Understanding Farmers' Aesthetic Preference for Tidy Agricultural Landscapes: A Bourdieusian Perspective

Abstract

Studies of landscape aesthetics based on photographic assessment indicate that farmers have a unique perspective—seeing beauty in the same ordered and controlled arable agricultural landscapes that almost all other publics find monotonous and boring. This paper uses Bourdieu's theory of capital to explore why farmers hold this perspective. Interpretations farmers place on ‘tidy’ features such as straight lines and evenly coloured fields were explored through a cross-cultural study between Germany and Scotland. Results show how farmers ‘read’ agricultural landscapes for signs of skilled farming, and how their interpretation is dependent on knowledge of the connection between efficient farming practices and the appearance of forms and colours in the fields. The implications of agricultural landscape aesthetics for the development of cultural and social capital are discussed.

Key Words:

• Farmers
• landscape aesthetic
• habitus
• cultural capital
• Bourdieu

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society. Facilities for writing up this paper have been provided by the Centre for Rural Research in Trondheim, Norway, and the Centre for the Study of Food and the Environment in Dunedin, New Zealand. I would like to offer special thanks to all the farmers who participated in the survey and Carmen Kuczera, my collaborator from the Institut für Agrarsoziologie und Beratungswesen, Gießen, Germany. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Notes

By ‘industrial’ I refer to landscapes dominated by commercial agriculture such as Daugstad et al.'s (2006) modern agricultural landscapes or Setten's (2004) intensively farmed landscapes—as opposed to more traditional landscapes of high cultural value such as those evaluated by Scott (2002).

Similar levels of connectedness between communities and landscapes have been viewed in other contexts. For example, Mackenzie's (2004, 2006) exploration of crofting communities and ‘wilderness’ landscapes, Lee's (2005) analysis of the symbolic importance of hill farming in Orkney, or Gray's (1998) perspective on the consubstantiality of sheep farming communities in the Scottish Borders.

Note that although there are other forms of farm ownership (in particular, Marsden, 2003, notes that farm systems are changing towards a more corporate model) over 90% of farms in the USA, Europe (Brookfield, 2008) and Australia (Pritchard et al., 2007) continue to be family owned.