Settler colonialism, neoliberal feminism and the ‘white middle-class farming woman’ in Australia

Abstract

This article examines how white middle class farming women are woven into the narratives of settler colonialism in Australia. Drawing on visual and textual analyses of 150 posts from three major institutional Instagram accounts featuring Australian farming women: @invisfarmer, @agrifutures and @nsw_rwn, we focus on the entanglement of settler colonialism with neoliberal feminism and its everyday enactment as neoliberal femininities. Neoliberal feminism promotes ideals of individualism, choice and self-optimization which are embodied by farming women through affective practices of positivity, resilience and passion, while other emotions, such as anger, are suppressed. These emotional performances legitimize settler claims to land and futurity, reinforcing the erasure of Indigenous presence in rural Australia. By centring rurality, this article extends discussions of settler colonialism, neoliberal feminism and neoliberal femininities which have largely focused on urban contexts.