‘I wouldn’t trade this country of ours for anything’: place, identity and men’s stories of the 2016 M7.8 Kaikōura/Waiau earthquake

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is an emerging area of research that examines men’s personal disaster accounts, including how gender identities and sets of understandings about masculinities shape response and recovery. This paper adds to the literature through providing a geographic enquiry into men’s sense of place and identifying the impacts of the Kaikōura/Waiau (7.8 Mw) earthquake sequence on rural men. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 19 men across Marlborough and North Canterbury who experienced the earthquake. Findings explored how rural masculine identities, exemplified in the Southern Man trope, were integral to rural men’s earthquake stories. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital and doxa and using field as a geographic metaphor for place, the research identified that participants relied upon rural skills and local knowledges to navigate the changing dynamics of place. More broadly, this paper illustrates how post-disaster impacts on individuals and communities may be traced through examining a gendered sense of place.