‘You have to keep it going’: Relational values and social sustainability in upland agriculture

Abstract

AbstractA 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.