Twelfth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Australia is known for its cattle culture. I am interested in researching how that culture become dominant, as well as how it compares to other food-based animal cultures, like sheep? Much like the United States or Canada, Australia is a former British colony with a large landmass and a complicated history with indigenous populations—both human and non-human. In the United States, for example, cattle replaced the native bison to the detriment of Native Americans who depended on the bison. In Australia, does a similar event happen with the Aborigines and kangaroos and wallabies? Specifically, I study how cattle are imagined in Australian literature. These literary formulations are what would have been used to create public interest and eventually public policy. I focus on environmental and animal rights issues, past and present, throughout Australian literature. I examine key Australian figures including Patrick White, Nugi Garimara, and Jane Harper in terms of how they describe cattle culture throughout the nation’s history from ecocritical, indigenous studies, animal studies, and posthumanist critical lenses.