Lesley Head | University of Wollongong (original) (raw)

Books by Lesley Head

Papers by Lesley Head

Households within affluent countries are increasingly prominent in climate change adaptation rese... more Households within affluent countries are increasingly prominent in climate change adaptation research; meanwhile, social and cultural research has sought to render more complex the dynamics of domesticity and home spaces. Both bodies of work are nevertheless framed within a view of the future that is recognizable from the present, a future reached via socioecological change that is gradual rather than transformative or catastrophic. In this article, we acknowledge the agency of extreme biophysical forces and ask what everyday household life might be like in an unstable future significantly different from the present. We revisit our own longitudinal empirical research examining household sustainability and reinterpret key results in a more volatile frame influenced by political ecological work on disasters. We seek to move beyond incremental to transformative conceptions of change and invert vulnerability as capacity. Vulnerability and capacity are contingent temporally and spatially and experienced intersubjectively. The resources for survival are ultimately social and therefore compel closer scrutiny of, among other things, household life.

Geoforum, 2013

This paper explores the proposition that gifting is a little recognised yet important practice bo... more This paper explores the proposition that gifting is a little recognised yet important practice bound up in the quest for sustainable consumption, which has largely been studied with reference to market rather than gift economies. It draws on gift theories in economic anthropology which explain gifts as engendering social relations of reciprocity and beyond, and shaping social life differently to commodities. Understanding how and why commodities become gifts (and vice versa), we contend, provides a new way of understanding some of the complex ways in which social relations are implicated in sustainable consumption. We use a study of Christmas gifting practices within a group of environmentally engaged households to begin to empirically explore if and how environmental considerations are expressed in the gift economy. We conclude that the fashioning of a particular social identity, namely, the 'green consumer' can operate very differently in the context of gift-exchange than in the context of non-gifting consumption.

Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 2013

Households are increasingly addressed as a focus of environmental policy, with varying degrees of... more Households are increasingly addressed as a focus of environmental policy, with varying degrees of success in achieving more sustainable outcomes at the domestic level. Part of the problem is black boxing, in which the inherent complexity of households tends to be taken for granted. Here we draw on cultural environmental research to put forward a more sophisticated conceptualisationthe connected household approach. The connected household framework uses the themes of governance, materiality and practice to illustrate and explain the ways everyday life, and the internal politics of households, are connected to wider systems of provision and socioeconomic networks. We introduce zones of friction and zones of traction to illustrate different pathways of connection between the spheres. Friction and traction can help decision-makers think through the possibilities and constraints of working at the household scale. The approach is illustrated using the example of water, with a focus on the variable success of water tanks in reducing mains water consumption during the Millenium drought.

Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 2013

Progress in Human Geography, 2012

Anthropogenic climate change is a quintessentially modern problem in its historical origins and d... more Anthropogenic climate change is a quintessentially modern problem in its historical origins and discursive framing, but how well does modernist thinking provide us with the tools to solve the problems it created? On one hand even though anthropogenic climate change is argued to be a problem of human origins, solutions to which will require human actions and engagements, modernity separates people from climate change in a number of ways. On the other, while amodern or more-than-human concepts of multiple and relational agency are more consistent with the empirical evidence of humans being deeply embedded in earth surface processes, these approaches have not sufficiently accounted for human power in climate change, nor articulated generative pathways forward. We argue that recent research in human geography has much to offer because it routinely combines both deconstructive impulses and empirical compulsions (ethnographic, material, embodied, practice-based). It has a rather unique possibility to be both deconstructive and generative/creative. We bring together more-than-human geographies and cross-scalar work on agency and governance to suggest how to reframe climate change and climate change response in two main ways: elaborating human and non-human continuities and differences, and identifying and harnessing vernacular capacities.

Geographical Research, 2012

The usefulness of the concept of biotic nativeness has been challenged in both the social and nat... more The usefulness of the concept of biotic nativeness has been challenged in both the social and natural sciences, for different reasons. This paper explores the particular construction of nativeness in Australia in relation to plants, showing that the definition builds on and inscribes more deeply the boundary between humans and the rest of nature seen in the wider literature. In this context two further boundaries are etched: between some humans and others, and before and after European colonisation. Such a use of nativeness as an axiom of environmental management is argued to be problematic, foreclosing a number of future options just when we need to increase our capacity to deal with contingency and unpredictability. But if Australia has experienced distinctive historical processes of entrenching these boundaries, it also has a distinctive heritage of destabilisation in a range of geographic work. The paper discusses how we might build on this heritage to imagine more open futures in which the problematic boundaries were removed. Some of these futures resonate with vernacular recombinations of plants from diverse origins.

We are in the middle of a desert and we get rain twice a year if we're lucky for an hour-and-a-ha... more We are in the middle of a desert and we get rain twice a year if we're lucky for an hour-and-a-half at a time.' (Keith, Alice Springs) 'We're not short of water here.' (Tom, Alice Springs) 'I love water [laughs]. I think I have a fetish about watering gardens … I just get extreme pleasure out of being in the garden.' (Jacqui, Wollongong)

Cultural Geographies, 1996

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2009

Australian Geographer, 2009

Holocene, 2003

Environmental change cannot be summed up in terms of one single, undisputable alteration in the E... more Environmental change cannot be summed up in terms of one single, undisputable alteration in the Earth's system. On the contrary, environmental change manifests itself through diverse and often unexpected effects throughout the range of both the Earth's ecosystems and our ...

Australian Feminist Studies, 1990

... Page 10. 38 WENDY BECK AND LESLEY HEAD . . . women do not seem to use or make any type of chi... more ... Page 10. 38 WENDY BECK AND LESLEY HEAD . . . women do not seem to use or make any type of chipped stone tool which is unique to their sex in the Western Desert. Females will be very difficult to see archaeologically . . . ...

Annals of The Association of American Geographers, 2011

An increasing body of research shows that climate change takes expression in local processes such... more An increasing body of research shows that climate change takes expression in local processes such as increased climatic variability; climatic risk is managed in relation to other risks in agricultural households; and adaptation is an everyday social process as much as a question of new crop varieties. Understanding how farming households experience the interactions of climatic variability, multifaceted risk, adaptation, and everyday social processes is crucial to informed policy development. A study of New South Wales wheat farming households during the failed harvest seasons of 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 provided a unique opportunity to examine how they approached unprecedented drought in relation to both past and future changes. We analyzed their experience of the hybrid assemblage comprising risk, climate change, and a deregulated policy environment in their everyday lives and individual bodies. These farmers are not adapting to future conditions but are in continuous interplay among multiple temporalities, including memories of the past. They see themselves as adapting in situ rather than relocating northwards with predicted rainfall movements. Capacities to deal with risk and uncertainty vary with a range of social and locational factors, tending to coalesce into patterns of vulnerability and resilience that offer strong predictors as to which households are most likely to be sustainable in the longer term. Un cuerpo de investigación en crecimiento indica que el cambio climático se hace evidente en procesos locales como mayor variabilidad climática; el riesgo climático en los hogares agrícolas se maneja en relación con otros riesgos; y la adaptación es un proceso social cotidiano tanto como una cuestión de nuevas variedades de cultivos. Entender la manera como los hogares agrícolas experimentan las interacciones de variabilidad climática, riesgo multifacético, adaptación y los procesos sociales cotidianos es crucial para una política de desarrollo bien informada. Un estudio de las familias que se ocupaban del cultivo de trigo en Nuevas Gales del Sur durante las fallidas cosechas de 2006–2007 y 2007–2008 proporcionó una oportunidad única para examinar la manera como ellos sobrellevaron una sequía sin precedentes en relación con cambios pasados y futuros. Analizamos su experiencia frente al complejo híbrido que incluía riesgo, cambio climático y un escenario de política no regulada en sus vidas cotidianas y cuerpos individuales. Estos agricultores no se están adaptando a futuras condiciones pero están en el juego de acciones recíprocas de múltiples temporalidades, incluyendo recuerdos del pasado. Se ven a sí mismos adaptándose en el propio lugar en vez de relocalizarse hacia el norte al vaivén de condiciones anticipadas de lluvia. Las capacidades para enfrentarse al riesgo y la incertidumbre varían dentro de un ámbito de factores sociales y locacionales, tendiendo a juntarse en patrones de vulnerabilidad y resiliencia que ofrecen buena predicción sobre los hogares con mayores perspectivas de sostenibilidad a largo plazo.

Geoforum, 2013

Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 2013

Progress in Human Geography, 2012

Geographical Research, 2012

Cultural Geographies, 1996

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2009

Australian Geographer, 2009

Holocene, 2003

Australian Feminist Studies, 1990

Annals of The Association of American Geographers, 2011

Gender Place and Culture, 2012

Households in the affluent West have become an important target of government and NGO campaigns t... more Households in the affluent West have become an important target of government and NGO campaigns to encourage more environmentally sustainable behaviours, but there has been little research into the gender implications of such policies. This article investigates the role of gender and time in the sustainability practices of six heterosexual households with young children, committed participants in the Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge programme in 2009. Women spent more total time on sustainable practices, and did so more often. Men's contributions related mostly to gardening and transport, in longer blocks of time. In these households, sustainability became a highly gendered practice because of the different roles in homemaking. Women resisted constructions of themselves as being closer to nature, and shouldered expectations of sustainability as part of their roles as mothers and household managers. They experienced time as overlapping and fragmented, with no distinction between work and leisure. Men contributed to sustainable practices mainly through activities understood as leisure, in longer blocks of time. Our temporality lens also illustrates the gendered ways that old practices become deroutinised and new practices reroutinised. While men were often responsible for the labour and upfront time required to start or research a project, the responsibility of everyday implementation and habit-changing commonly fell to women. These findings illustrate how gendered analyses help identify both opportunities for, and constraints against, change towards sustainability. Opportunities include the strong connections between both mothers' and fathers' understanding of good parenting and the importance they attach to household sustainability. Constraints include the temporal challenges faced by households, and how these interact with wider structural and labour roles.Los hogares en el oeste adinerado se han vuelto un blanco importante para las campañas del gobierno y las ONG por alentar comportamientos más sostenibles desde el punto de vista del medioambiente, pero ha habido poca investigación sobre las implicaciones de género de tales políticas. Este artículo investiga el rol del género y del tiempo en las prácticas de sustentabilidad de seis hogares heterosexuales con niños pequeños, participantes comprometidos del programa ‘Super Challenge Illawarra Sostenible’ de 2009. Las mujeres pasaron más tiempo total desarrollando prácticas sostenibles, y lo hicieron con más frecuencia. Las contribuciones de los hombres estuvieron mayormente relacionadas con el cultivo y el transporte, en bloques de tiempo más prolongados. En estos hogares, la sustentabilidad se volvió una práctica altamente generizada debido a los diferentes roles en el mantenimiento del hogar. Las mujeres se resistieron a construcciones que las ubicaban más cerca de la naturaleza, y cargaron sobre sí mismas las expectativas de la sustentabilidad como parte de su rol de madres y administradoras del hogar. Experimentaron al tiempo como superpuesto y fragmentado, sin distinción entre el trabajo y el ocio. Los hombres aportaron a las prácticas sostenibles principalmente a través de actividades entendidas como de ocio, en bloques de tiempo más largos. Nuestra óptica temporal también ilustra las formas generizadas en las que viejas prácticas se tornan no rutinarias y las nuevas se vuelven rutinarias nuevamente. Mientras los hombres a menudo eran responsables del trabajo y el tiempo previo requerido para comenzar o investigar un proyecto, la responsabilidad de la implementación cotidiana y los cambios de hábitos recayó habitualmente sobre las mujeres. Estos resultados ilustran cómo los análisis de género ayudan a identificar oportunidades y limitaciones para los cambios hacia la sustentabilidad. Las oportunidades incluyen conexiones fuertes entre la forma de entender, tanto por parte de madres como de padres, lo que significa la buena maternidad y paternidad y la importancia que le otorgan a la sustentabilidad del hogar. Las limitaciones incluyen los desafíos temporales enfrentados por los hogares, y cómo éstos interactúan con roles estructurales y laborales más amplios.‘2009’