Film
Real Stories of Country Women
2019
Appears in NTRO Research Collection
Abstract
Many regions of Queensland, Australia, have been drought declared for several years. We travelled through the Western Downs, Maranoa and Murweh Shires in February 2019 to hear stories about the effects of drought on women in those communities.
Research Background
Real Stories of Country Women, externally funded by AGL Energy, seeks to understand the lived experiences of women in rural Queensland. There is a paucity of knowledge of such experiences as dominant discourses involving long-term drought-affected regions focus on narratives around men. Through slow scholarship and principles of feminist inquiry that gather unwritten and unseen narratives, we research women’s stories and publicly communicate them through micro-documentaries to bring to the fore hitherto invisiblised stories.
Research Contribution
The documentary series advances a field of understanding about how women in drought-declared regions of Queensland cope with severe weather. The original contribution produced complements to a field of knowledge about how women sustain community through entrepreneurial bricolage, particularly via the digital turn (Baker & Nelson, 2005; Talmage, 2021). Unique and untold narratives of women’s lived experience are presented in-situ. A coherence between the aural and visual narratives creatively humanises drought impacts, benefitting communities, contributing to knowledge, and assisting policy development.
Research Significance
This research is significant in multiple ways: the project lead was invited to discuss in several forums such as media including the nationally reaching ABC Country Hour; with the Minister Women and Foreign Affairs at a Federal Roundtable on women’s economic security (2019) to inform policy development; it is featured within Chicago Quarterly Review (2020) alongside internationally renowned authors like David Malouf; the series received 28000 unique organic views in Facebook within three months of release. Project findings feature in Q1(Gender and Education) and Q2 (Community Development) journals. Its significance is also in its opportunity for voices of women in drought-declared regions to be heard, offering counterweight to masculinised representation of farming communities.
Details
- Title
- Real Stories of Country Women
- Authors
- Sarah Casey (Author) - University of the Sunshine CoastGail Crimmins (Author) - University of the Sunshine CoastJoanna McIntyre (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Format
- Short film; 17 microdocumentaries that form a series. There are 6 main episodes and 11 introductory 1 minute films.
- Date published
- 2019
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; School of Creative Industries - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450841002621
- Output Type
- Film
- NTRO Classification
- NT2
Metrics
17 File views/ downloads
235 Record Views