Lesley Head Research Summary

The Backyard Project

Although human influences now pervade all Earth processes, environmental ideals of pristine past landscapes without people continue to dominate. This project addresses the challenge of managing environments for hybridity, change and human presence, rather than timeless purity. It extends my previous research on human-environment interactions in new empirical and theoretical directions. This project was funded by an ARC Discovery grant. My team undertook the first in-depth ethnographic study of the suburban backyard, Australia’s most hybrid ecosystem. Results published in Backyard.  Nature and Culture in Suburban Austalia.    UoW Press with Halstead Press.