Escuela de Frankfurt: la industria cultural y cultura de masas

As outlined in Chapter 4, the way in which fires are managed is

established by histories of land tenure: ‘your fuel, your fire’. As such, fire agencies predominantly manage fires that are burning on private property and land management agencies predominately manage fires that are

burning on public land. There are also other distinctions between these two groups that move beyond cultural ownership of land tenure and are rooted in the agency orientation to the job of fire mitigation and its management. For example, rural fire agencies are volunteers with a diversity of

experiences and have been trained in basic firefighting whereas land management agencies have a high proportion of tertiary and university graduates with backgrounds such as science, horticulture, environmental management and wildlife management. Rural fire services personnel frequently exhibit having a sense of belonging to their rural community and are usually passionate about their communities.

Land management personnel in contrast are also passionate about fire ecology, and take into consideration how fire impacts on flora and fauna habitats. This is because some trees need fire to regenerate and for some

Chapter 6: Cultural elements within incident management 159 animals, fire can be beneficial to their habitat while for others it is

detrimental. These organisational goals are defined by the differing agency purposes (fire suppression; land management). It is important, therefore, for these different agencies to come together, pre-fire season, to discuss their perceived needs and objectives for any future (planned and

unplanned) fires and establish plans in readiness. However, whilst

agreements and plans have previously been made as to what tactics might be employed before the fire season, participants talked about how, at times, these plans were dismissed in the heat of the fire based on different organisational (and cultural) goals, as shown in the following quote.

I’ve seen the guys at times when the [rural] fire services come along and all they want to do, all of a sudden they put their priorities on the [suppression of the fire], and as a result, the tactics that they employ have been completely opposite to what was the arranged pre-fire season to what should happen. The (name of land management agency) guys get so frustrated, because they have gone to extenuating lengths to try and plan on how that fire should impact on that area [QFRS_05].

It is not surprising therefore, that there is a sense of frustration within the land management group. As indicated here, there is a perceived tendency for rural fire agencies to emphasise fire suppression goals and in doing so inevitably undermine the goals or objective of land management agencies by using tactics that are contradictory to pre-fire season arrangements. The following quote shows that once groups recognise the differences in values and motivators behind goals between fire agencies and land

management agencies, and accept those differences, both groups can work to achieve a more mutually satisfying collective outcome.

I think that understanding one another’s background and where they’re coming from is hugely important. Yeah I remember a fire

Chapter 6: Cultural elements within incident management 160 at (name of place). I couldn’t believe it because they [land

management agency] weren’t doing any planning for the community of (name of place). There were a range of people in the room who were all worried about some possums... so a lot of energy [was] going into that…and I’m kind of sitting there

saying, I appreciate the need to do something’[but]‘you know our priorities are all wrong here’. Anyway we moved on and planned how to minimise the fire impact on (other name of place). And that was about [showing] respect. Once we’d identified that ‘yes the possums were an issue’ and the guy that was quite passionate about it, he went off and worked out some strategy [to deal with the possums]... But then that allowed the team to then focus on the greater, on the higher cause [QFRS_12].

In the above quotes, there is evidence of the differences and areas of potential tensions between the two groups, that is, fire agencies and land management agencies, regarding their respective goals. It could be claimed that the participant experienced a sense of bewilderment that wildlife would be given priority over people and infrastructure because it was getting the attention of the decision makers. It is contended that the participant also experienced a sense of concern, even fear for the

community and a sense of frustration with his perception that wildlife was taking precedence over the people in the community. What is also

important here is that while he was frustrated that the focus for many was on the protection of wildlife, he accepted that for land management agencies, this is their priority. Once ‘respect’ was shown, by identifying that ‘possums’ needed protecting,the groups were able to ‘focus on the greater, on the higher cause’.

These cultural differences between land management agencies and fire agencies are driven by different organisational goals, which in turn foster different group identification, based around the organisations’ missions (and other in-group and out-groups) that have emerged through the two

Chapter 6: Cultural elements within incident management 161 groups having different norms, values and beliefs. In addition,

organisations typically display their missions and values through their cultural symbols. Cultural symbols communicate collectively held values of organisational goals which intertwine because they are connected to people’s emotions and identity. Symbols provide meaning to people’s work activity (Holland & Valsiner 1998), and according to Vygotsky (cited in Holland & Valsiner 1988) are mediating devices that are products of, in this case, organisational history.

6.2.1.1 The cultural symbolisation of artefacts

Groups such as fire agencies and land management agencies can

communicate their organisational goals and values through their emblems that can be seen on artefacts such as letterheads, report covers, internet websites and uniforms. Symbols can be established in almost any form of a group’s artefact that is considered meaningful (e.g., emblems, badges and language).

The following quote provides an example of how symbols, specifically an agency emblem on a uniform, becomes a (socially constructed) mediating device. In this instance the symbol is invoked to distinguish one group that hold different collective organisational goals, from another.

You get a fire that might be in a national park area, by and large because our fire service is so large we will tend to be on the ground before land management agencies. And as a result they’re [land management agencies] probably coming in as second response, even though they’re probably in charge. I don’t know whether the people who are on the [fire] ground will actually appreciate / I’m talking about fire service people, will appreciate what the status or what the responsibility is that other agency will have. In contrast, if it was an event where our people went along to a job and it was a police officer, straight away our people

Chapter 6: Cultural elements within incident management 162 would recognise the rank and authority of that person if it’s a uniform position, compared to some person wearing a (name of animal) on his shoulder...[ Name of organisation withheld_07].

In the above quote, the participant is talking about the tensions between fire agencies and land management agencies. He is explaining how when a fire breaks out on public land such as national parks, more often than not fire agencies are the first responders. This is largely, in part, due to the fact that fire agencies have more personnel and they may be closer to the site of the fire. The division between the two groups has potential to cause

another tension. It is argued that fire agencies are showing limited respect for the authority that land management agencies have on public land because they have on their uniform a symbol that has less perceived value to those in the fire service.

Illustrated here is that these thoughts, tensions and feelings are socially constructed by the symbols worn on agencies’ uniforms. In this story the participant is showing how members from fire agencies give meaning to two symbols. The two symbols are, on the one hand, the emblem and rank on police uniforms and, on the other hand, the emblem on land

management agencies. Figure 6.1 provides examples of emblems from various fire and emergency agencies. While police are identified as an authoritative figure by people in general, it is argued that in this instance, members from fire agencies identify with police because of their similar paramilitary structure. This sense of affiliation is socially constructed through the emblem, crowns and stripes worn on police uniforms, which are similar to fire agencies emblems (see Figure 6.1). On the other hand, the emblem worn on land management agencies’ uniforms displays no

Chapter 6: Cultural elements within incident management 163 ranking structure. Instead the emblem brings to mind the importance of the values that land management agencies place on protecting wildlife.

Examples of land management agency emblems Examples of fire agency emblems Examples of police emblems

Figure 6.1 Examples of agency emblems