Durham E-Theses In Better Fettle: Improvement, Work and Rhetoric in the Transition to Environmental Farming in the North York Moors EMERY, STEVEN,BLAKE How to cite: EMERY, STEVEN,BLAKE (2010) In Better Fettle: Improvement, Work and Rhetoric in the Transition to Environmental Farming in the North York Moors, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/379/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 In Better Fettle: Improvement, Work and Rhetoric in the Transition to Environmental Farming in the North York Moors Steven B. Emery Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in anthropology and geography Durham University 2010 Abstract Through ethnographic research amongst farmers in the North York Moors, and through broader historical and political analysis, I examine the importance and role of values in hard work and beneficent change in negotiated interactions between policy-makers, farmers and conservationists. Within the context of a shift in agricultural support away from production to environmental protection, and within the context of a local conservation initiative to protect a population of freshwater pearl mussels in the River Esk, I show the importance of these values for the construction of farmers' personhoods and their symbolic relations and means of expression through the landscape. I show how those values are persistent and pervasive, yet at the same time mutable and open to interpretation. In particular, I examine alternative conceptions of beneficent change through recourse to the words fettle and improvement. Fettling places value in long- term, steady and incremental change, whereas improvement places value in changes more closely associated with productivist ideals such as expansion and profit. I suggest that it is the mutability of farming values that gives rise to their persistence as they come to be used and reinterpreted according to the changing contexts of their application and the differing interests of a range of groups and individuals. By showing that farmers are able to uphold and express their values differently I argue that it is not so straightforward to predict farmers' responses to changing political exigencies or local conservation initiatives on the basis of homogenous values or the categorisation of farmers into defined "types". Through a rhetoric-culture approach I argue that changes in farming values through time do not merely reflect changing political interests and farmers' subsequent accommodation of them. Rather, it reflects the continued negotiation of those values between farmers and others in the play of agents and patients in the construction of personhood and the formulation of arguments. I argue that the persistence of fettling interpretations of a value in beneficent change reflects the agentive actions of farmers as it remains a useful argumentative strategy with which they can make indictments against new policy impositions and, moreover, it remains functional in guiding their practices in ways suitable to the environment in which they farm. i Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................. i Contents ........................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures and Tables ............................................................................................. iv List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... v Statement of Copyright ................................................................................................ vii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... viii Chorus from The Rock ................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Defining the Research ............................................................................................ 1 1.2 Rationale and Scope(lessness) ................................................................................ 2 1.3 Approach to Research ............................................................................................. 3 1.4 Theoretical Approach ............................................................................................. 5 1.5 Four Propositions .................................................................................................... 6 1.6 Lines of Argument .................................................................................................. 7 1.7 Thesis Organisation ................................................................................................ 9 Chapter 2 Theoretical Approach ................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Approaching Culture ............................................................................................ 10 2.3 The Farming Literature ......................................................................................... 26 2.4 A Preliminary Note on Improvement and Beneficent Change ............................. 44 2.5 Summary ............................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3 Local Situationality ....................................................................................................... 47 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 47 3.2 Aspects of the Local ............................................................................................. 47 3.3 An Intrusion .......................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 4 The Historical and Political Situation ......................................................................... 88 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 88 4.2 History .................................................................................................................. 88 4.3 Policy .................................................................................................................. 104 Chapter 5 Hard Work, Beneficent Change and their Multifaceted Pervasiveness ................. 119 5.1 A Wander About Hawleydale … and Sometimes Beyond ................................. 119 5.2 Farming Values and Personhoods: On Work, Beneficent Change and Relations with the Land ............................................................................................................ 130 Chapter 6 The Moor, The River and a Jungle in Between ........................................................ 147 6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 147 6.2 Management of the Moor ................................................................................... 147 6.3 A Jungle In Between ........................................................................................... 157 6.4 The River ............................................................................................................ 165 ii 6.5 Summary ............................................................................................................. 175 Chapter 7 Farming Values and Rhetorical Play ........................................................................ 177 7.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 177 7.2 Values and Rhetorical Play ................................................................................. 177 7.3 Reflections on the Implementation of Environmental Initiatives ....................... 193 Chapter 8 Conclusion: Reflections on the Persistence and Complexity of Farming Values . 203 8.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 203 8.2 Language and Ideology: The Rhetoric of Improvement ..................................... 208 8.3 Landscape, Agency and The Limits of Rhetoric ................................................ 214 8.4 Fettling and the Four Propositions ...................................................................... 219 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................