Mark Riley

Oral histories, farm practice and uncovering meaning in the countryside

Building on recent analyses of ‘heterogenous agri-cultures’ this paper considers the potential of an oral history approach to explore the geographies of farming cultures and the processes of agricultural and landscape change. Drawing on case studies from the Peak District and Devon (UK) the paper advocates a less mechanistic methodological approach that taps into oral histories and offer a more nuanced appreciation of this change ‘from the ground’. The understandings embedded within these oral histories are investigated with attention given to how these may contribute to recent discussions of the role of farmers’ knowledge(s) in the current and future management of the countryside.

Emplacing the Research Encounter: Exploring Farm Life Histories

The article is concerned with the placing of, and making place central to, the research interview. Drawing on research on changing agricultural practices in the Peak District, the United Kingdom, the article explores how interviewing “in place,” and making place the central theme of discussion, can have both practical and theoretical advantages for the research encounter. Emplacing the encounter means that often marginalized voices can be brought into a more coconstructed and democratic narrative, while the farm and its associated micropolitics can provide a medium through which new, and often unforeseen, trajectories and narratives can develop. Moving outside, it is seen, may offer a freedom to the research. Such mobile interviewing offers devices, contexts, and instances that support and enhance the interview process, and also open up an appreciation of other forms of knowledge and narration.

Talking geography: on oral history and the practice of geography

Following the lead of the pioneering work of George Ewart Evans (1965) and others, oral history increased its influence as an academic approach in the 1970s and 1980s through the work of a small, but prolific, group of politically committed social historians (Perks and Thomson 1998). Perhaps surprisingly, however, there has been relatively little overt cross-pollination between oral history and geography in the intervening years. Indeed, Andrews, Kearns, Kontos and Wilson (2006: 158) have recently commented in Social & Cultural Geography that despite some emerging interest in the use of oral history within geography—discussed below, and of which this collection forms part—‘in comparison to the scope of historical geography as a sub-discipline, . . . the use of oral history is a relatively rare undertaking’. Based on an AHRC-sponsored symposium held in 2004, this short collection of papers extends the published work within the discipline of geography that engages with oral history approaches and sketches an agenda for how the two may proceed in a mutually beneficial fashion

Bringing the ‘invisible farmer’ into sharper focus: gender relations and agricultural practices in the Peak District (UK)

Womens farm work and the gendered nature of the farm space and farm practices have been important intersecting themes within feminist enquiry over the last 30 years. Much research has tended to underplay the wider evolution of these gender relations – leaving under-explored the longer-term formation and contestation of the gendered activities, spaces and identities observed in the present. This article draws on research on 64 farms in the Peak District (UK) to take a wider temporal view of farm gender relations. Utilising a farm life history approach the article considers three key moments within farming histories to explore the active role(s) played by women in shaping farms and farming practices. In doing so the article adds complexity and nuance to understandings of both processes, such as the ‘masculinisation’ of agriculture, and to the gendered geographies of the farm space.

Landscape Archaeology, Heritage and the Community in Devon: An Oral History Approach

In the context of recent media, governmental, academic and popular attention and enthusiasm for debates surrounding the construction and meaning of the British countryside, this paper outlines the potential for oral history to make a contribution. Working in Devon, the authors outline how an oral history methodology can engage with the fields of landscape archaeology and heritage studies. As well as augmenting and supporting more traditional approaches to landscape, oral history techniques can be used to challenge and destabilise existing knowledge, thereby moving the process of ‘democratisation’ in knowledge construction of the rural landscape from practices of scientific ‘complicity’ towards one of critical engagement.

‘The next link in the chain’: children, agri-cultural practices and the family farm

This article contributes to knowledge of childrens geographies by considering the micro-geographies and associated identities of children on family farms. Through focussing on farm practices, and drawing on evidence from the Peak District (UK) it examines how farm children are placed within, and ostensibly adhere to, discourses of the family farm. It moves on to investigate how such identities are far from static and explores the discursive strategies taken by children in shaping their own identities and forging new trajectories as the often pivotal ‘next link in the chain’ on these farms.

Food waste bins: bridging infrastructures and practices

Recent years have seen an increasing number of councils begin separate food waste collections from domestic premises, a change that has resulted in householders having to sort food waste and keep it in separate bins until collection. Yet bins – of any kind – have been subject to little investigation, despite being a central element of the waste infrastructure. This paper attends to this omission by examining food bins. First of all, it explores the ways that bins have agency through an exploration of how their presence has affected waste practices. We find that their agency is three-fold: it is symbolic, relational and, importantly, material – an aspect which has been overlooked all too often in analyses of material culture and consumption. Secondly, we show how this material agency can be troubling: we explore how this agency is managed by households through practices of accommodation and resistance. Examining the food bins agency and how it is consumed gives an insight into the implementation of, and engagement with, waste policy ‘on the ground’. This allows us to make some suggestions for how to improve the implementation of this policy. This paper also opens up two new areas of study: first, a more sustained and developed exploration of bins, giving some pointers as to other possible issues. Secondly, and more broadly, the paper examines the extent to which the objects that materialize policy can be useful in the implementation of that policy, especially if the policy seeks ‘behaviour change’.

Challenges facing the sustainable consumption and waste management agendas:perspectives on UK households

The management of municipal waste is one of the most emotive local environmental issues in the UK at present and represents a key sustainability “battleground” as local authorities seek to reduce waste arisings and encourage the reuse and recycling of materials among households. Within the literature on household waste management, a broad range of disciplinary perspectives and practical recommendations exist and it is the aim of this paper to step back and take stock of the role of households and communities in resource consumption and waste generation patterns across the UK within recent decades. By exploring the household in this context, trends in consumption and waste generation are outlined in addition to key influencing factors such as lifestyles and well-being, demographics and environment. Finally, key lessons learnt, challenges faced going forward and approaches for developing more sustainable practices at the household, community and national levels are discussed.

Country stories: the use of oral histories of the countryside to challenge the sciences of the past and future

Abstract In the context of recent media, governmental, academic and popular attention and enthusiasm for debates surrounding the construction and meaning of the British countryside, this paper outlines the potential for oral history to make a contribution. Drawing on work in Devon, UK, we outline how an oral history methodology can engage with the fields of archaeological science and heritage management of landscape resources from the past, before outlining how such lay narratives may also inform present policies for the landscapes of the future. On the one hand we note the potential of oral histories for animating existing scientific narratives of landscape development. Moving from a position of scientific complicity towards one of critical engagement, we then go on to argue that oral histories may also challenge the authority of scientific knowledge, serving to destabilise existing assumptions, and offering in their stead more complex, meaningful and community-led narratives of landscape.

Silent meadows: The uncertain decline and conservation of hay meadows in the british landscape

Abstract The environmental impacts of British agriculture have been a popular focus in recent years within Landscape Research. However, to date, little attention has been paid to the case of hay meadows, an important feature of the landscape in cultural, agricultural and ecological terms, and one which has been threatened with decline. The paper considers the factors which have marginalized hay meadows in the discussion of agri-environment relations, showing that the lack of definitive data on hay meadows, government funding for more intensive farming practices, and the ephemeral nature of hay meadows have contributed to their ‘silent’ decline. Drawing on a case study of the Peak District in the UK, the attempts of current agri-envrionment schemes to encourage ‘traditional’ management, and the problems associated with the use of this term and its connotations, are considered.