Class Conflict, Land and Social Banditry: Bushranging in Nineteenth Century Australia

Largely because of its microsociological orientations, the sociology of deviance has failed to develop explanatory constructs for understanding the emergence, reproduction and disappearance of forms of deviant behaviour. In this paper the notion of ‘conditions of existence’ is discussed as a construct which avoids rigid determinism but allows for structural analysis. It is then used to explain the reproduction and demise of bushranging in nineteenth century Australia. As a form of ‘social banditry,’ bushranging depended for its existence on two conditions: class conflict which generated communal unity in rural areas, and the specific absence of politically institutionalised and effective means for structuring this conflict. Historical analysis of Australian bushranging indicates that the abrupt disappearance of the phenomenon in the 1880s, immediately after its highpoint in the Kelly outbreak, can be explained in terms of the disappearance of these two conditions of existence.