Grim humour and hope: Australian oral histories of drought

The Mallee Climate Oral History Collection is the product of a four-year research partnership with Museum Victoria. From 2004 to 2007, a series of annual recordings were conducted on the experience of drought with people in wheat-belt communities dotted across the semiarid Mallee. The timing of the project during the millennium drought coincided with a momentous shift in Australian public awareness of climate change, prompting reflexive discussion of the meaning of drought. Interviewees wore several “hats” in life—farming to health work, public service to parenting, local business to education, government science to community advocacy for rural social and environmental sustainability. These stories bear the mark of rural endurance: as the drought wore on, just one interviewee left the Mallee; the rest were determined to continue making a living here, at the inland edge of the Australian cropping zone.