Talking about fire: Attitudes, beliefs and discourses in an Australian rural community

The 2019-2020 fire catastrophe in Australia has generated vigorous personal and public reflections about the nature and role of fire in Australian society and how to manage fire across the continent. Within local communities a variety of attitudes and perspectives has been debated, often with limited mutual understanding. To take advantage of this historical moment post-the catastrophic summer of 2019-20 and to contribute to more effective communication between the parties, we sought to examine the various ways in which inhabitants of a rural region experienced and understood fire, along with sources of agreement and disagreement. Semi-structured interviews about attitudes to different fire experiences were conducted with non-Indigenous people from a range of gender, age and professional backgrounds. Data were analysed according to a framework derived from Foucault and others whereby different discourses could be distinguished through which participants had access to a range of fields of meanings of fire and by means of which they expressed their views. Our analysis showed that attitudes were informed by a range of formal and informal knowledge sources comprising several distinct fire discourses, which we have called ‘home’, ‘local farming’, ‘conservation or ecology’, ‘land regulation’ and ‘First Nations fire practices’. Individuals could move freely between different discourses in common speech, reflecting on their own values and attitudes and demonstrating awareness of those of others in the broader community, while tending to utilise specific discourses according to their social or professional roles. We conclude that this discursive fecundity and flexibility may be employed to improve communication and dialogue within communities and to enhance the development of policies and practices that support shared interests and common goals.