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This paper advances the literature on the 'good farmer' by considering the role social media may play in the presentation, refinement and reworking of notions of good farming. In exploring these ideas, the paper brings current understandings of the good farmer into conversation with those literatures on online capital exchange and the extensions of Goffman's ideas of identity performance. The paper draws on analysis of 5,000 farming tweets and interviews with 22 farmers who utilize Twitter. The paper considers how social media offers a change to the geographies and temporalities of good farming as it allows connection to a broader, geographically unrestricted, audience, might open up the previously un(der)observed or inaccessible microspaces of the farm, and allow the multifarious and often ephemeral aspects of farming practices to be captured. In moving, conceptually, beyond the idea of identity performance toward one of curation, the paper introduces the idea of didactic text, which serves to contextualize what is seen as good (and bad) farming practice. The paper shows how social media's ability to offer this regular and contextual information allows us to move beyond abstracted and decontextualized symbols of good farming toward recognizing the context‐specific nature of the 'rules of the game,' and how a broader audience beyond the farming community may be beginning to play a role in (re)shaping the symbols and practices of good farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I assess the utility of two targeted qualitative interview questions: descriptions of a 'good farmer' and a 'good day', for eliciting rich textual data. Studies where farmers have been asked to describe or define a good farmer have been utilized across a growing range of international contexts in order to identify farmers' cultural scripts, symbolic capital and social norms. The constitution of a 'good day' is new to rural studies but has been employed academically to assess perceptions of well‐being and job satisfaction. I employ document analysis to analyse the multiple uses of the 'good farmer' question in the rural studies literature and introduce a contrasting empirical application the 'good day' question in a rural case study in the United Kingdom. Findings demonstrate that both interview questions can generate rich textual descriptions of embodied performances. 'Good farmer' definitions may also include a moral judgement, whereas the 'good day' question specifically yields descriptions of affect. Farmers are reluctant to identify 'bad farmers', but asking about a 'bad day' can open up discussion of the vulnerabilities of farming life. Both questions are thus suited to more‐than‐representational research, gaining utility from their congruence between common parlance and academic conceptualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent papers have argued that spatial justice should be pursued through a place‐based approach, which enables local people to assert their own capacity to act and to pursue their own positive visions: an approach fundamental to LEADER. This paper considers the extent to which LEADER constitutes local action addressing spatial justice through a case study in England. Analysis of this case leads to questions about the extent to which apparent localism is constrained by 'government at a distance' and how this can affect the ability of LAGs to pursue spatial justice. It is suggested that LEADER displays a tension between network and hierarchy modes of governance, increasingly under control of hierarchy in this instance despite its origins as networked CLLD. The paper concludes that LEADER has potential to contribute to spatial justice – both distributive and procedural – but that this may be frustrated by the imposition of different priorities and controls at local or from higher levels. Further case studies will be required to investigate how widely this potential is realised or frustrated across Europe's varying national and local political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the residential trajectories of immigrants that intersect rural areas in Sweden. It adds to the literature on new immigration destinations (NIDs) and addresses the need to include migration routes intersecting rural areas, immigrants’ secondary migration patterns and temporal dimensions of migration, as well as the multiplicity of migrants in such destinations. We examine whether NIDs have emerged in Sweden and immigrants’ subsequent internal mobility from such areas and its determinants. Employing sequence analysis to full-population register data, we identify typical migration pathways. According to the results, NIDs are an emerging phenomenon in rural and small-sized cities in Sweden. We find limited support for the Swedish discourse that the diverse groups of rural migrants leave soon after arrival; also, those leaving are not doing so for labour market–related reasons, nor are they heading for metropolitan areas. We suggest that NIDs offer an important contribution to understanding migration patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together research on rural gentrification with emerging work on lived landscapes that has emphasized the intertwining of the human and more‐than‐human with the performance of activities of everyday living and their affective significance. It draws on research examining rural gentrification in three contrasting landscapes, termed 'the wood', 'the village' and 'the moortop'. These landscapes connect to earlier studies of rural social change and gentrification in England, with 'the wood' and 'the village' being sites research by Ray Pahl and the 'moortop' one of the landscapes identified in Darren Smith and Deborah Phillips' examination of the role of representations of rurality in processes of rural gentrification. The paper draws on research that returned to the locations of this earlier research, and seeks to re‐examine arguments advanced by these studies about the formation of socially differentiated worlds and representations of rurality through a lived‐landscape perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friedmann and McMichael's work, through their concept of the 'food regime', has been foundational to our thinking about the relation between capitalism, the state, and agriculture. Given the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of their seminal 1989 paper in this journal (Agriculture and the State System: The Rise and Decline of National Agricultures, 1870 to the Present) it seems very appropriate to commemorate this event by undertaking a reassessment of that paper. This article undertakes such a reassessment by examining and critiquing: the theoretical assumptions underlying the paper, particularly in relation to capitalism, class, and the state. This directs attention particularly to: the authors' (implicit) definition of capitalism; the relation between capitalism and the modern state; their treatment of 'class' and 'class struggle'; and their periodisation of food regimes and the dynamics underlying them, these being premised on their theoretical assumptions. The second, third, and, fourth sections occupy the bulk of the paper. The second section develops a significantly revised theoretical foundation for thinking about the dynamics underlying food regimes, while the third section deploys this as the basis for a new periodisation of food regimes. This periodisation includes a proposed Fifth, or 'Post‐Neoliberal' Food Regime, and the final section examines this in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is established that, in many countries, farmers recognise displayed tidiness in farming practice as indicative of 'good' farming. This paper asks whether Irish farmers share this recognition, and considers how this may affect uptake of agri‐environmental schemes and the potential for alterations in farming practices associated with such schemes to become 'culturally embedded'. Taking a Bourdieusian approach, this paper examines features which Irish farmers associate with tidy, 'good' farming practices and the resulting capital invested in them. It is found that the Irish participants do recognise displayed tidy practice as cultural capital, but that it is mainly male farmers who afford this capital sufficient value to recognise the display of tidiness as status‐conferring symbolic capital. This recognition results in inter‐farmer criticism and judgement, and in the questioning by many male farmers of the untidy farmer's right to the 'good farmer' identity. This is not the case for female farmers, who generally dislike the culture of judgement and criticism. In light of this culture, it is suggested that tidiness is one reason why agri‐environmental schemes do not become culturally embedded, and that this issue may be exacerbated by the low representation of Irish women in farm ownership and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable Intensification (SI) has been popularised in recent years as an approach seeking to balance the potentially conflicting demands of enhancing agricultural outputs with reducing the negative impacts arising from the current food system. Proponents have argued that SI can benefit from collaboration between farmers, but understanding is limited by a lack of data on current collaborative practices. Questions have also been raised as to whether the SI agenda pays sufficient attention to social sustainability as part of a fully integrated conception of SI. Tackling these issues, this paper reports on mixed methods data collection from seven case areas across the UK, with a particular focus on the experience of upland livestock farmers in north Wales. We evidence: (1) The extent, forms and preferences associated with farmers' collaboration; with findings demonstrating higher levels of collaboration than anticipated and a preference for informal forms of co‐working. (2) The underpinning and mutually reinforcing role of social interconnectedness in the delivery of diverse outcomes from collaboration. (3) How SI is perceived to threaten social sustainability, and thus work against a more integrated model of delivery. The paper concludes by arguing for a genuinely integrative model of SI to secure collaborations going forwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented which includes articles on topics including Europeanisation and internationalisation of rural poverty and exclusion research, and rural poverty.

Recent explorations of agri‐environmental governance which draw on the assemblage perspective highlight the relational aspects, the process dimension and the generative elements of certain sustainability endeavours. This article argues that the implications of this approach are little discussed especially what concerns the transformation potential of agri‐environmental programmes. We focus on the notion of reconfiguration as a significant facet of transformation. We align with recent research in transition studies to claim the need for conceptualizing reconfiguration. We draw on empirical research pursued with the Donau Soja organization to refer to a number of unfolding reconfigurations, in respect to the spatial, the technological and the political dimensions. We focus on the political reconfiguration and discuss some of the spillover effects of scientific research projects and proposals, programmatic papers, policy positioning and lobby work which accompany the everyday work and governance of the Donau Soja organization. We argue that greater attention to the unmeasured and unmeasurable effects of the DS assemblage also implies giving greater attention to the long‐term effects of such programmes. Moreover, the numerous changes unleashed by the organization demand research to re‐evaluate what counts as failure and success in agri‐environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Origin food schemes (OFS) aim to protect and promote a unique product resulting from a specific place and know‐how whose qualities are objectified in the product specifications. This paper explores the standardisation effects of OFS on the diversity of local practices and knowledge by analysing the emergence of the specifications of four origin cheeses recognised as Geographical Indications and Slow Food Presidia (Chefchaouen goat cheese in Morocco, Piacentinu Ennese in Italy, and Béarn mountain cheese and Ossau‐Iraty in France). Results confirm that specifications directly preserve some genetic resources, taste, and know‐how, whilst they also show that traditional production practices are taken into account differently, depending on negotiations among stakeholders during which opposing motives, strategies, and forms of knowledge may emerge. We argue that paradoxically this process results in adapting and reducing existing diversity, including in OFS that are more oriented towards localising practices and promoting a diversity of tastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically investigates rural, small-scale household farming in post-Soviet southern Ukraine, focusing on a particular group of households that have managed to intensify their production beyond subsistence without help from large farms. Large-farm support for small-scale household agricultural production in the former Soviet Union is generally considered necessary for small-scale household farming, so the absence of this support is noteworthy. The conditions of this intensification are explored and mapped out. Further, this intensification is related to discussions in the peasant study literature on the general viability of intensive smallholder production. While the investigated farms do present some sustainability concerns, this paper concludes that this production is not less viable than large-scale agricultural production. The main future challenge is how upcoming agrarian reforms will affect smallholders, particularly with respect to formalising informal resource use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of prosumption in the world of food. Prosumption is a combination of production and consumption: food prosumers are people who actively produce food for self‐consumption. Besides reflecting on sociological conceptualisations of prosumption, this exploratory study uses an online survey (N = 835) and semi‐structured interviews (N = 12) to examine prosumption empirically. Respondents, living in Almere, the Netherlands, have mostly personal and pragmatic reasons, such as the enjoyment of gardening and the pleasure of producing food, to engage in some form of prosumption. Respondents are hardly motivated by profound concerns about sustainability or a wish to create a 'radical' alternative food system. We argue, therefore, that a more pragmatic approach to the concept of prosumption in the field of food is more appropriate than sociological interpretations linking prosumption to such grand themes as power, capitalism and activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how, and the extent to which, village plans and municipal rural and health policies have been coordinated in three Danish rural case locations. We applied a qualitative design through a document analysis of plans and policies as well as interviews in villages ‐ with municipal administrations. Theoretically, the article builds on the coordination and bridging that have been undertaken between community‐led planning and statutory planning. First, the study shows that although communities are expected to influence the successful implementation of health interventions, there is still a way to go before health and rural development planning are integrated in Danish municipalities despite innovative actions towards integration at the village level. Second, issues such as what we term 'tame planning', fear of municipal domination, difficulties in approaching village diversity, and silo‐based strategy‐making are identified as critical barriers to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progressive agrarian populism and food sovereignty have recently been discussed as having the potential to erode the right‐wing populist agitation that is currently widespread in rural areas. However, these ideas are unpopular in post‐socialist Eastern Europe. This paper studies the Romanian 'new peasant' movement 'Eco Ruralis' – a member organisation of La Vía Campesina. It argues that there is a critical mismatch between the progressive objectives of Eco Ruralis and the main worries of villagers in Romania. It also demonstrates the ways in which communist legacies influence societal attitudes towards capitalism and socialism, making the adoption of La Vía Campesina's anti‐capitalist and pro‐socialist ideologies problematic. Finally, it shows that the concept of 'food sovereignty' can be misleading, as this concept is alien to the Romanian countryside. Instead, we reveal that other sustainable practices, such as seed sovereignty, are more culturally appropriate and may play an important role in eroding right‐wing sentiments in the countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their attempts to associate the nationalistic ideology with speculative promises to emancipate the people from malevolent 'outsiders', right‐wing populists often engage with rural and agricultural topics. Meanwhile, green parties, commonly associated with the progressive ideas of environmentally friendly agriculture, occasionally employ the binary logic of agrarian populism. This paper has three objectives. First, to identify the discursive features of rural (right‐wing and agrarian) populism. Second, to examine how these discursive differences unfold in agricultural, party politics. Third, to examine the implications of overlapping ideas of populist and green parties for emancipatory rural politics. The study is predominantly based on the analysis of political discourses in Hungary: Jobbik (right‐wing populist) and LMP (green party), while the agricultural discourse of Fidesz, the ruling right‐wing populist party will serve as the background to the analysis. Particular attention is given to the aesthetic, symbolic, and material dimensions of land in discourse, including environmentally friendly farming and the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a methodology for undertaking research with a 'difficult to reach population' – hobby farmers. In an investigation designed to assess agrarian transition processes in a peri‐urban locale, data was sought on every agricultural holding in a Scottish parish (municipality). This 'parish study' methodology combined participant mapping and qualitative interviewing with photo elicitation. Participant mapping was found to be useful for identifying farmers who are not normally included in rural social research, leading to a high response rate and a respondent pool for photo elicitation. The method also enabled the analysis of agrarian identity and land use. However, the parish study method is not suited to studies of dispersed groups and is more resource intensive than standard qualitative interview‐based studies. A number of ethical and EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) issues also arise around identifying participants, mapping, photos and incentivising participation in the research. The utility of the parish study method is demonstrated through two key findings of the research: the problematic definition of 'hobby farmers' in the study site and the trajectories towards de facto land abandonment in a peri‐urban locale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a socioecological analysis of the plight of the honeybee. Departing from natural sciences explanations of the chronic health issues observed in managed honeybees the proposed socioecological analysis focuses on some of the social dimensions of the problems. Specifically, the article first looks at how the cultural disdain for insects is combined with toxic agricultural practices to make bees' lives challenging. Then it focuses on large‐scale commercial beekeepers and links the fate of managed honeybees to their commodification. Forced to adapt to increasing environmental and economic pressures, beekeepers have developed new management practices intended to keep bees alive and produce as many as possible in order to stay in business and fulfil pollination demand. Their new concern for best management practices fails to foster global changes in agriculture, subsequently compromising their own fate with that of their bees. Honeybees and beekeepers are both affected by the current agricultural model designed for profitability rather than health. The paper builds on in‐depth semi‐structured interviews of 45 large‐scale commercial beekeepers and scientists and participant observation, beekeeping magazines and materials available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses rural livelihood diversification through a longitudinal follow‐up survey, that targets former collective farm workers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It argues, that between 1995 and 2010 the former collective farm workers employed three distinct livelihood diversification strategies in order to create their living. A wage‐based livelihood diversification strategy, which does not include any agricultural practices, was more common among the better‐off households. A farm‐based livelihood diversification strategy, which does not rely on salaries, was more often employed by the poor. A mixed strategy, that combines both wage income and farm activities, was used by both better‐off (above the poverty line) and poor households (below the poverty line). The paper also finds that livelihood diversification and poverty among the researched households have country specific patterns, which coincide with the general rural development in Baltic states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Swedish agriculture as its point of departure, this paper seeks to explore farmers' recruiting practices and employer–employee relationships. Taking on the employer's role means becoming subject both to formal statutory obligations and to regulations on wages, security and other aspects of working conditions. This article focuses on the more informal aspects of acting as an employer. The results show that recruiting, interacting and engaging with employees involve multiple responsibilities towards individuals and society alike. The practices of care identified are thus both private and public in nature, and exist within a framework of norms and ethical principles, a 'moral economy'. The farmers' strategies and decisions are understood as merged into negotiations regarding their identity, tradition, role in society and position in a global industry. Caring practices are embedded in farming practices and the focus on recruitment and employers' experience adds to a multifaceted understanding of caring practices in which male farmers' caring practices, too, become visible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swedish media regularly indicate that people's confidence in politicians is low. This distrust in or discontent with politicians is often related to rural politics. This paper focuses on the populist tendencies in the representations of politicians in the Swedish rural press during the parliamentary election year of 2014. A discourse analysis of the press material illustrates three closely related and critical themes; politicians are regarded as being urban centred, as doing anything for power, and as acting in an autocratic manner and misusing their power. The discourse analysis also reveals how the critical press material is linked to a moral geography relating space to a specific moral order. Drawing on theories on rural populism, the article shows how the media's references to a rural‐based victimhood, and to an alleged inequality between urbanity and rurality, can morally legitimate and bluntly express their contempt for 'scandalous' politicians, and they can present their critique as rational and justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks to better understand seed‐selling assemblages between top‐10 agricultural companies and conventional farmers in the US Midwest by looking to the often ignored participants connecting these groups. Data for this research are drawn from 12 qualitative, on‐site interviews with participants identifying as seed dealers or agronomists who live and work in Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri, an agricultural region dominated by the soybean and corn agriculture that has also become ubiquitous in European and global contexts over the last half‐century. This project arises out of assemblage‐thinking approaches to re‐see the social relations between agronomists and agricultural seed. This research suggests that the convergence between genetically engineering hybrid seed stock and the discursive act of marketing that seed stock together coproduces a flexible materiality which is far from discreet or static. Because of this, transitional actors, the seed dealers and agronomists who buy and sell such seeds have unexpectedly outsized clout when considering the agentic capacity of members in conventional agriculture assemblages. By engaging with community members and farmer‐clients, seed dealers co‐produce the worlds and meanings of hybrid seeds and conventional agriculture. This paper explores these relations and considers their implications for imagining more environmentally sustainable futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of social capital for agricultural and rural development is explored in this paper through the analysis of seven comprehensive case studies that have been carried out in the framework of the European RETHINK research programme. The case studies are based on rather different initiatives at the interface between agricultural and rural development in Germany, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Denmark and Israel. The case studies represent a broad spectrum of socio‐economic and agricultural contexts and focus on the role of social capital for development. We explore how social capital materialises in the context of rural areas, and what nuances it acquires in different rural environments. The case studies are used to better understand, and to illustrate, different expressions of social capital in different situations. Within the broad notion of social capital, we pay particular attention to trust, cooperation, sense of community, and culture and tradition. All four dimensions play a critical role in agricultural and rural development as they affect how people relate to each other, organise themselves and interact for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on research to track and trace the development and diffusion of a new initiative for clustering a diverse range of agro‐food businesses located in the rural state of Tasmania, Australia. The initiative is termed 'FermenTasmania'. To structure our analysis, our research team leveraged the concepts of boundary objects and organisations, and the Triple Helix model of innovation; testing these sociological concepts and model as a means to explain the nature, structure and emerging trajectory of FermenTasmania. This paper aims to contribute two distinct, but related findings: first, analysis of the fit and utility of the aforementioned concepts and model to track the emergence of FermenTasmania; and, second, assessment of the dynamics of innovation regarding the formation of this new social entity bridging agriculture and tourism in a rural area, with particular attention to the role of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Dutch livestock farming sector faces complex challenges concerning its sustainability and social license to operate. Engaging with what is widely understood as a legitimacy crisis, the Dutch government organised a two‐day multi‐stakeholder meetings to explore future directions. Participants engaged with the public as a key but absent stakeholder, in ways that contributed to the outcome of the meetings in important ways. The paper charts and analyses how and with what consequences this happened. Findings are that participants discursively constructed citizens in terms of consumer roles, with deliberations turning citizen concerns about livestock farming into questions of consumer responsibility, side‐lining citizens’ political voices and discursively displacing the possibility of politics around livestock farming. This instance of network governance presents a case of depoliticisation of an issue of concern to citizens, closely related to market players being put in the driver's seat of change, with the government in a supporting role. The article argues that this raises significant questions on the nature and role of construction of publics in network governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recently, democratic theorists have turned their attention to political representation. This renewed attention is inspired by a questioning of the formalist interpretation of representative government that presumes a strict division between elected political elites and deliberative participation in the public sphere. Several scholars argue that the standard account of representative democracy based on residence‐based and electoral representation does not suffice to explain contemporary political practice. Representation, then, becomes a ‘practice’ in which the object of representation and the grounds on which it is defended, co‐determine ‘who’ and ‘what’ is considered politically legitimate and how ‘interests’ are to be represented. In this paper we explore how discursive interaction on political representation takes place in an ‘institutional void’, i.e. a political setting in which there are no clear rules and norms to which politics is to be conducted. We base our analysis on an interpretative reconstruction of the rise and fall of a sustainability governance process in the Flemish agro‐food domain called the New Food Frontier (NFF). We claim to have found several interacting political conceptions, that operated on both explicit and more tacit levels, which particularly shaped the political interventions within the institutional void of the NFF. Analysis reveals that the dominant/initial conception of the studied political process has strong affinities with Dryzek's ideas on discursive representation. Competing claims on how political representation should work were linked to neo‐corporatism and transition management. We analyze how these competing conceptions play in the organization, articulation and disintegration of the governance network. Secondly, we relate this deliberative ‘outcome’ to the broader political setting in which the sustainability governance trajectory was embedded. In this context, a re‐negotiation of the rules of the game within a new governance setting and the relationship with institutionalized politics proved to be important factors in explaining the discontinuity of the process of discursive representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to answer the following questions. How are digital platforms encountered and felt by producers and consumers and how do these assemblages shape the foodscapes we imagine and enact? How do elements like digital locks, proprietary code, and 'open' code inform how we think about the subject of agrofood governance? Finally, what are the lives being made to live, and left to let die, as a result of digital platforms, from those employing digital locks and proprietary software to those built on open source code? To do this, the paper draws upon two case studies. The first examines London-area producers and consumers linked to the web-based distribution platform FarmDrop. This is followed by a case study involving US producers loosely linked to the group Farm Hack; a group that promotes technology that is collectively built and freely shared, and which desires to 'hack' that which is not. To conclude, the article turns briefly to Berry's (2001) thoughts on interactivity. While insightful, as the concept helps us think about the less-than-overt ways in which code-based assemblages enable and disable, the aforementioned case studies allow for some refinements to what it means to do and be interactive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that we know little about how small farmers in post-communist Europe survive and even grow while having little access to credit markets. In approaching small farmers, this paper builds on ideas of self-provisioning, contending that the tendency among small farmers is not one of growth towards and through economies of scale, but one of internalising and de-monetising costs, by growing in order to control upstream and downstream links in the value chain. It asks what is it that makes self-provisioning possible in two post-communist regions (located in Romania and Ukraine) and identifies various assets in the smallholders' environments, such as most importantly a diverse scene of intermediaries supplying smallholders with cash incomes. The implication of the research is that the existence of these assets is crucial for the smallholders' survival and growth, and these assets should be valued accordingly rather than dismissed in favour of integrating smallholders into modern, retailer-dominated, value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a wealth of literature exploring attitudes towards windfarms and the various debates surrounding them. However, for the most part, this literature has focused on responses to proposed sites, rather than exploring the long-term impacts of windfarms on local residents. This paper presents the findings from qualitative research in three English villages, which investigated how existing local windfarms are perceived and experienced by local residents, and how such new structures are incorporated into conceptualisations of rural place over time. The results show that, whilst concerns remain in some instances, the windfarms have (perhaps surprisingly) become a familiar and unremarkable - or even valued - part of the landscape for many people. Here, the varied interpretations of existing windfarms, and the place-based processes underlying them, are discussed with particular reference to rural identities and local contexts. The potential implications of the findings for managing future rural change are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns UK commercial fruit and vegetable growers' narratives regarding the sustainability of water use for food production. In it we explore their perspectives on efforts by regulators to limit agricultural withdrawals of water from the natural environment in line with EU Water Framework Directive objectives, alongside their views on retailer sustainability commitments. Discourse analysis is used to investigate how the growers contested restrictive regulation, constructed their identities, portrayed other supply chain stakeholders, and conveyed their social relations with them. Using Erving Goffman's theory of frontstage and backstage performances, the implications for the growers' water management decisions and their internalisation of sustainability agendas for water are examined. Whilst the growers gave accounts of purposely misrepresenting their water withdrawal practices and their discourse illustrated significant polarisation between environmental and agricultural interests, their underlying commitment to environmental sustainability was ambivalent, with both anti and pro‐environmental attitudes expressed. The growers also frequently gave critiques of superficial sustainability in fresh produce supply chains. We argue that, given contemporary shifting definitions of agricultural identities, settings in which their construction is negotiated can provide windows of opportunity for conventional growers to engage in genuine pro‐environmental performances that may deepen their assimilation of environmental goals and commitment to sustainable water use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of societal wellbeing has moved beyond gross domestic product and has emerged as an important factor within the paradigm of holistic sustainability assessment, including agricultural sustainability. At this juncture, knowledge gaps exist between agricultural policy priorities and data infrastructure to evaluate social sustainability issues, particularly regarding farmer sustainability. This study aims to address this gap through the development of a Farmer Sustainability Index (FSI), a composite index comprising three dimensions: farm continuity, community and social connections and farmer comfort. Socio‐demographic data were extracted from both core and supplementary EU Farm Accountancy Data Network data from the 2018 Teagasc National Farm Survey in Ireland. Statistical analysis was undertaken to compare the distribution of FSI and the individual dimension scores for farms across three socio‐demographic variables: farm system, farmer age cohort and region. The FSI results demonstrate that cattle farmers, farmers over 60 years of age and those residing in regions with poorer infrastructure experience lower levels of sustainability in comparison to other farmers, while the variation in FSI dimension scores identifies numerous sustainability risks to farms with differing socio‐demographic constructs. It is important for agricultural policy to be cognisant of these differences and the relational nature of these risks, to meaningfully address matters pertaining to sustainability, and the FSI provides an effective tool to assist policy in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how the framing of nature conservation in terms of sustainable development both enables and constrains participation at the grassroots level. The Green Belt of Fennoscandia, an initiative to develop a transnational ecological network between Finland, Russia and Norway, is used as a case study. A desk study and 40 interviews with participants of two regional working groups from this initiative show how the mobilisation of the concept of sustainability encourages actors in rural areas to become leaders of projects in favour of both nature conservation and economic development. This research also describes how the lack of state engagement and potential conflicts between regional and national levels can discourage these actors to commit to the initiative. This research refines previous work on the reduction of the role of the state in conservation, illustrating the scalar dynamics of sustainable development implementation in a European rural context. It provides material to inform the governance of large‐scale conservation projects, by highlighting how an approach that aims to boost local participation can in fact discourage it, if the reduction of the role of the state is not accompanied by resources, formal rights to democratic representation or/and an acknowledgement of past work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Usually, vulnerability is equated to weakness and resistance to strength. Drawing on a feminist critique of this conceptualisation, this article aims to discuss how vulnerability to forest fires and local action are mutually and contradictorily related. I analyse the ways in which people in two rural communities surrounded by tree monocultures in Sweden and Spain think, feel and act after being exposed to acute forest fires in 2018 and 2017, respectively. Attentively listening to the experiences of vulnerability during and after the fire in the two cases helps to explain vulnerability to forest fires as an emotional, care‐related process that opens up contradictory and transformative interconnections between peoples, nature and the state. Also, looking at the two cases together, this article shows how vulnerability to fire is mediated through unequal expectations across Europe's North–South divide. By re‐signifying the implications of vulnerability, disasters such as those analysed here can be seen as facilitators of radical transformations towards new rural futures in Europe's forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it mean to study places in 'crisis' and how does that affect the research done on the 'rural'? To be considered to be in crisis is not really new as any literature review of rural studies indicates. And yet, we live now in a new context, with new challenges for 'rural' research, in particular that of sustainability. Sustainability is the new policy focus and is increasingly reflected in research on rural Europe. Although scholars are beginning to theorize on what is sustainable in and for rural areas, our intention is to take this further. We theorize on what the focus on crisis and, increasingly on sustainability, means for the research we do and the knowledge we produce on rural Europe. Our aim is to bring attention to the politics of past and present knowledge production on the rural to be able to imagine just and sustainable futures. In an analysis of literature primarily from Sweden and the UK, we argue that two construals, that of a rural crisis and that of rural–urban polarization, have set the tone for rural studies and may have overshadowed a more plural approach. We outline what might be needed from rural research to meet future challenges and what the notion of sustainability, with its emphasis on the entanglements of the social, economic and environmental, might mean for the future of rural research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial cohesion is a guiding set of EU principles to achieve sustainable development. However, evidence suggests that within and across rural and peripheral regions in particular, prosperity and social and economic wellbeing continue to lag behind other regions. The aim of this article is to examine how a spatial justice perspective can provide new development insights on rural sustainability. Introducing a spatial justice perspective to a sustainability/territorial cohesion view of rural development, this article explores the scope for alternative framings of rural sustainability based on more place‐based, context‐specific socio‐spatial relations and processes. Drawing on interviews with EU‐based stakeholders mainly representing rural‐based NGOs, it identifies changing values and priorities about rural sustainability linked to notions of spatial justice and fairness. The findings illustrate an evolving local‐level emphasis on rural sustainability as a phenomenon less focused on economic growth and as much on achieving social equity, with associated capacity to frame and agree locally relevant sustainability goals in an inclusive and respectful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we address the relationship that exists between the development of certain unsustainable fishing practices among professional small‐scale fishery, industrial fishery and recreational fishing and the historical and social changes observed in the configuration of maritime fishing communities in Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain). We also explore the impact that European, Spanish and regional policies have had on the strategies of exploitation of the marine environment and the forms of social organisation of these communities. To do this, we apply a multiproxy approach that includes several kinds of data: field research, photographic archives, oral interviews, local newspapers, legislation, official reports and published literature. The anthropological and historic viewpoints applied in the research delve into how the disappearance of traditional professional small‐scale fishing and the surge of both a bottom‐trawl fleet and recreational marine fishing have not only promoted a loss of sustainability and environmental balance in such coastal environments but have also led to a significant loss regarding key cultural and identity assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El Penedès is an area of Catalonia (northeastern Spain) characterised by its viticulture activity. Its landscape and territorial identity are marked by vineyards and the creation of still and sparkling wines such as cava. This article analyses the tensions between the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, sociocultural and environmental) among viticulturist practices and discourses in El Penedès. Through 2 years (2019–2021) of fieldwork in the region (participant observation and interviews), I have observed the (un)sustainabilities of viticulturists in four different contexts: the expansion of organic production, quantity‐oriented cava production, the effects of territorial policies on vineyards and the permanent farmers' demonstrations demanding just prices and a decent life (vida digna). Viticulturists are threatened by agro‐industrial drifts that squeeze their livelihoods and impede the sustainability of life. Thus, the viticulturists' current situation exemplifies the capital–life conflict explored by feminist economists in other fields. The article contributes to the study of sustainability in light of social reproduction in the viticulture sector and provides empirical evidence of other economic rationalities among viticulturists that differ from the hegemonic economic rationality based on capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how and why agricultural digitalisation unfolds in contrasting agricultural sub‐sectors and rural spaces in Europe, with a particular focus on dairy farming. The authors explore the differences and similarities underpinning and produced by agricultural digitalisation and how this intersects with meanings of rural development and the politics of sustainability. Building on qualitative research carried out in the regions of Uppsala (Sweden) and Calabria (Italy), the article unveils the contradictory nature of agricultural digitalisation as a process intertwined with the capitalist development of agriculture that raises key political questions. The cases of Uppsala and Calabria, in particular, show that the transformation of dairy farming through automation and digitalisation is uneven and combined, being deeply connected to how politics of sustainability and rural development are embedded—and negotiated—in specific agrarian settings. The authors discuss their empirical findings in terms of new agrarian questions in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the erosion of institutions that support farmers' learning and the construction of knowledge in agriculture in an area of agricultural decline. It is based on a qualitative study in northern Sweden, exploring farmers' learning to farm, their peer networks, contacts with advisory services and their sales relationships. As farming is increasingly differentiated, with an intensification of production in some areas and increasing farmland abandonment in others, so are the institutions that support farmers' learning. Farmers handle this in different ways, and the article indicates that resourceful farmers, dependent on farm income, seek out and create contexts for learning. Others seem increasingly decoupled from advisory institutions and upstream industries, selling their produce in local networks. The article illustrates that the widening gap in agrarian production is related to a differentiation of social and institutional preconditions for the construction of knowledge in farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural change in the agricultural economy may result in the abandonment of agricultural buildings, creating rural brownfield sites. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, post‐agricultural brownfields have become very common in Central and Eastern Europe. Our aim is to uncover and understand the reuse preferences for 16 reuse options, among 1275 survey respondents (local residents) from 272 rural communities with post‐agricultural brownfields in the Czech Republic. The influence of respondent status, the socioeconomic characteristics of those communities and environmental characteristics of communities were tested using redundancy analysis and variation partitioning. Three types of reuse were identified as most preferred among respondents: agricultural reuse, industrial reuse and reuse for housing, services and leisure time activities. We found strong and significant ties between the pattern of preferences for potential reuse options and demographic, community socioeconomic and environmental context variables. It can therefore be concluded that preferences for rural renewal tend to be constructed comprehensively and encompass social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In order to implement a vision that promotes sustainable rural development, we need to recognise that the preferences of rural residents are fundamentally shaped by the local environment and are therefore highly dependent on the place‐based circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transition to a more sustainable food production system in Europe has significant implications for the social constitution of rural spaces. Moreover, research has highlighted that engagement with sustainability initiatives can be affected by people's desire to maintain aspects of their current social realities pertaining to occupations, traditions and lifestyles. Farmers are central to a sustainable agricultural transition, yet are also socially embedded in the spaces that are targeted for transformation. This article engages with this dilemma through an exploration of farmer values in an upland farming area in Ireland. Specifically, we draw on qualitative case‐study data to explore how farmers value their occupation, lifestyles and social structures in terms of the relationships in which they operate. We highlight a range of dimensions through which case‐study farmers value farming—especially as autonomous, outdoor work—in terms of tacit skills and knowledge, familial legacies and certain forms of social organisation. Conceptually, this article builds on calls from within social sustainability scholarship to engage with social aspects of sustainable development. We develop and deploy a relational values analytic framework, which offers a simple yet effective lens for exploring farmer values in terms of the relationships through which they are generated and articulated. Through this framework, we explore how different individuals value their farming occupations and lifestyles. Moreover, by focusing on the relational dimension, we tease out the multiple and sometimes conflicting values that individuals navigate in relation to their farming occupations. We conclude that this kind of approach could enhance understanding of farmer engagement with (or resistance to) sustainable agriculture initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In connection to concerns about, for example, climate change, peak oil, pandemics and the depopulation of many rural areas, there has been a counter‐migration from urban to rural areas in past decades. An important part of this counter‐migration is the so‐called 'back‐to‐the‐land' migration of former urban residents who move to rural areas and adopt primarily agrarian lifestyles. Through a review of 48 migration letters in which migrants write about their experiences of moving from urban to rural areas to commence agriculture, this article explores the underlying ideals and agricultural practices of the back‐to‐land phenomena and discusses what significance this form of agricultural migration may have for understanding broader sustainability transformations and contemporary rural change. Important questions concern: What kinds of motives, practices and ideals underpin back‐to‐the‐land migration? What relevance does "back‐to‐the‐land" have for how we comprehend rurality and how the current food landscape is changing? Based on the letter reviews, this article illuminates four interconnected themes with regard to back‐to‐the‐landers practices and ideals. Back‐to‐the‐land as (i) rebelling against payroll work and meaningless lives in the cities, (ii) reinvention and retrotopia, (iii) reconnecting with nature and cultivating resilient alternatives and (iv) resistance and silent revolution. The article argues that the current back‐to‐land migration contributes to the construction of a renewed rurality—a reinvented form of rurality—that are adapted to suit both present and future needs in a world that is perceived as becoming more unruly. The article further suggests that, although back‐to‐the‐land migration may not yet have any significant material implications on the current food system, the ideals and practices the back‐to‐the‐landers profess, provide an important imaginary of how we can comprehend an alternative 'rurality' that reconnect people, land and food in more sustainable ways, through, for example, benign ways of practising agriculture and organising the food system. In this light, the current back‐to‐the‐land phenomena can be seen as a particular form of sustainability migration of voluntary peasantry that is based on retrotopian ideals of a rural past that is paired with progressive sustainability practices of the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notions of the good life are often strongly linked to rurality. Existing conceptualisations tend towards an anthropocentric and individualised approach centred on personal wealth, status and happiness. In contrast, this article reframes the good life as an interspecies endeavur, which embeds people and animals alike by recognising their interdependent relational configurations within the wider natural‐social environment. Specifically, we bring insights from the concept of buen vivir to bear on research among people who live alongside their horses in rural areas of the UK. We find that horses enhance, enable and mediate people's understanding and experience of the rural good life. In contrast to popular and scholarly conceptions that emphasise privilege and leisure, the interspecies iteration that emerges is characterised by hard work, collaboration and purposeful active learning. This has profound implications in turn for our understanding and experience of sustainability, as these interspecies relations lead participants into a more active stewardship of both the immediate and wider environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women farmers' experiences are not necessarily homogeneous between contexts, and overall different social structures might have different spillover effects into agriculture. Despite the so‐called 'feminisation' of Greek agriculture—manifested as an increase in the proportion of officially registered farm heads being female and recognition of female contribution to farming—the question remains of how fast these changes do transform the role of women in Greek agriculture and how far they reach in terms of changing contested gender identities in a still male‐dominant sector. This article, inspired by the recent work on Feminist Agri‐Food Systems Theory (FAST), tries to shed light on these transformations by collecting official data, working with local experts–informants and conducting in‐depth qualitative interviews with 71 women farmers in Greece. We advocate for indicators of transformation by using women's life stories and the FAST as a theoretical lens. According to our results, the increasing visibility of women in agriculture did not activate any dynamic renegotiation of the hierarchical and pre‐defined gender roles within the family and local society. Overall, multiple roles and tasks remain still challenging in the daily routine of women farmers. However, in contrast to the past, there are different pathways to enter agriculture, and despite all barriers, women's self‐perception as farmers is quite empowered in the study area. They are younger than the national average, their farm size is larger than average, they prefer value‐added production and they seek tailored agricultural extension services and peer‐to‐peer knowledge through informal networks. For the further theoretical development of the FAST model, and advancing the state of the art, we reflect on some additional axes and indicators resulting from its application in the Greek context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores impacts of dramatic levels of outmigration from Puka, a remote region of northern Albania. Since 1991 depopulation, economic decline and state withdrawal have created conditions of what Dzenovska calls rural emptiness. Drawing on focus group discussions with women from eight villages, it explores how conditions of rural emptiness have led to a transformation of gender contracts, with women taking on additional responsibilities. However, these changes have been accommodated within a re‐traditionalised patriarchal system through the devaluation of tasks assigned to women, their increased surveillance by male relatives and erosion of women's social life outside the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how proponents and critics of gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) employ expectations—discourses with future‐oriented impacts—as they compete to secure desired futures and mobilise social processes and resources towards their goal of influencing GEAF (re)regulation and agro‐food systems within the EU. We draw on 27 semi‐structured interviews and 53 Euractiv media articles to identify and analyse GEAF proponents' and critics' responses to the 2018 European Court of Justice regulatory decision that GEAF will be regulated as genetically modified organisms. Despite similar themes of environmental sustainability, food security and winners and losers in agricultural innovation systems, proponents' and critics' discourses reflect divergent expectations of GEAF. We argue that both groups link their expectations with concerns about path dependencies in technological innovations and agro‐food systems, which serve to influence emerging political, public and elite perspectives on GEAF. Although to some extent performative, these concerns offer important insights that should be problematised and engaged within GEAF governance spaces. This study is conceptually framed by the socio‐technical futures, path dependency and political economy of food and agriculture literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented that discusses articles within the issue on the impacts and implications of alternative food practices in a post-neoliberal transition.

Farming occupations are, in the Global North, generally solitary, and a growing body of research identifies this as one of the factors that underpins low levels of wellbeing and poor mental health amongst farmers. The primary public health response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic focused on reducing transmission of the virus by limiting interactions of people. This article seeks to assess the impact of these restrictions on farmer's experience of isolation and how it shaped their wellbeing. Applying a broad socio‐ecological framework, we analyse change, continuity and shifts in social and economic relations and their spatial reconfiguration during the COVID‐19 pandemic as recounted in semi‐structured, qualitative interviews. We found that while COVID‐19 has disrupted socio‐spatial relations, including key sites of socialisation for farmers and rural communities, occupational isolation was viewed as a positive feature of farming as was working in nature. Familial and informal networks of support were important throughout the pandemic, while novel engagements with communication technologies facilitated both change and continuity of social and economic interaction. Whilst these findings are broadly positive, the reconfiguration of, particularly, economic relations is viewed as accelerating the turn towards service delivery using technology and, consequently, further reducing opportunities for social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary EU agricultural policies place a significant emphasis on current and future societal issues, e.g. climate, biodiversity, animal welfare, and air and water quality amongst others. The governance of farming practices has changed in order to deliver on these expectations resulting in increasingly specific regulations to ensure their delivery. For male farmers these developments have the potential to undermine their autonomy as a 'good farmer', their gendered sense of mastery and ultimately their conception of what it is to be a 'man' in rural Ireland. This qualitative study explores how changes in agricultural policy are being received by farming communities, how they impact on gendered roles, and what the collateral impacts are on wellbeing and mental health. Eleven focus groups were conducted with male farmers (n = 3) and key informants (n = 8). Utilizing Thematic Content Analysis, all transcripts were coded iteratively using open and comparative coding techniques. Themes were grouped into primary and sub‐themes. Theme memos and conceptual maps were used to track evolving relationships between themes. Our analysis identified two interrelated themes. (i) 'Resistance or submission': negotiating farming masculinities in response to changing agri‐governance and (ii) 'Advancement or abandonment': reconfiguring 'the good farmer' in the wake of contemporary challenges in the dairy sector. We explore these issues by drawing out how contemporary regulation of farming practices gives rise to tensions associated with a perceived loss of autonomy and mastery, as well as ripple effects for farmer wellbeing. Findings highlight the tensions that permeate the construction of farming identities and masculinities in the wake of changes to agricultural policy and governance, and unpack the ripple effects for farmers' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban restaurants are increasingly putting local food on the menu. How do farm‐to‐restaurant relations fit into the local food movement, and how can these collaborations be supported by food policies and programmes of urban governments? Through a qualitative case study in the city‐region of Groningen (The Netherlands), this article explores the values urban restaurants, local food suppliers and urban governments attribute to local food, the trust and barriers these actors experience in their collaborations, and their views on the municipality's preliminary plans for a local food hub. In line with the concepts of reflexive localism and values‐based territorial food networks, and taking into account the perspectives, benefits, pitfalls and conditions uncovered in this study, a farm‐to‐restaurant‐oriented food hub would need to (1) embrace the complex and relational nature of place, (2) foster reciprocal and practical partnerships, (3) negotiate reflexive and values‐based goals and (4) broker between and unburden the involved parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]