‘Redneck, Barbaric, Cashed Up Bogan? I Don't Think So’: Hunting and Nature in Australia

Hunting is a controversial activity in Australia, and much debated in international research. Positions range from 'the first hunters were the first humans' to the 'meat is murder' argument. There is, however, very little research on non-Indigenous hunting in Australia, particularly on the social aspects, but also on biological and ecological issues. In contrast to a general lack of research on non-Indigenous hunting, there is extensive literature on Indigenous hunting. This paper reviews initial research exploring hunting participation and motivation in Australia, as a window into further understanding connections between humans, non-humans and place. My focus is on an analysis of hunting as cultural involvement in nature. Is it a cruel, archaic and redundant practice; or a respectful relationship between and among humans and non- humans which can reorient us to our emerging recombinant ecologies? My children and I sometimes hunt in the sea. We swim out from the coastal rock platform near where we live on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia and spear fish and harvest invertebrate animals. We add wild plants harvested on shore, and plants we have grown, to feed ourselves. We also hunt on land, at Cloud Range, a rural mountain country place we own, where we hunt rabbits and other animals and harvest wild plant foods. One of the reasons my family does this is because it connects us intimately with cycles of life and death: our bodies are sustained by the taking of the lives of other bodies. Being active in taking living things and making them into food confronts us with issues of ethics and responsibility, sentience and suffering. It also clarifies the position of humans in ecological processes, and in all of these things, with the relationships between humans and nature. American writer and anthropologist Richard Nelson writes of his ambivalence as a modern ഀȠഀȠഀȠഀȠഀȠഀȠഀȠഀȠഀȠ