The 'Mallee-Made Man': Making Masculinity in the Mallee Lands of South Eastern Australia, 1890-1940

The southern Australian Mallee is a broad ecoregion comprising distinct landscapes. and the clearing and farming of these lands have presented specific challenges to generations of white settlers. Cultivation of this region was characterised as 'one of the most strenuous and resolute battles with Nature'. So began the shaping of an enduring mythology around the 'Mallee man'. In the context of the settler state, this mythology was forged through race, place and gender, with devastating environmental consequences. It has been consistently evoked to suggest that the specific environment of the Mallee worked to produce a special type of 'home grown' masculinity. At the same time, the State sought to provide a particular type of man to work the Mallee lands. This article examines the ways ideas about masculinity shaped men's engagement with the environment and the impact of government settlement schemes on both the myth and lives of Mallee men.