Challenges to Habitus: Scruffy Hedges and Weeds in the Irish Countryside

Abstract

It is established that, in many countries, farmers recognise displayed tidiness in farming practice as indicative of ‘good’ farming. This paper asks whether Irish farmers share this recognition, and considers how this may affect uptake of agri-environmental schemes and the potential for alterations in farming practices associated with such schemes to become ‘culturally embedded’. Taking a Bourdieusian approach, this paper examines features which Irish farmers associate with tidy, ‘good’ farming practices and the resulting capital invested in them. It is found that the Irish participants do recognise displayed tidy practice as cultural capital, but that it is mainly male farmers who afford this capital sufficient value to recognise the display of tidiness as status-conferring symbolic capital. This recognition results in inter-farmer criticism and judgement, and in the questioning by many male farmers of the untidy farmer’s right to the ‘good farmer’ identity. This is not the case for female farmers, who generally dislike the culture of judgement and criticism. In light of this culture, it is suggested that tidiness is one reason why agri-environmental schemes do not become culturally embedded, and that this issue may be exacerbated by the low representation of Irish women in farm ownership and management.