'Baker has written a closely observed and perceptive study of profound transformations in rural Australia since World War Two as soldier settler family farms have been replaced by capital-intensive agribusinesses. She explores the dynamic interplay between state policy and lived experience, showing that, in the final analysis, it is the state that calls the shots.'-Emeritus Professor Judith Brett, La Trobe University 'Baker presents a vivid and original account of land, livelihood, and loss in rural Australia, working in the tradition of Karl Polanyi to trace intricate connections between sociohistorical transformations, shifting state policies, and the changing rhythms of everyday life.'-Professor Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia 'A thoughtfully crafted and perceptively argued exposé of life on the land, Baker's book blends personal insights and socio-historical events in tracing Indigenous dispossession, soldier settlement, family farming, and government policy in the making of rural Australia. The author is to be congratulated for delivering a fascinating and provocative account of agrarian transformation-one making a major contribution to rural sociology and the sociology of place.'-Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Lawrence, University of Queensland 'Baker has written a beautiful study of place that illuminates the complex configurations of people and landscape in rural Australia. It's intellectually profound analysis of the social construction of rural land use is informed by deep and heartfelt narratives of people's everyday realities. Their voices are the vines that stretch across the latticework of her theory. This is a book that both informs and delights.'-Professor Bill Pritchard, University of Sydney 'A tour de force. Anyone who wants to understand the "tragic separation between the City and the Land" in contemporary Australia should read Baker's beautifully told economic and social history.'-Emeritus Professor Michael Pusey, FASSA, University of New South Wales

Autorentext
Dr Claire Baker is an academic, social researcher and author, currently appointed as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Social Dimensions of Farming at Southern Cross University in association with the Australian Government-funded Soils CRC, and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of New England.

Zusammenfassung
This book weaves a social, economic and cultural history of Australia with rare first-hand accounts of the lived experience of change related to farming and agriculture. It provides a rich sociology of how living on the land has changed throughout Australia's history. The book investigates the complex effects of the state on everyday life, using an historical agricultural case study of place to explore long-running sociohistorical processes of change examined through both a macro and micro sociological lens. This provides a multi-faceted perspective from which to examine economic, social and cultural transformations in each of these contexts and change is examined through multiple sites of expression: public policy and the role of the state; colonial processes of dispossession; social and cultural systems of value; economic change and its consequences; farming practices and lived experience; neoliberalism and globalisation and their social impacts; community decline and trends toward corporate and foreign land ownership. Each of these transformations impact upon lived experience and everyday life and this book provides grounded insight into exactly this relationship and process.

Inhalt
1: Introduction: Goolhi and the sociology of place in Australia.- 2: The embedded market: Place, space, land and the self.- 3: Groundwork: The social, political and cultural history of land settlement in Australia.- 4: Dispossession/Possession: Prologue to Moment One.- 5: Moment One The lived experience of soldier settlement at Goolhi.- 6: The Luck of the Long Boom: Epilogue to Moment One.- 7: Unpicking the stitches: Dynamics of change.- 8: Moment Two and the lived experience of economic action at Goolhi.- 9: Moment Two and its social consequences.- 10: Conclusions.