Drawing on ethnographic research within an Australian ex-military community in the city of Vũng Tàu, Vietnam, this paper discusses the (re)surfacing of ockerism: a gendered identity situated in the Australian masculine imaginary, and one which was inclusive of Australian feminist challenges in the 1970s. Recent theoretical trajectories in cultural geography have enabled a platform upon which to take nostalgia as a serious mode of spatial (re)production (Blunt, 2003; Bonnett, 2016). Such provocations appear more relevant by the day as the ooze of regressive politics seemingly deteriorates arenas for productive and progressive intervention. In appealing to the theme of this session, this paper explores the way in which the bridging of nostalgic imaginaries with military heritage discourse acts as a source of legitimacy in the reincarnation of these ‘troubling’ masculinities. Furthermore, in recognising both the affective capacities of nostalgia and the turn to emotional approaches to the study of men’s lives, this research seeks to contribute to the recent re-orientation of masculinities research towards feminist agendas, and the provocation that, “men’s emotions are always personal, but they may not necessarily be politically progressive” (de Boise and Hearn, 2017: 2).

This paper explores the postfeminist sensibilities in a new genre of women’s writing that has only recently emerged in Australia, but has gone on to become an international phenomenon. The genre has been labelled chook-lit, as like its progenitor, chick-lit, it focuses on the romantic tribulations of contemporary single women in a comedic manner. In their books, chook-lit authors, typically rural women writing while undertaking farm work, incorporate themes related to socio-economic change in rural communities. In addition, like their urban chick-lit author counterparts, they also comment upon contemporary gender politics. This paper examines this commentary through the lens of postfeminism identifying the ways in which authors incorporate feminism into their texts, but also recalibrate and de-politicise it via notions of ‘choice’ and ‘empowerment’. It also demonstrates that in the texts this feminism for a neoliberal era is inflected by ideas of ‘new traditionalism’ and/or ‘new domesticity’. The paper concludes with a discussion of what we can learn about the shifting nature of feminism in the rural through a focus on rural romance novels.

The home has often been portrayed as a place of subordination by hegemonic feminist discourses. Such discourses are typically embedded in the preoccupations and values of urban, white, middle-class women of the developed world. As such, they ignore rural women of the developing world as agents of change. This paper challenges negative normative constructions of the home by feminism by drawing on two visual ethnographic case studies I conducted in rural Colombia. Data demonstrate that rural women conceptualise the home as a site of resistance, power and negotiation. Furthermore, the home holds symbolic capital for participants as central to their identities as campesinas (peasant women). In the home, campesina women pass on their knowledge, nurture their family and challenge traditional gender roles in their everyday. Nevertheless, the home it is still troubled by the patriarchal structures that permeate Colombian rural women’s lives. In charting the vexed place of the home for peasant women in Colombia I argue for the value of de(s)colonial feminism delineating its key dimensions and concerns.