Enduring Drought Then Coping With Climate Change: Lived Experience And Local Resolve In Rural Mental Health

Climate change awareness has taken a dramatic turn in Australia, intensifying debate over the meaning of prolonged drought for rural futures, with critical implications for rural mental health. This paper is drawn from research on perceptions of Australian climate during a period of marked shift in public awareness of climate change (2004–2007). It utilises oral histories gathered in dryland farm communities of the semiarid Victorian Mallee at the edge of the nation’s commercial cropping zone – in particular, the stories of women’s health workers – to highlight the interdependency of environmental, economic, political and mental health concerns in rural and remote communities. Focusing on lived experience, the paper explores the narratives through which people have apprehended drought and climate change – in discourse of endurance, uncertainty and putative adaptation – revealing advocacy and local resolve in the provision of rural mental health services, and, fundamentally, a paradigm of embodiment in rural social work.