we can more clearly see the way environmental discourses are socially constructed as well as their outcomes. This is potentially insightful for contemporary environmentalists. Beginning in 1967, the Save the Reef campaign had a thoughtful media strategy and sought to socially construct the GBR as a precious ecosystem that was at risk from exploitation. Histories of this campaign remember environmentalists as a weak, David-like contender in a fight against the powerful Goliath of the Queensland government and extractive industries. Using the historical archives as our primary data source, however, reveals that these memories are overstated and that environmentalists actually enjoyed widespread support. Moreover, we see that the GBR has no explicit ‘opponents’; even those who sought to exploit it came from a position of pragmatic conservationism, believing exploitation and conservation could coexist. The historical struggle over power and control of the GBR shows the positive outcomes which emerged from broad coalitions, as opposed to an adversarial and combative approach to activism.

Contesting capital in neoliberal times: innovation, resilience and conformity in the Occupy movement

[Extract] 2011 was the year of uprisings, protest and a revitalised interest in alternative ways of undertaking politics. Protests began with the Arab spring, swiftly followed by the Spanish summer revolution (Indignants movement) and culminated in the autumn Occupy movement, all linked through spatial squares and streets of Cairo, Madrid and New York.