National identity and the search for its defining features has been the focus of continuing debate throughout Australian history. From ideals of mateship to celebration of sporting prowess, from multiculturalism to homogeneity and social cohesion, Australian national identity has been discussed and debated for more than a century, in later years mainly by politicians and the media. At the same time, there have been many attempts to define 'rural identity' as something at the heart of Australian nationalism.

Charles Sturt University, with its spread of campuses across regional New South Wales, is intellectually and geographically well positioned to ponder notions of regional and rural identity. Its staff and students live various forms of rural lifestyle so, in formulating this collection, it was a valid step to seek their ideas on what represents regional and rural identity. Within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, there are a range of disciplines which bring different perspectives to the vexed question of a unique rural identity. The aim of this collection is not to provide a definitive answer to the question of what constitutes rural identity but to illustrate the many ways and forms it can be seen.

Table of Contents

• Introduction - Nancy Blacklow and Troy Whitford

1. Reflections on rural identity from West Wyalong, New South Wales
   Wendy Bowles
2. Where the crows fly backward and women explore their choices
   Ingrid Muenstermann
3. Indigenous Rural Identity in Australia: from tribesman to prisoner
   A W (Bill) Anscombe
4. The Miracle of the Religious Divide: An additional argument for the purported distinction between rural and urban religiosity
   Morgan Luck
5. 'Operatic performances two hundred miles in the Australian bush': Staging Rural Identity, the Case of Madame Fannie Simonsen in Wagga Wagga, 1866
   Nicole Anae
6. Sites of Death - the fictions and realities of Wolf Creek
   Therese Taylor
7. Regional Identity and Humour
   Carmen Moran
8. 'Honey, I've Shrunk the Coast': Who Took the 'Far' out of 'Far North Queensland'?
   Max Staples
9. Bush Politics: Rural and Regional Political Identity
   Troy Whitford
10. Country landscapes, private dreams? Tree change and the dissolution of rural Australia
    Angela T. Ragusa

• About the authors