Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
change has barely been mentioned in recent reviews of rural geography (Cloke
1997; Phillips 1998).
Less anthropocentric approaches to geography, as advocated by a growing
number of commentators (Anderson 1997; Murdoch 1997; Philo and Wolch 1998;
Tuan 1984), present a whole host of possibilities for agricultural geographers and
offer one way in which the study of agrarian change can be linked more closely with
recent theoretical developments in rural geography. At the very least, there is a need
to recognise that farm animals have, quite literally, been constructed by people to fit
into particular rural spaces. This emphasis would also advance a 'new' animal
geography as, somewhat surprisingly, many studies in this vein have focused on the
place of animals in the home or urban environment (Anderson 1995; Philo 1995;
Wolch
et al.
1995) and there is still much work to be done on the place of animals
in the countryside.
One way in which this can be achieved is to pay greater attention to different
breeds, as well as species, of farm animals. This is because people have deliberately
bred animals to meet different environmental, economic and cultural demands over
time and space. Livestock breeds are therefore socially constructed, in both physical
and cultural terms (see Anderson 1997). As a consequence, there is an astonishing
diversity of livestock breeds across Britain specifically and the world generally which
can reveal much about society and people's relationship with animals (Yarwood and
Evans 1998). Yet, despite such significance, the geographies of livestock breeds have
been largely ignored in contemporary study and there have been few attempts to
examine the place of farm animals within the geographical imagination.
This chapter demonstrates how a sharper focus on livestock can contribute to
current thinking in rural studies and to the development of new ideas in agricultural
geography. It begins by examining how rare breeds of livestock have been valued by
farmers and how the changing rural economy has affected this relationship.
Emphasis is given to the new roles that livestock are finding in a post-productive
countryside, to their contribution to landscape in Britain, and to ways in which they
have been re-imagined for the purposes of heritage and place marketing. This leads
to consideration of the ways in which livestock are culturally constructed to fit with
certain discourses of rurality and how these can be expressed through conservation
groups. In doing so, the chapter moves from a perspective underpinned by political
economy ideas to a more culturally informed standpoint, demonstrating how a
greater sensitivity to cultural issues can enrich studies of agricultural change. Given
the extensive nature of this review, the reader's attention is also drawn to discussions
on these themes which have been published in more depth elsewhere (Evans and
Yarwood 1995, 1998, 1999; Yarwood and Evans 1998, 1999; Yarwood
et al.
1997).
This chapter uses a range of empirical evidence, including information from 1,834
interviews with members of the Rare Breed Survival Trust (RBST) conducted as
part of a research project
1
by the authors on the 'empirical' and 'imagined' geographies
of livestock in Britain and Ireland. The text which follows in italics is taken directly
from these interviews.
