Governmentality of Fencing in Australia

Tracing the White Wires from Paddocks to Aboriginal Protection, Pest Exclusion and Immigration Restriction

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3608963
AutoresC Mayes (0000-0003-2674-6225, Deakin University, autor correspondente)
Ano2020
Volume41
Fascículo1
Páginas42-59
Data de publicação2020-01-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Intercultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0725-6868 • E-ISSN: 1469-9540
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07256868.2020.1704228
OpenAlexW2999749570
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas24

The importation of wire-fencing to Australia from the 1840s transformed the management of sheep. Rather than shepherds watching over flocks, wire-fences allowed sheep to roam relatively unsupervised in paddocks. It is commonly argued that the popularity of wire-fenced paddocks arose because they reduced labor costs and improved wool production. This is partly true. The declining use of shepherds to protect flocks coincided with the ending of brutal frontier wars and localised eradication of dingoes. That is, the conditions for adopting wire fences and practice of paddocking were made possible through violence. Fences came to denote property, order, and civilization. Drawing on and expanding Michel Foucault’s work on pastoral power and governmentality, this paper argues that the initial period of colonial “pastoral violence” dovetailed into a “fencing governmentality” that mobilised literal and figurative “paddocks” to manage, sort, and reproduce life that is desirable while excluding life that is not. Importantly, violence does not vacate the paddock, but is recoded and manifest differently depending on one’s relation to the fences. This paper traces the development of a fencing governmentality and its use in the protection, exclusion and restriction of biological life, namely the lives of Aboriginals, animals, and non-British immigrants

Biopower · Citizenship · Civility · Eider · Fencing · Geography · Governmentality · Pastoralism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Canadian Identity and History · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law