‘A very very great part of our life’: Storytelling about the Richmond River

Abstract

Acts of remembering a river may have a performative function in environmental history and debates around human impact and waterways. The process of remembering and search for meaning are shaped in the present moment when the Richmond is one of the most degraded river systems on the east coast of Australia. Imbued with sentimentality, however, residents speak to the fundamental importance of the river to their lives as they were growing up in and around Lismore. Such histories may provide context for understanding contemporary affective responses to rivers and how emotion shapes our relationships with nature more broadly.