PhD Scholar
Seeing Through Water: Holism and Environmental History in the Gippsland Lakes Catchment, Victoria, Australia from 1838-1900
E-mail: kylie.carman-brown@anu.edu.au

My research examines both the physical and cultural aspects of the hydrological cycle in nineteenth and early twentieth century Gippsland.

Using a simplified version of the cycle appropriate to the era, the bulk of the thesis will detail settler knowledge of and responses to water in its different states and qualities, water as precipitation, flowing water, still water and evaporating. Unlike most historical research which generally focuses upon only one element of the cycle, I seek to present a more holistic view. In doing so, this thesis will examine the European settlement process in Gippsland with a particular emphasis on its impact on the health and integrity of the region's abundant wetlands.

My particular theme is connection. I am interested in tracing what connections early Gippslanders made (or didn't make) between the passage of water through the landscape and through their lives. In this, I am as much interested in the material (building bridges and draining swamps) and the metaphorical (the practice of baptism and descriptions of water).