The fallen hero: masculinity, shame and farmer suicide in Australia

Abstract

The drought-stricken Australian rural landscape, cultures of farming masculinity and an economy of value, moral worth and pride form a complex matrix of discourses that shape subjective dynamics that render suicide a possibility for distressed farmers. However, the centrality of a 'mental health' perspective and reified notions of 'stoicism' within this discursive field operate to exclude consideration of the ways in which cultural identity is linked to emotions. To illuminate and explore complex connections between subjectivity, moral worth and affect in relation to understanding farmer suicide, this article draws on theory and literature on agrarian discourses of masculine subjectivity and shame to analyze empirical data from interviews with farmers during times of environmental, social and economic crisis. The idealized notion of the farming man as 'Aussie battler' emerges from romantic agrarian mythology in which pride and self-worth are vested in traditional values of hard work, struggle and self-sacrifice. However, the structural context of agriculture, as it is shaped by the political economy of neoliberalism, threatens farm economic viability and is eroding the pride, self-worth and masculine identity of farmers. The article suggests that the notion of the 'fallen hero' captures a discursive shift of a masculinity 'undone', a regress from the powerful position of masculine subjectivity imbued with pride to one of shame that is of central importance to understanding how suicide emerges as a possibility for farmers.

“The Masks We Wear”: A Qualitative Study of Suicide in Australian Farmers

“…In order to maintain financial viability, women increasingly gained off‐farm work . Increasingly, researchers are exploring gender, particularly the socioculturally constructed norms of masculinity as a gender identity, as a core determinant of problematic health behaviors and suicide . Some propose that constructed norms of a masculinity (eg, stoicism), for which rural men are extoled, can lock male farmers into a rigid social role that prevents them from seeking help and places them at greater risk for injury and fatality .…”

Education and the global rural: Feminist perspectives

“…As numerous commentators have attested, it is a refrain that has been repeatedly proclaimed in our own countries of Australia and South Africa (see, for example, Lebakeng and Phalane 2001;Halpin and Guilfoyle 2004;Moletsane 2012;Bryant and Garnham 2014). For this reason, Balagopalan's (2010) study is important for she illustrates how such a narrative can be disrupted, as well as alerts us to our own potential complicity in reproducing such story-lines.…”

Socioeconomics of Agriculture

“…Following the causalities of a considerable number of suicides among farmers in Australia and other countries, Bryant and Garnham (2015) described farm managers as 'fallen heroes'. They found a large gap between the romantic agrarian mythology of the 'Australian battler' who nurtures the population through hard work, struggle and self-sacrifice and the drought-stricken reality of volatile markets.…”