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Book Review
| Animal Nation: The True Story of Animals and Australia. By Adrian Franklin. Sydney: University of New South Wales, 2006. viii + 262 pp. Notes, references, index. Paper $30.
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| As a British-born sociologist at the University of Tasmania, Adrian Franklin presents environmental historians with an unusual approach to the study of animals in Australia. Animal Nation is a provocative work, in the sense both that it provokes reflection and because at times it is contentious—there is a great deal with which I would argue. |
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This is a broad sociologically based analysis of Australian attitudes toward and beliefs about animals, both Aboriginal (traditional and contemporary) and mainstream non-Aboriginal Australians. Franklin provides an interesting perspective on a range of issues relating to how animals—both indigenous and introduced—have been regarded, mythologized, and incorporated into Australian culture. In particular, I found his elucidation of Emile Durkheim's Australian interests and his reading of indigenous Australians' totemism and relationships with animals fascinating. His study highlights the often contradictory stances between animal rights and environmental protection, points out the complexities associated with white suburbanites and their pets, and discusses ongoing controversies about the fate of 'wild' animals including dingoes, brumbies (wild horses), and feral cats. Franklin's experiences as an immigrant coming to grips with these cultural issues and learning about Australian nature offer an insightful perspective. Of particular interest are the results of a national survey of Australian attitudes to animals which he undertook, and here outlines. |
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However, I am not so accepting to other aspects of his arguments. One of Franklin's principal themes is how Australian nationalism has influenced sentiments about indigenous biota and has resulted in "enigmatic" or contradictory attitudes to animals, both indigenous and introduced. He rightly identifies that Australian animals (and plants) played an integral role in the development of an Australian sense of identity. At the same time, there has long been concern about the impact of introduced species (such as cats, rabbits, and foxes) have had on indigenous species. Franklin sees some parallels between recent controversies over human "alien" arrivals and the desire by some people to establish better border protection against exotic biota and to eradicate many of the invasive species already on the continent. Thus far, the argument has some justification. However, Franklin appears to have little sympathy with such "econationalism" and by allusion associates Australian "species-cleansing" with practices in Nazi Germany. He seems not to recognize or accept as valid that opposition to alien species in Australia is not just a nationalistic perversion—much of it is based on profound environmental concern about threats to ecosystems and biodiversity. |
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This connects with another major element in Franklin's views about environmentalism and "species-cleansing." He explicitly allies himself with Tim Low, whose book The New Nature argues that there are already so many alien species so entrenched and interwoven into the Australian landscape and ecosystems, and so many redistributions and imbalances of Australian species, that it is impossible to return to an alien-free or pre-European state. Sadly, Low's is a convincing argument, but Franklin goes further. He is anthropocentric in his apparent lack of concern for further impacts on indigenous species, Eurocentric in embracing hybrid landscapes like those of Britain and Europe, less ecologically aware than Low, less in tune with issues of biodiversity, and perhaps unaware of Low's ongoing involvement in attempts to preserve those indigenous ecosystems Australia has left. Franklin does not appear to recognize any particular value in Australian biota and believes that "It may be understandable that humans don't want to see species disappear, but it is less clear why the disappearance of species is any less "natural" than their preservation" (p. 128). |
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While in some respects it is a minor issue, one of the most unusual elements in the book is an absence, especially in someone writing from the perspective of Tasmania. I found no reference to the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger or wolf which was hunted to extinction by European settlers, at least partly because it was mythologized in the public mind into a worse threat than it actually represented. Now safely extinct, it is diversely used to promote Tasmania and its products. It would therefore appear to be a prime candidate for Franklin's analysis but it is not discussed, and there is no bibliographical reference to Robert Paddle's excellent study of the mythologizing of the thylacine. |
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Don Garden is associate professor at the University of Melbourne and author of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific: An Environmental History (ABC-CLIO 2005). He is currently working a history of El Niño and La Niña events in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific 1865–1903. |
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