Women in Farming Families in the Darling Downs and South West Queensland: Navigating Discourses Towards Wellbeing, Resilience and Empowerment

Women in Farming Families in the Darling Downs and South West Queensland: Navigating Discourses Towards Wellbeing, Resilience and Empowerment

This research investigated how the discourses that frame women in farm families in central Darling Downs and South West Queensland, Australia, enable and constrain their wellbeing, resilience, and empowerment. The study also addressed calls in the literature for more research into the culture and dynamics of farm families. Through the process of in-depth interviewing and the application of a post-structuralist perspective to construct knowledge, this study uncovered new insights for women entering the discursive cultures of family farms, how love of the land becomes more motivational for them than is widely acknowledged, and how they employ resilience and empowerment strategies to attain their wellbeing goals.

The data analysis revealed three dominant discourses that framed the lives of women in this study: agrarianism; masculine hegemony; and neoliberal farming-as-a-business. While agrarianism generated aspirational wellbeing goals, the conservative traditional masculine hegemonic discourse often constructed obstacles for the women to navigate. Nevertheless, this same discursive reality augmented the agrarian ideal of family farming passed from generation to generation. Hence, although this masculine hegemony discourse might contribute to preventing women from achieving full participation in family farming, it simultaneously increases their belief that the family farm is the highest priority, to be worked for and protected. The discourse of farming-as-a-business has had adverse consequences for the family farming sector and their communities, but simultaneously provided women with empowerment opportunities within their farm businesses.

This study concluded that women in farming families should be acknowledged and respected for their contributions, for their innovative and wholistic ideas and for their strategic resilience and empowerment abilities. They are a key resource for the future of the agricultural sector in terms of economic viability, sustainable land management and the vitality of rural communities, in the face of current challenges such as climate change, and unknown future adversities and threats to the rural sector.

File reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/author.