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Research title Seeding alternatives: Back-to-the-land migration and alternative agro-food networks in Northern Italy. Summary of research When we speak of 'alternative' agro-food networks (AAFNs), the phrase implies an alternative to something distinct, commonplace and familiar. 'Sustainable' farming, buying cooperatives, farmers' markets, fair trade and ethical sourcing all suggest an opposition or resistance to the corporate-industrial food system dominated by chemical-intensive farming, supermarket retailing and consumer apathy. The lines between 'conventional' and 'alternative', however, are rarely as well-defined in practice as principle. As several researchers have pointed out, conventional and alternative practices can coexist and complement each other, while the 'care at a distance' relationships fostered by ethical branding are often far more complex than the producer-consumer exchange reflects. That said, the growth and development of food networks based on ideas of ecological sustainability, social justice, public health and animal welfare do reinforce the need to view these as distinct enterprises seeking to reconfigure our relationship to food, our planet and our fellow beings, human and non-human. AAFNs are, after all, social and economic responses to a perceived need.
Back-to-the-landers, or new farmers who have come to agriculture from other backgrounds (often urban) are well-placed to test the practical and ethical dimensions of small-scale sustainable farming and its connected networks of distribution, consumption and discourse. The motivations underlying their relocation to rural areas are likely to echo the proposed aims of AAFNs and their biographies, practices and beliefs provide an illuminating entry point into studying the social, economic and political spheres in which they operate. Their work practices and economic sustenance will consequently demonstrate the performance of AAFNs as both ethically-constructed systems of exchange and enablers to urban-to-rural migration.
My research concerns back-to-the-landers in four regions of Italy: Tuscany, Piedmont, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna. I have been working with new farmers on their land in these areas, as well as conducting interviews and making site visits to farmers' markets, self-sufficient farms and other rural enterprises that combine to form a system of cultivating, exchanging and consuming food which does in fact seem very distant from the more familiar forms of production and trade.
Since I'm investigating the links between back-to-the-landers and the networks in which they operate, I'm also collaborating with three organisations which would qualify as AAFNs in the commonly accepted understanding of that term. The three networks represent different scales of popular recognition, administrative requirements and member control, but all involve back-to-the-landers who in many cases serve as vital stimuli to the networks.
Supervisors Professor Joanne Sharp
Professor Jane Jacobs (University of Edinburgh)
Leah Gibbs (University of Woolongong) Recent publications Book review: Another Country by Scott Herring. Gender, Place and Culture (Forthcoming) McTavish, D., Miller, K., Thompson, E. and Wilbur, A. (2007) 'Gender Balance in Management: Higher and Further Education Sectors, Scotland'. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. View full text >> Wilbur, A. (2011) 'The Gastronomic Underground: Italy's Mercatini Clandestini. The Idler 44 Recent research grants Wilbur, A. 2009-10. Small Research Grant £350. Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Wilbur, A. 2010. See-Hear-Make-Do: Experimenting with Geography. Co-applicant with Michael Gallagher and Jonathan Prior (University of Edinburgh). |
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