Published Resources Details

Book

Author
O'Gorman, Emily
Title
Wetlands in a dry land: more-than-human histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin
Imprint
University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, 2021, 288 pp
ISBN/ISSN
9780295749044
Url
https://www.mup.com.au/books/wetlands-in-a-dry-land-paperback-softback
Subject
History of Australian Science - General
Description

Republished in 2024 by Melbourne University Press; ISBN 9780522880618 (paperback), 9780522880625 (ebook)

Abstract

Quote: What counts as a wetland, especially in Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth? In the name of agriculture, urban growth and disease control, humans have drained, filled or otherwise destroyed nearly 87 percent of the world's wetlands over the past three centuries. Only recently have wetlands been widely recognised as worth preserving for their diverse plants, animals, insects, and their human histories. Examining Australia's own Murray-Darling Basin, environmental historian Emily O'Gorman shows how people and animals have shaped wetlands since the late nineteenth century. O'Gorman draws on archival research and original interviews to illuminate how Aboriginal peoples acted then and now as custodians of the landscape, how the movements of water birds affected farmers and how mosquitoes have defied efforts to fully understand, let alone control, them. Situating Australia's history within global environmental humanities conversations, O'Gorman argues that we need to understand wetlands as socioecological landscapes that transcend the nature-culture divide and to embrace non-Western ways of knowing and being. Only then can we begin to create sustainable relationships with, and futures for, the wetlands.

Source
cohn 2022

Related Published resources

hasReview

  • O'Gorman, Emily, Wetlands in a dry land: more-than-human histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (2021)
    Clark, Anna, 'Emily O'Gorman provides a new history of rivers and wetlands', History Australia, 19 (1), (2022), 192-3. Details
  • O'Gorman, Emily, Wetlands in a dry land: more-than-human histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (2021)
    Hore, Jarrod, Australian historical studies, 53 (2), (2022), 348-9. Details
  • O'Gorman, Emily, Wetlands in a dry land: more-than-human histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (2021)
    Pearce, Lilian M., Historical Records of Australian Science, 33 (2), (2022), 191-2, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR22012. Details

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260