Pets and protein:

Journal of Rural Studies 17 (2001) 293}307

Pets and protein: placing domestic livestock on hobby-farms in England and Wales Lewis Holloway Geography, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK

Abstract The place of animals in human geography is currently the subject of considerable discussion, focusing on the spatial variation of human}animal relations, and on the ways in which categories such as &human', &animal', &wild' and &domestic' are produced. In this paper I begin to consider some of the ethical dimensions of human}animal relations in livestock farming, using the notion of &situated morality' (Lynn, Ethics Place Environ. 1 (1998b) 223}242) to examine hobby-farming as a particular set of social and agricultural practices in which farm animals are encountered as simultaneously &friends' and sources of food. The paper considers how the socially constructed categories of &livestock' and &pet' become blurred in this marginal form of agricultural production. The paper draws on evidence from "eld research with hobby-farmers in England and Wales, and on textual material, to demonstrate the ethical ambiguity of human}animal relations on hobby-farms. The paper shows how such relations are associated with speci"c discourses, practices and places, and demonstrates the importance of spatiality and embodiment in understanding situated moralities.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

&The eye and the heart are sad, but the teeth and the stomach are glad' (Nuer saying, recorded by EvansPritchard, 1940, p. 27; quoted in Tuan, 1984)

1. Introduction Geographers have begun to re-examine the importance of geographical perspectives on human}animal relationships (e.g., Wolch and Emel, 1995,1998; Philo and Wolch, 1998; Philo and Wilbert, 2000), re#ecting upon how they are embedded in the particularities of speci"c places and played out across a range of real and imagined spaces. One important dimension of a geographically sensitive approach to human}animal relations has thus been an engagement with environmental ethics, involving a concern with the contested moral status of animals (see, for example, Lynn, 1998a,b; Jones, 2000) and with the situated and constructed nature of their identities. Taking up these themes in relation to &hobby-farming', as an example of an &alternative' set of farming practices and

E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Holloway).  The term &animal' refers to non-human animals throughout.

lifestyles, this paper aims to understand something of the moral geographies underlying human}animal relations on such holdings, exploring how hobby-farms are partly constituted though such relations, and examining the relational production of hobby-farmer identities in the English and Welsh countryside. The paper demonstrates ambiguity in the ethical position of hobby-farm animals associated with the ascription of simultaneously &pet' and &livestock' status, and illustrates some of the ways hobby-farmers negotiate this ambiguity. I begin by reviewing geographical contributions to the study of society and animals. Next, I outline debates about the ethics of human}animal relations, distinguishing between the philosophy of prescriptive ethics and considerations of descriptive, &situated' ethics in anthropology and geography. I then suggest a framework for understanding situated ethical human}animal relations, describing how they are partly dependent on an intentionality of humans towards animals, creating categories such as &livestock' and &pets'. Subsequently, linking with calls for culturally-oriented agricultural geographies, I discuss what makes hobby-farms interesting in examining human}animal relations. Drawing on material derived from "eld research, an understanding of the ambiguous human}animal relationships in hobby-farming is

0743-0167/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 7 4 3 - 0 1 6 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 4 5 - 0

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developed. Three dimensions are focused on; having or &keeping' livestock, play and companionship, and animal births and deaths. The ways that human, animal and place identities result from these relationships are examined, and the livestock-management practised on hobby-farms as a form of situated ethical practice is considered. I suggest that an understanding of human}animal relations on hobby-farms, while o!ering the potential for critique of intensive forms of livestock production, illustrates that they are not devoid of exploitation and violence against animals. The paper concludes by considering how particular human}animal ethical and social relations are involved in constituting hobbyfarms as places, and by suggesting ways in which the human and animal identities and subjectivities which start to emerge from such relations, and in other agricultural contexts, might be further explored.

2. Geography and animals Interest in rethinking the socio-spatial place of animals re#ects a growing concern among geographers with reconceptualising &nature', and &natural' non-humans, as, for example, socially constructed (e.g., Harrison and Burgess, 1994; Whatmore, 1999) or imbued with an agency resulting from positioning in actor-networks (e.g., Murdoch, 1997a,b). The case for &Bringing the animals back in' to geography (Wolch and Emel, 1995, p. 632) thus has several dimensions. As Philo and Wolch (1998) demonstrate, geographical consideration of animals' signi"cance has been important since the late nineteenth century. Sauer (1952) for instance, was interested in distributions of livestock as an illustration of cultural practices, while for many agricultural geographers animals have been present mainly as economic units. However, rejecting the reduction of animals to either indicators of human &development' or economic units, Philo and Wolch suggest a & `newa cultural animal geography [which] re#ects upon situations where people and animals coexist in particular sites and territories, and ponders the social interactions between the people and certain non-human groupings' (1998, p. 107). The importance of culturally oriented studies of human}animal relationships is highlighted by Wolch and Emel (1998), arguing that despite a social and geographical distancing of people from animals (e.g., many livestock animals are reared, slaughtered and &processed' out of sight of most people), animals are in fact central to the structuring of society, to social and geographical imaginations, and to the formation of human identities (see also Ingold, 1988; Shepard, 1996). For Wolch and Emel, including animals in geographical enquiry is, in part, a political project, re#ecting a wider debate about environmental ethics and the hybridity of the &social' and the &natural'. Emel and Wolch

(1998), therefore, open up some conceptual space for critiquing the theoretical and practical treatment of animals. Most importantly, this involves a de-centring of the (human) subject in an e!ort to overcome a human}animal dualism which persists in the ways that humans categorise the world. Instead of a view of animals which understands them as &things' or commodities (Wolch and Emel, 1995), the subjectivity of animals may be explored, along with an examination of the networks and identities constituted by both people and animals. Similarly, Philo (1995, p. 655) asserts that animals can be ®arded as a marginal &social' group discursively constituted and practically a!ected by human communities', and that many, especially domesticated, animals have lifestyles and geographies imposed on them as do marginalised human groups. Simultaneously, it becomes important to question the constructedness of the fundamental categories of &human' and &animal', reaching a situation where the culturally signi"cant boundaries between them become less tenable as it is recognised that they are products or e!ects of socially- and geographically-situated hybrid networks of bodies, knowledges, power and discourse (Haraway, 1997; Whatmore and Thorne, 2000). Because animals have been regarded as essentially &other' to humans (and thus signi"cant in producing human identities), the boundaries between these categories are heavily policed (Elder et al., 1998). However, Emel and Wolch (1998, p. 19) stress that, while animals are conventionally regarded as part of &nature', &the frontier between2 culture and nature increasingly drifts, animal bodies #ank the moving line. It is upon animal bodies that the struggle for naming what is human2 [is] taking place'. For geographers, it is important to understand how such struggles are situated in, and constitutive of, speci"c places and spaces, so that &It is one task of the new animal geography to explore the complex nexus of spatial relations between animals and people' (Philo and Wolch, 1998, p. 110). Wolch and Emel (1995) describe how it is often human}animal interactions at the micro-scale which are implicated in reproducing human identity, so that, for example, one becomes a &dog-walker' or &horse-rider' in relation to place-speci"c interaction with animals in particular cultural contexts (that is, in another context the animal may be eaten rather than used during leisure). Places here need to be regarded, not as "xed locations on the earth's surface, but as geographical foci of cultural meaning and power relations (Massey, 1994). Hence, human}animal relations, and the meaningfulness ascribed to them, can be regarded as signi"cant in the constitution of place itself, as well as of human and animal identity. Developing a critical understanding of domestication has been an important aspect of geographical accounts of human}animal relationships. Writers like Anderson (1997, 1998) (see also Noske, 1997 for an anthropological account) have discussed the ways in which domestication

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is politicised and the product of accumulated knowledges. For Anderson, domestication helps de"ne humans as human, because although the e!ort of &civilising' particular groups of animals brings them within the ambit of human society, the characteristics of the animals involved nevertheless help humans to construct a sense of their own supposed uniqueness and superiority. Examination of domestication requires consideration of how we can understand its products } domestic animals. Domestication implies selective breeding of particular species for characteristics which are useful or attractive to the breeder, and the social regulation of animals' subsistence and production cycles (Anderson, 1997). It can be suggested that domesticated animals are enrolled into networks of social, economic and political relationships where both &humans and animals become mutually accustomed to conditions and terms laid out by humans2' (Anderson, 1997, p. 464). Domestic animals, therefore, can be regarded as &living artefacts * hybrids of &culture' and &nature'2 brought into socially embedded form' (Anderson, 1997, p. 465). Domestication thus requires the discipline of animals, their subjugation to satisfy a range of human needs, and a human ability to make meaningful di!erent types of animal in particular contexts. For example, Evans and Yarwood (1995) and Yarwood and Evans (1998, 1999) discuss the ways in which rare breeds of livestock in Britain become meaningful in di!erent space}time contexts, and demonstrate how that meaningfulness can spread into networks of e!ects beyond animals' bodies and the places where they are &kept', and into processes of symbolism and commodi"cation (e.g., on pub signs or in farm parks). The value of any individual animal, or species of domestic animal, can, therefore, be geographically variable.

3. Animals, ethics and place Animals' variable cultural and economic signi"cance implies that their ethical status can also vary. Geographers have become increasingly interested in the study of ethics as a way of understanding relationships between, for example, di!erent social groups, or people and the &natural' environment (e.g., Proctor, 1998; Proctor and Smith, 1999; Smith, 2000). For Proctor (1998, p. 9), ethical or moral philosophy involves &systematic intellectual re#ection on morality in general * morality being2 the realm of signi"cant normative concerns', while for Lynn (1998a, p. 281) ðics constitutes (in part) how we understand2 whether we are in &right relationship' with the world'. In this context notions of environmental ethics (and the moral signi"cance of animals, amongst other things) have become increasingly signi"cant in understanding how people encounter and engage with the world. The ethical status of animals as potential members of a broader &moral community', and hence as morally

295

&considerable', has long been the subject of philosophical debate. Zwart (1997) distinguishes between Cartesian perspectives on animals, which reduce them to the status of morally negligible machines which humans can use instrumentally; a Kantian view which understands the animal as an organism which is more than simply a machine, but which fails to grant intrinsic value to animals in themselves; and a Heideggerian perspective which allows animals a degree of &being-in-the-world', which from a human perspective is impoverished, but which implies that instrumentalist views of animals are unsustainable. From this latter point of view, animals' beingin-the-world gives them intrinsic value, and Zwart suggests here that a neglect of this has allowed the perpetuation of their instrumentalist use for human purposes (see also Noske, 1997). This theme is expanded in a wide literature arguing for an ethics which regards non-human animals as morally considerable. Taking issue with those perspectives which have separated humans from other animals, and treated animals instrumentally as having only extrinsic or use value, authors such as Benton (1993), Humphrey (1995), Midgley (1983), Pluhar (1995) and Regan and Singer (1976) have argued for granting animals membership of the moral community by disputing what have become conventional bases for denying them moral consideration. For example, discussing characteristics such as language or sense of self that have been used to separate humans from non-humans, Pluhar (1995, p. xii) argues that &attempts to restrict maximum moral signi"cance to humans2 lapse into unfounded prejudice'. For Pluhar and others, animals can be as morally signi"cant as humans. Advocates of &animal rights' such as Midgley (1983), Regan (1976) and Singer (1975), argue for a continuity between humans and animals, and the extension of notions of &rights' to animals, based on their sentience (ability to feel), autonomy (freedom of choice), and potentially their sapience (sense of self). For these authors, such a perspective leads to the end of human use of animals as food (amongst other things), although this is contested by writers like Shepard (1996) who argue instead that the consumption of meat, while not unproblematic for humans, is part of a &natural' order. Here, two inter-related sets of issues arise. These are related to "rst, notions of subjectivity, and second, the prescriptive or normative status of the ethics described above. Much of the philosophical writing which argues for the status of animals as members of a broader moral community has been concerned to demonstrate the continuities between humans and animals as beings who can think, feel or have a sense of self. However, this has been dependent on a model of uni"ed human subjectivity which has increasingly been challenged. A detailed discussion of subjectivity is beyond the scope of this paper (but see Pile and Thrift, 1995), but some authors have argued for ethical understandings that rely less on

296

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conceptualisations of individual beings, and more on relations between groups of beings. Lynn (1998b), for example, distinguishes between biocentric and ecocentric &value paradigms', where the former are centred around individual organisms and their &right to life', and the latter are centred around the ecological relationships between individual organisms, where the ecosystem may be of greater concern than the individual. Benton (1993, p. 3) expresses this latter position as an ecological politics which &emphasise the necessity to individual well-being to being located in a favourable, nurturative, community or environment'. Lynn (1998b) argues that there is a place for both biocentrism and ecocentrism in attempts to resolve contemporary environmental and ethical debates over the treatment of animals, and suggests a more #uid &geocentrism' which allows a variable moral value to be located in individuals and ecosystems in particular places. Similarly, Whatmore (1997) argues for understandings of moral community which emphasise the relationships between those involved, showing how such morally relevant relationships can be distributed over space and be between disparate types of entity (i.e., both human and non-human). Similarly, several writers have begun to explore the contingent and relational production of human and animal subjectivities within actor (or actant)-network theory. Here, the idea of stable, "xed identities and subjectivities is discarded so that deciding where individual subjectivities begin and end becomes increasingly di$cult, and are instead regarded as e!ects of networks of relations (see, for example, Murdoch, 1997a,b; Whatmore and Thorne, 1998;2000). And as Baker (1993, p. x) suggests, &There is no very obvious reason why the destabilising of entrenched stereotypes of human identity resulting from the post-structuralist strategy of &decentering the subject' might not be made to work2 to the animals' advantage'. The second set of criticisms centres around the distanced, prescriptive and normative status of much Western philosophical writing on animal rights and moral signi"cance. Proctor (1998), discussing the place of ethics in geography, argues that ethics is not remote, but permeates everyday discourse and practice. As such, he argues for the importance of descriptive ethical study in geography, noting the contribution of work on &moral geographies' to understandings of how human societies are ordered. Instead of the absolute &rights' and &wrongs' of prescriptive philosophical ethics, then, the ways that particular relations come to be taken as morally right or wrong, and the implications of such moral orderings and judgements, are of great interest to geographers and others (see, for example, Kean, 1998). Within anthropological work in particular, similar sentiments occur in accounts of human}animal relations, as Tapper (1988, p. 49) demonstrates; &when anthropologists hear philosophers speculating on the animal nature of humanity or moralising about &animal rights', we cannot but locate

their views in the cross-cultural contexts to which some philosophers have remained remarkably blind'. Questions are thus being asked about how animals are actually related to, treated and imagined in di!erent anthropological contexts, recognising that in practice, animals are often treated very di!erently to humans, and di!erent animals are treated di!erently. For example, & &animals' are divided into &tame animals' that are &like people' and &wild animals' that are not; or &tame animals' are divided into &pets' that are &like people' and &livestock' that are not' (Tapper, 1988, p. 50). What is of interest, then, is how these morally relevant distinctions arise in di!erent situations. For Lynn (1998b), there is a geographical dimension to these questions and he borrows Haraway's (1991) notion of &situated knowledge' in suggesting a &situated moral understanding' (p. 237) or &geoethics', which is able to engage with multiple moral principles, varying with the geographical, social and cultural contexts in which they occur. Going further, Jones (2000, p. 269) challenges the conception that full understandings of ethical relations can be contained within formalised systems of either prescriptive or descriptive ethics, arguing for an & ðical ground' of lived encounters2' between humans and nonhumans which &2precedes and eludes formalised statements of ethics2' (p. 271), and insisting that &2all encounters, and the space(s) of all encounters, are ethically charged2' (p. 269).

4. Human}animal relationships and identities It is clear that human categorisation of animals is important in a!ecting how those animals are related to and treated. Simultaneously, &it might be possible to narrate the roles of such &natural' nonhumans in the construction of human identity' (Michael, 1996, p. 131, emphasis added) through a consideration of animals' agency in their relations with humans. An understanding of the situated morality of human}animal relations thus needs to consider the construction of identity. Michael (1996) draws on Buber's (1970) existentialist distinction between human}nature relationships taking an &I}Thou' form and those taking an &I}it' form. This distinction represents &an attempt to arrange the ways of &knowing nature' in terms of the relative subject-ness (personhood) or object-ness (thing-like ness) which is ascribed respectively to humans and nature, whether this ascription is discursive (linguistic formulation) or practical (in the &handling of nature')' (Michael, 1996, p. 137). Samuels (1978) describes how such relationships emerge from the way that people set the elements of the world that they encounter at a distance in order to enter into relationships with them. &I}it' and &I}Thou' (objectifying and subjectifying) relations thus both produce a categorised &nature' to relate to (&it' or &Thou'), and are involved in the

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production of human identity (as &I') in relation to a categorised nature. With animals, signi"cant categories might include &domestic' (as opposed to &wild'), and within that the distinction between &livestock' and &pets'. Samuels (1978) further argues that in order to enter into relations, a distancing of the self from the world is necessary, and that this distancing produces a spatiality which is fundamental to human consciousness. The spatiality of human}animal relations is thus signi"cant in understanding the ways in which human identity (in di!erent agricultural contexts, for example) is produced in relation to encountered animals. In other words, the intentionality of the human towards the animal (whether, for example, the animal is to be related to as object or subject) is signi"cant in constructing human identity, and in understanding the spatiality of the farming environment and the practice of agriculture in di!erent contexts. This existential typology of relationships is not unproblematic. For example, it begins with categories of &human' and &nature' rather than problematising these as outcomes of situated cultural formations. Further, there is a reliance on a dualism of subject and object and an assumption of uni"ed human subjectivity and identity which is directly challenged by concepts of decentered subjectivity. However, what is more important here is that, as Michael says, much attention has been given to distinguishing which human}nature relationships exist in any situation, and to moving towards what have been considered ethically &better' forms. &[M]uch environmental ethics has been engaged in trying to legitimate 2 the shift from I}it to I}Thou. Against, variously and in combination, the technocratic, Christian, patriarchal, capitalist, scientistic, Western objecti"cation of nature is counterposed a more authentic, better or deeper relation between human and nature2' (Michael, 1996, p. 140). A similar idealisation of speci"c human}nature relations is found in a number of nostalgic writings which argue for the &authenticity' of human}animal relations found in forms of &peasant' agriculture, so that while Berger (1980) suggests the &honesty' of pre-modern farming relations, Shepard (1996, p. 244) warns against both &the bucolic "ction * the cultural blindfold against the brutality of the herdsman and peasant who breed, castrate, brand, bob, and hobble farm animals', and &the story that the manure-sunk barnyard is sweet'. Concern for such a shift towards &authentic' human}animal relations conceals the way that all relationships and identities are constructed through discourse and practice in an array of di!erent contexts (see also Ingold, 1988; Sebeok, 1988). In response, Michael makes the key point that di!erent relations may coexist, they all represent human constructions of nature, so that &it is a question of pursuing these categorisations, tracing how they are accomplished and how this accomplishment through discourse and material interaction has e!ects, serving to mediate2 the inter-

297

actions and enrolments between humans and &natural' non-humans' (1996, p. 140). It has been common to suggest that it is possible to put di!erent types of animal (or, rather, di!erent categories of human}animal relation) on a continuum broadly representing a conceptual distance between the human and the &wild'. Philo and Wolch (1998), for instance, distinguish between &wild' and &pet' animals, placing farm livestock somewhere in between. The category of the &domestic' animal, those &animals that have been structurally incorporated into human lives' (Noske, 1997, p. xii), incorporates the &livestock' and &pet' categories. Authors such as Noske (1997) and Benton (1993) discuss in detail the embedding of domestic livestock animals in capitalist production relations. Benton, for example describes how &Production regimes such as [veal production] impose massive constraints and distortions on the2 animals caught up in them. Their lives are sustained solely to serve purposes external to them' (1993, p. 59). The objecti"cation and rational control of animals under such regimes is accompanied by a distancing of animals and sites of production from the consumer and sites of consumption. Such a distancing is practical and discursive. On the one hand, most people in Western market economies do not come into regular contact with livestock animals, while intensive farming often removes animals from sight by placing them in buildings for most of their lives. On the other, there is a process of dissociation of the living animal from the food which is consumed; &Butchery makes new categories by abstracting &meat' from the whole animal, creating a perceptual gap' (Shepard, 1996, p. 34). The possibility of problematic, subjective, &I}Thou' human}animal encounters which might discourage the consumption of animal #esh is thus reduced. Without this, eating meat might be problematic, &particularly so if we had cared for and nurtured the animal, and recognised it as an individual with its own subjective life' (Benton, 1993, p. 72). While many livestock are clearly objecti"ed within capitalist agriculture, it is often imagined that the category of animals related to as pets are regarded as subjects, or even given quasi-person status (Benton, 1993). However, Tuan (1984) has suggested that pets are also subject to relations of domination, noting that (like livestock) they &exist for human pleasure and convenience' (p. 88), and arguing that the existence of a!ection for animal companions is reliant on inequality. For Tuan, then, &a!ection is not the opposite of dominance; rather it is dominance's anodyne * it is dominance with a human face' (1984, pp. 1}2). Similarly, Shepard (1996) notes the importance humans attach to being recognised, seemingly with a!ection, by animal companions, in their desire to communicate with a distant &animal ambience' (p. 141). Tuan (1984) also discusses a spatiality of pet-owning practices that mirrors the distancing of humans from intensively farmed livestock in their separation of &front-

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stage' from &back stage' practices (1984, p. 109). The former are those aspects of pet-keeping which are pleasurable (e.g., playing, stroking, handling a welltrained animal) while the latter include those practices which produce the pet as a disciplined, convenient, aesthetically pleasing body, and which are frequently done by a vet (e.g., castration, tail docking) or in private (e.g., the training process). In these cases, the exertion of power is involved in the subduing, de-sexing and disciplining of companion animals, and violence is committed against animals simultaneously regarded as pets or friends. Here, then, the categorical boundaries between those animals regarded as &livestock' and those related to as &pets', and which seem to divide animal objects from animal subjects, nevertheless permit objectifying practices to be used in relation to both, producing animals which, in their di!erent ways, are useful to humans. Anderson (1998, p. 119) suggests the complexity of relations of domestication, where &animals can be beloved companions or eaten for a meal. These impulses involve contradictory moralities * a rich subject for inquiries into the dynamics of power and possession'. However, for Humphrey (1995, p. 478) &We can hold multiple, even seemingly contradictory attitudes to the very same animal2', and this is illustrated in Berger's idealisation of pre-modern society when he writes that &A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is signi"cant, and is so di$cult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements in that sentence are connected by an and and not by a but.' (1980, p. 5). Similarly, for Tuan (1984, p. 9) &Eating2 is an expression of love2 What we love we wish to incorporate2'. Using the case study which follows I show that animals on hobby-farms can be beloved companions and eaten for a meal, and that the resultant ambiguity in the categories of &pet' and &livestock' is part of a moral geography which produces hobby-farms as places and hobby-farming human identities. Animals, then, are tied to human networks of meaning, discourse, power and practice. Such networks, in producing objects like the &farm animal' or &pet', concentrate largely on the physical bodies of animals. The concept of embodiment is thus important here, referring to the &process whereby the individual body is connected to larger networks of meaning at a variety of scales' (Cresswell, 1999, p. 76). Embodiment as process, then, rather than as "xed state, links in to processes of subjecti"cation and/or objecti"cation in the situated production of human and animal identities and bodies. While Foucault (e.g., 1979) has focused on the ways in which processes of discipline produce &docile' human bodies, the production of docile animal bodies (see Williams, 1999) is a concern of domestication, placing animal subjects at the nexus of sets of power-knowledge relations concerned with, variously, the exploitation of animals for food (an instrumental

relation) and the companionship of animals. At the same time, human embodiment &engages us in social relations and practices which inescapably involve animals' (Benton, 1993, p. 18). The remainder of this paper thus examines the moral geography of human}animal relations on hobby-farms as something which simultaneously involves the discursive representation of animals, farming practices, and the bodies of the humans and animals involved.

5. Human}animal relationships on English and Welsh hobby-farms Recent calls have been made for culturally-informed agricultural geographies, re#ecting the importance of a broader &cultural turn' in geographical research (Morris and Evans, 1999). Because of their marginal or &alternative' status relative to &commercial' farming, hobby-farms are potentially valuable as examples of the constitution and complexity of farming identities and moral geographies, and of the production of particular places in which they are played out. The term &smallholding' is frequently employed in preference to &hobby-farming', and appears to be the generic term used by relevant magazines and books. While there is no comprehensive de"nition of a smallholding or smallholder, the concept here implies small-scale, part-time food production, often motivated by a range of lifestyle choices involving a desire to leave a frenetic urban lifestyle in search of an imagined rural idyll (see, for example, Cloke et al., 1998; Halfacree and Boyle, 1998). As such, the lifestyle has been labelled &hobby farming' (e.g., Gasson, 1988), although it is nevertheless something which is taken very seriously by many of those involved (Holloway, 2000). &Hobbyfarming', despite the derogatory tone with which it can be employed, is used here to create a distinction from smallholding, as the latter term can include small-scale commercial farmers. The distinction is somewhat arti"cial, since there is a continuum between those holdings which are non-commercial and those which are partly commercial, but the interviewees referred to in this paper were hobby-farmers as de"ned by, for example, Layton (1978). As part of a broadly conceptualised &post-productivist' countryside (Ilbery and Bowler, 1998), where commercial agriculture is losing what is conventionally seen as its &traditional' dominance, hobby-farms can be seen as places which to some extent "t into, or colonise, some of the marginal spaces left by conventional agriculture. The intention here is not to imply that smallholders or hobby-farmers are homogeneous cultural groups; instead there is a great diversity of holdings, locations, enterprises and attitudes. There are, nevertheless, some characteristics which tend to be shared (signi"cantly, one of these is the &keeping' of animals). Hobby-farms are often situated on low quality land which has been bypassed by

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299

Table 1 Interviewee details Code letter

Location

Gender Time involved Farming (yr) background

Organic

Holding size (acres (ha.))

Land

A B

Mid-Wales Mid-Wales

M c. 40 M#F 2

Y Y

N Y

23 (9.3) 22 (8.9)

Adjacent Adjacent

C D

North Wales Mid-Wales

F F

2 5

N N

N Y

4.5 (1.8) 7 (2.8)

E

Shropshire

F

4

Y

N

20 (8.1)

F G

F F

2 10

N N

Y Y

7 (2.8) 3 (1.2)

H

Mid-Wales Southern England East Midlands

F

6

N

N

2.5 (1.0)

I

East Midlands

F

3

N

Y

6.5 (2.6)

Animals on holding

1 heifer, 1 sow, 30 ewes 12 ewes, 2 sows, 2 heifers, 12 chickens Adjacent 20 ewes, 2 geese, poultry Adjacent 4 goats, 3 ewes, 18 hens, 3 ducks, 2 geese Adjacent#some rented 10 sows, 100 ewes, 1 cow several miles away and calves, poultry Adjacent 9 goats, 6 sheep, poultry All 1 mile away 2 sheep, 2 pigs, 5 goats, poultry Adjacent 2 young cattle, 12 ewes, poultry Some 6 cows, 34 sheep, 5 pigs, adjacent#scattered 7 goats, poultry rented plots

This column indicates the location of the land relative to the residence.

commercial farmers, and are often involved in foodproduction enterprises and ways of producing food (e.g., organic, self-su$ciency) which are similarly marginal to commercial agriculture. Hobby-farmers also tend to derive most, if not all, their income from sources other than farming; farming may actually be a net cost. As such, hobby-farms demonstrate some interesting ambiguities, being places where concepts of work and leisure, and production and consumption, can become blurred, and where an idyllic representation of farming can be tempered by hobby-farmers' (implicit or explicit) criticism of commercial agriculture (Crouch, 1997; Holloway, 2000). Such criticism can be discursive, as in smallholding magazines and the interviews which make up some of the latter part of this paper, and practical, as demonstrated by the modes of livestock husbandry practised by hobbyfarmers. Unstructured, conversational interviews with thirty smallholders/hobby farmers in England and Wales who &kept' animals were conducted between May and September 1999; most were recorded and transcribed. Gaining access to hobby-farmers is di$cult as there is no de"nitive list available, and interviewees were thus self-selected via an initial questionnaire and request for interviews made in Smallholder magazine. Visits to hobby-farms included a farm tour which allowed observation of the human}animal interactions which occurred, and in some cases I undertook participant observation of smallholding &work'. Verbatim quotations are drawn from nine interviews, acting as illustrative examples of a broader discursive context. Brief details of these nine interviewees are given in Table 1. Visits to smallholding shows and readings of smallholding magazines were also made.

Discussion is structured around a number of hobbyfarming discourses and practices which were discussed and/or observed. While not giving exhaustive coverage of everything that arose during interview and observation/participation, the selected examples allow an exploration of speci"c human}animal relationships in the context of the theoretical framework outlined above. In addition, reference is made to representations of human}animal relations in Smallholder and Country Smallholding (hereafter, SH and CS respectively). Three sets of interlinked discourses and practices are outlined; these are, "rst, &keeping' livestock; second, play and companionship; "nally, the births and deaths of animals. 5.1. &Keeping' livestock Having and rearing, that is, &keeping', livestock was central to the identities of most interviewees. A considerable amount of time was spent talking and thinking about livestock, and much time devoted to the practical aspects of having animals on the holding. In this section, I want to draw out some of the dimensions of the human}animal relations evident on hobby-farms, relating them to the formation of human, animal and place identity and to the ethical concerns of the people involved. There is, "rst of all, an emphasis on &good stockmanship' (sic). For example, &a stockman's there to look after the animals to the best of his ability2 he wants the animals in his care to perform to the best of their ability' (A). As part of this, moral concern for the animals' welfare is

 Prior to March 1999, Country Smallholding was Country Garden and Smallholding.

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highlighted, and this is understood, "rst, as bene"ting the humans and animals involved, and second, something which &commercial' farmers cannot provide to the same extent. The desirability of knowing how meat has been reared was often mentioned (&I know how these animals have lived, I know how we keep them' (B)), and hobbyfarm practices were favourably contrasted with commercial farming. At the same time, the &usefulness' of livestock animals was stressed, in comments like &I call my animals useful animals because2 the chickens lay the eggs, the goats give the milk2' (C), and this seemed to be a key facet of the identities hobby-farmers were constructing for themselves as people adopting a more ethical approach to food production than commercial farmers. As one interviewee put it, a smallholder is &somebody who enjoys looking after the animals rather than looking at the monetary side of it' (H). This desire to be recognised as having an identity distinctive from that of commercial farmers is, however, problematic, as many of the routine practices associated with commercial agriculture are also employed on many hobby-farms, despite a focus on more welfare-conscious practices such as freerange or organic production. Thus, conventional veterinary and management discourses may be inscribed on animal bodies through practices like routine worming, dehorning and castration. The smallholding magazines devote many articles to the practical or management aspects of keeping livestock; indeed, both stress their practical intent (SH is subtitled &for practical smallfarming'). Many articles are aimed at those who have little experience with livestock, and emphasise the importance of observation and animal welfare to successful stock management. One article for prospective sheep-keepers thus says &sheep do not require much &looking after', but do need a lot of &looking at'' (CS 1998, July, p. 25). Here, the advocacy of speci"c practices in relation to the particular needs of a type of livestock is involved in the constitution of the identity of the &good' smallholder. Even so, some respondents were prepared to challenge what would conventionally be seen as routine management, such as ear-tagging of cattle (a legal requirement); &I won't have them tagged * I've had my ears pierced * it really hurts2 that to me is cruelty in excess' (I). Here, certain practices normal in commercial agriculture are seen as ethically unacceptable due to the sentience of the animals involved.  The general term &commercial farming' is used here to allow a discursive di!erentiation from &smallholding' or &hobby-farming'. It is recognised that all these categories cover considerable diversity of structure, practice etc. (and hence a multitude of complex, potentially ambiguous, human}animal relations), but they are nevertheless important as categories employed by respondents during interviews.  There is, of course, an alternative discursive formation which might contrast the &commercial' farmer's professional and experiential knowledge with the hobby-farmer's amateurism, inexperience and potential for unintentional cruelty or neglect.

Employment of some conventional agricultural and veterinary practices can be seen as instrumentalist, highlighting the signi"cance of human input, while regarding the animals involved as the recipients of managerial attention (even if it is seen as morally &better' than that of commercial farming). At the same time, however, it is possible to discern other dimensions to these human}animal relationships, from which hobby-farmers' understandings of animal individuality and agency start to emerge. A starting point here is to consider in more detail the explicit rejection of commercial farming common to many interviewees. Hobby-farmer identity appears to form in relation to a distinction from farmers, alongside a supposed a$nity with livestock animals leading to ethical concern for their well-being. One, for example, questioned the practice of keeping animals indoors: &I hate seeing the cows in all winter * (the farmers) never let them out2 I feel for the cows, if I was a cow I'd hate to be shut in' (D). Another said that &A lot of the farmers are good, but, at the end of the day they've got to do it without thinking about the individual sheep' (C). These respondents seem to question the denial of animals' individuality inherent in commercial agriculture's objecti"cation of livestock. Interviewees' own practices, therefore, often related to wanting livestock to express their identities and seek individual happiness and ful"lment. Thus, for example, one interviewee said &as long as the pigs are happy down the wood, then I don't really want to cage anything in' (E), and that the most important aspect of being a smallholder was seeing her animals happy. An extension of this is ascribing forms of agency to livestock, an agency which can be understood as an e!ect of speci"c forms of human}animal relationship. Thus, one hobby-farmer described how her goats would refuse to get up to be milked if she came into the barn earlier than usual (&they look at me to say `we ain't getting up at this time in the morning2a, they're not early birds' (F)), while another discussed how the changing moods of her geese acted on the jobs she could carry out each day. This idea of the ability of animals to &act-back' on farming practices was implicit in many interviews, suggesting that seeing livestock as merely the passive objects of management is insu$cient, and that their agency and animality (i.e., their animal essences) are involved in structuring human practices (and this may be equally true of commercial farming). One interviewee, discussing her farming routines, said &I would have expected the sheep to be the biggest tie, but it's the chickens, because, you've got to let them out, I mean, mid-summer, they don't like being shut up until seven in the morning' (C). Taking this further, animals' (unintentional) transgression of the boundaries of imposed identities was implicit in some interviews. For example, cows de"ned as medically &fertile' did not get pregnant when they were supposed to, and individual chickens of a breed renowned

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for going broody (sitting on and hatching eggs) refused to do so. Similarly, the cases of &problem' animals are recorded in magazine articles, e.g., &Killer' the cockerel who persisted in attacking people and other animals, despite the writer's claim that other individuals of the same breed were never aggressive (CS 1999, December, p. 17). Here, the generic characteristics of di!erent livestock types are challenged by the subjectivity of individual animals. These examples suggest that having and rearing animals on hobby-farms is multi-dimensional, producing ideas of animal subjectivity alongside an instrumental managerialism. For hobby-farmers, subjective individuation of their livestock is important, and knowledge of animals' &personalities' forms at the same time as an objectifying knowledge of what are presumed to be the characteristics of the di!erent types of livestock. In contrast to much commercial farming, many hobby-farmers seek to allow their animals to express &natural' desires and behaviours. This subjective individuation of livestock is similarly played out in CS and SH. Their front covers frequently show animals as characterful individuals, interacting with people, or looking appealing. The charisma of such animals is also employed in CS as they feature in the humorous photographs of caption competitions. Many articles combine objectifying and subjectifying forms of relationship. For example, an article on the practical aspects of keeping pigs for meat contains accounts of the pigs' own curiosity about their surroundings, their desire to explore (and escape) and their individual mischievous characters (CS 1999, August, pp. 36}37).

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Some caution is required here. The inter-species, and inter-subjective, feelings professed are clearly one-sided, and the ascription of identity, desires and character is frequently anthropomorphic. This is, perhaps, illustrated by Fig. 1, taken at a show in Wales. The lambs are objecti"ed as sale livestock, yet assigned a subjectivity based very much on human sentimentality. Similarly, two goats were sold on the understanding that they should be &life companions'. Further, while interviewees stressed the signi"cance of allowing animals the liberty to express &natural' behaviour and desires, livestock are necessarily constrained in various ways (even free-range livestock come up against fences), used (e.g., as food), and are owned. What is taken to be &natural' is thus an e!ect of speci"c human}animal relationships (both in the present and in historical domestication processes), and a set of what are viewed as ethical farming practices to which many respondents were strongly committed. It was apparent that for many interviewees, the existence of livestock was essential to their understanding of smallholding and their identity as smallholders (these terms being used in preference to hobby-farming). When asked to de"ne smallholding, many talked about the importance of animals, and many of their stories about farming were based around their histories of involvement with livestock (in general, and with reference to individual animals). Animals, then, seem to be essential to the construction of &smallholding' as place and as identity, and as such, it is possible to understand hobby-farm human}animal relations partly in relation to a representation of &the smallholding' as a category of place

Fig. 1. &We are triplets 2 who were orphaned at 2 days old2'.

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which gives meaning to human and animal existence and relationship. 5.2. Play and companionship In this section, discussion of the ambiguities of human}animal relationships on hobby-farms is extended by focusing on the subjecti"cation of animals as companions, friends or &pets'. Much was made, in interviews and during farm walks, of the pleasure of being and working with animals. Elements of the animals' physicality, sometimes a di$culty (e.g., when they struggled against the administration of medicine, or knocked down fences), could be appreciated through tactile communication (described as a &love-in' by one interviewee) and delight in observing the animals' activities (Fig. 2). Important as this pleasure in the bodies and movements of animals is, there was frequently an additional sense of emotional connection between humans and animals: &I just love being with the animals', said one interviewee (D), while another talked about how she &would just go out there and sit with them for ages2 I can watch them for hours' (C). Similarly, an article in SH suggests that &animals will respond to a!ection shown by humans and will possibly reciprocate. There is no doubt that some sheep will be very demonstrative and will appear to demand attention' (SH 1999, April, p. 39). The close human}animal connections which occur in hobby-farming may suggest ways of starting to think about the ethical relations which arise. Daily contact with livestock was described as therapeutic by several interviewees. As one said, &all my sheep were tame, very tame, so they'd all come rushing as soon as they saw you2 it has a terri"c, therapeutic e!ect' (A). For many, animals were ascribed the identity of friends. Interviewees frequently reported that &you do actually make friends with the animals' (B), and talked about playing with them as with children. This idea of animal friendship was developed in several ways. For some, just

Fig. 2. Animal companion: a hobby-farmer and her Shetland ram.

being with animals brought a sense of peace. One described how her animals &were great company and it's just so therapeutic sat there in a deckchair, close your eyes and listen to the contented sounds'(C). Another said that &I quite like going up in that top "eld, cos that's the highest bit, and just sitting there and looking, quite often in the summer on a hot day the animals go up there cos it's breezy, they just sit and look at everything2' (D). Animals also participated in human activities such as going for a walk, in some cases treating humans as members of their own species, such as cows who would walk alongside, butting painfully. Hobby-farm animals thus come to share human lives in ways that would be unlikely on commercial farms; for example, &we have our post dropped at the end of our lane, and so we go to fetch the post and open the gate, and Abbie [a cow] would follow you to fetch the post' (E). This sense of a (to some extent) shared experience of the world is clearly important in considering human constructions of animal subjectivity. One magazine article, for example, is devoted to the games played by pigs, in which pigs are given the capacity to knowingly outwit people in games like &Hide and Seek' and &Dung Splash' (SH 1997, November, p. 34). The attribution of a subjectivity to animals in articles such as these is indicative of the emergence of a quasihuman status in their relationships with humans, and it seems important that the characters of animals are, from the human perspective, worthy of this status. One respondent thus said that her animals had to be &gentle, they were kind, the sort of animal you could get in with2 cos I like them to be Walt Disney you see!' (I). Hobby-farm animals were also subjecti"ed in frequently being named, which might also be regarded as a human way of taking possession of animals (Tuan, 1984). The status of honorary humans which this confers was extended by some interviewees in representing their animals as family members. As such, many animals took their individual places in narratives about the history of the smallholding or the life of the smallholder. This placing of animals in smallholding narratives is also common in articles in SH and CS which comprise stories told by correspondents about their involvement in smallholding. One interviewee recognised the moral ambiguity of relating to animals as family while exploiting them as commercial objects; &it's just like an extended family and caring for it2 even though I want to make money out of it' (C). For some, their relationships with animals were described in terms of &love' (and as such, the general &love of animals' mentioned as necessary to smallholding in the "rst place was translated into love for speci"c animals), while for others, animals were (at least sometimes) preferable to humans as companions. As one said: &I just love animals2 I don't mix very much with human beings2 I have very little to do with people' (E). Communication is another important part of the formation of human}animal relationships, and while the humans talked

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to the animals, the animals were able to reciprocate using their &voices' and body language. While the animals are regarded as taking as much pleasure in these interactions as the humans, it is notable that designations of subjectivity are still human acts, and this is perhaps inevitable (Michael, 1996). The animals are being &used' to ful"l human desires for friendship and physical contact. Nevertheless, the #uidity and fragmentation of animals' own identities was implicitly recognised by some interviewees. Some, for example, noted that their animals often grew up with confused notions of what species they were, due to the way that hobbyfarmers often keep small numbers of a variety of species. One in particular noted a sheep that thought it was a dog, and was unable to relate to other sheep. Another discussed the way that her animals of di!erent species &get on' as companions for each other. This understanding renders animal identities as unstable, and as socially produced, as human identities. Despite the deep attachments felt by most interviewees towards their animals, most livestock animals on hobby-farms are there, ultimately, to be consumed as food. The following section examines the events of birth and death (slaughter) in relation to hobby-farm animals, showing how the boundaries between animals as pet companions and as supplies of protein are di$cult to de"ne. 5.3. Animal births and deaths It is, perhaps, in the death and consumption of hobbyfarm animals that the ethical ambiguities of their relationships with people are best illustrated. The relationship between death and birth is also important where the highly symbolic processes of birth and the rearing of young animals (which is contributed to by both the animal-mother and human) are linked to the eventual consumption of the animal as meat. It was clear that for many interviewees birth was particularly signi"cant. Baby animals, in particular, are very appealing to their keepers, and many cited lambing time as one of their favourite periods. One said, &Lambing time is lovely. I love lambing time, I always have2' (A), while another commented &when you see something born, that is just unbelievable' (E). It has already been noted that for some hobby-farmers, animals were regarded as family members, and hence births were particularly signi"cant. The rearing of &orphaned' baby animals is an important part of this &familial' bonding, with several interviewees speci"cally mentioning the pleasure of hand-rearing animals and thus developing special relationships with them. As one said, &I had to bottle feed some [lambs], that was beautiful, absolutely magical' (C). Symbolically, birth may also be seen as part of something transcending the individual, their animals and their holding, as this comment shows: &at lambing time it's a great

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time of year, cos it all comes together2 it's the renewal in the spring, it's a lovely time of year, it's all sort of worth it, it's brilliant when you have a lamb born' (A). At the same time, however, birth is a management issue, requiring observation and sometimes assistance or veterinary care. The pressures of lambing, where, for example, sheep may be checked every two hours during the night, were mentioned by many interviewees as they simultaneously stressed their love of the period. One, in response to these demands, had a CCTV link between her lambing barn and her television, so that observation could be almost continuous. This virtual displacement of the animal into the home, while extreme (indeed, for almost all interviewees, livestock were spatially segregated into the "elds and farmyard), illustrates the stress placed on surveillance in general as part of &good stockmanship'. The event of birth, then, illustrates a complex range of human}animal relations. At one level, birth is a management issue, contributing to the economy of the hobbyfarm (as the production of new animal bodies to be consumed or sold) and close observation. At a second level, birth on hobby-farms might be regarded as subjectifying the mother and baby. The simultaneous objecti"cation and subjecti"cation of animals is evident here as, one the one hand, certain breeds are typi"ed as &good mothers', while particular animals may be known and related to as individuals. Death is the "nal issue considered here. Most hobbyfarm animals exist to produce meat either directly, or indirectly through their o!spring. As such, many interviewees commented explicitly on the dead bodies of their animals, objectifying them in terms of their quality (e.g., as #avoursome or wholesome) and as economic products for home consumption or sale. Thus, one said of her animals' bodies that &I know what they're made of' (G), and many made similar points, comparing their own animals to those reared commercially. While most interviewees were not intending to pro"t from farming, animals were expected to &pay for themselves' through their meat or other produce. Simultaneously, meat-eating was understood by some as part of a &natural' order. However, the geographical and social intimacy between many interviewees and their animals meant that objecti"cation of livestock animals as edible or marketable products was problematic. This was expressed in a range of ways. First, the death and consumption of animals was justi"ed in relation to how they had been kept while they were alive and the care taken to minimise stress at slaughter. One interviewee, for example, described how when taking an animal to the abattoir she would say to the &man that does the killing2 they're my babies, look after them won't you' (I). Second, many noted that they maintained a conceptual and practical distinction between animals used for breeding and those that were eaten or sold. For example, one distinguished between her cow who is &getting older now2 but she will never go2 [and] 2 the

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calves that she's reared, and have gone to market, that are out on the ground and you don't see everyday2 it's the mum ones that I couldn't [eat]' (E). The distinctions between those animals which were eaten and those which were not was sometimes given a spatial dimension; &there's this little special group of nine [sheep], they're in a patch on their own2 I wouldn't get rid of these, no, Teddy Bear will always be here, even if she, well, she didn't breed this year actually!' (E). Finally, many interviewees recorded that they found slaughter upsetting. For some, this had become less signi"cant over time, so that one said &I've got through the squeamish bit, I can even look at the new lambs this year and say `you'll look nice on a platea ' (B). Nevertheless, interviewees described sending stock for slaughter as traumatic, saying, for example, &I had a big problem the "rst time we sent one of our weaners [pigs]' (B) or that after taking a young goat for slaughter &I drove into a lay-by and wept buckets * because I'd bottle-fed him' (G). Similar sentiments are expressed in magazine articles. One, for example, notes that taking pigs to slaughter is the &saddest job' they have to do, and that the author &felt terribly guilty and humbled by the experience' (CS 1999, February, 35). Several interviewees described the way they prepared themselves and their (human) families for the slaughter of animals, rationalising it as necessary to keeping livestock and being careful to distinguish between animals that were to be eaten and those that were not. Even so, animals intended for slaughter sometimes became breeding animals as a justi"cation for not eating them, and despite the fact that under &normal' agricultural criteria that animal would not have been chosen for breeding. The events of slaughter, and the reduction of animal bodies to food, illustrates the ethical ambiguity of hobby-farming human}animal relations. Even where individual animals are objecti"ed, they themselves, or their parents, are often regarded as animal subjects, while simultaneously discourses of quality, wholesomeness, and slaughter being a necessary part of having livestock, are inscribed on the bodies of those animals which are consumed. Thus, in one magazine article (CS 1999, December, p. 39) a contributor wrote that &We are always determined not to become attached to animals that are going to end up in the freezer, but inevitably we get to know them as the months go by and saying farewell is always upsetting. Having said that, we never hesitate at tucking in to a good roast joint of meat that was once running round one of our "elds'. It should be noted that some interviewees said that they did manage to maintain a distinction between animals which were eaten and those which were not, insisting that although they were deeply concerned for their animals' welfare, sending animals to the abattoir and, later, packing and storing the meat, were relatively routine activities, while actually consuming the meat was distinctly pleasurable.

6. Conclusions The foregoing discussion has outlined a number of discourses and practices associated with hobby-farming in England and Wales, attempting to illustrate that hobby-farm human}animal relationships are ethically complex, and related to farming practices which to some extent di!erentiate hobby-farms from commercial agriculture. Discourses of animal welfare, ethical relation and food production are inscribed upon the bodies of animals as they are befriended, con"ned, managed and made meaningful on hobby-farms, during interviews and in magazine articles. In conclusion, I want to brie#y discuss the formation of human identity in relation to hobbyfarm animals, the production of hobby-farms as ethical spaces contrasting with commercial farms, and the importance of the spatiality and bodies of hobby-farm animals. From the comments of interviewees, it is clear that animals are central to their identities as smallholders or hobby-farmers, and to the identity of hobby-farms as places. Keeping animals allowed them to enjoy the identity of someone who is involved with farming and to participate in a wider farming community, through attending events such as auction markets. However, it was insu$cient to simply keep animals, the animals were engaged in an ethical relation which involved regarding them as individuals while focusing on, from a human perspective, their well-being, happiness and &freedom' to express &natural' behaviour. At the same time, this relation allowed the animals to be used at the convenience of humans for food, and to be subjected to many aspects of conventional agricultural management. The human intentionality towards animals on hobby-farms is thus ethically problematic. Animals are encountered simultaneously as individual pets or friends, and as a source of food. The human identities emerging from these relationships (and the interview situation) are thus complex. Interviewees were able to present themselves, variously, as participating in &traditional' farming life, as farming in ethically &better' ways than commercial farmers, as friends of their animal companions, as upset by the necessity of slaughter, and as enjoying the resultant meat. Hobby-farms themselves become identi"ed as places where ethical farming practices are carried out. The place-identity of hobby-farms thus emerges from the ambiguous and distinctive human}animal relations described above, and a general concern for farming in ðical' relation with &nature' (e.g., organic production, conservation activities). Again, many interviewees were keen to distinguish themselves and their practices from commercial farmers, and their hobby-farms perhaps acted as microcosms for the sorts of welfare-conscious farming practices they would like to see in commercial farming. Although welfare is an important topic of

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debate in commercial agriculture, the attitudes of researchers towards animals di!ers signi"cantly from those of the hobby-farmers discussed here. McInerney (1991), for example, regards animal welfare on farms as a subset of human welfare, so that animal welfare is only important to the extent that it contributes to human well-being. Similarly, Bennett (1997) considers people's &willingness to pay' for improved animal welfare in considering attitudes towards methods of food production. The anthropocentrism of such work is challenged by the attitudes and practices adopted by hobby-farmers in which forms of animal subjectivity and intrinsic value may be produced. However, despite hobby-farmers' evident concern for ethically sound farming practices, from the perspective of prescriptive ethical philosophy it is debatable whether they can be said to live in &right relationship' with their animals. What has developed from the discussion above is a descriptive moral geography, an account of what is the case in particular human}animal relations. These relations have been shown to be ambiguous, and to result in certain contradictions and problems for those involved. A contrast can be made here with positions taken from the prescriptive ethics outlined earlier in the paper. For those advocating the full moral considerability of animals (e.g., Singer, 1975; Midgley, 1983), farming and eating creatures which have been granted forms of subjectivity would be ethically problematic, to say the least. There is, then, a sense in which hobby-farmers' concern to distance themselves from commercial farmers on the basis of a concern for welfare is ethically questionable: the apparently inter-subjective human}animal relationships which develop on hobby-farms do not preclude the eventual reduction of the status of the animal to that of meat. However, the situated morality of people thinking about and practising their relationships with livestock animals on hobby-farms is of interest as it provides a commentary on the techniques of commercial agriculture from some of those who are farming on the margins, giving an insight into what Jones (2000) suggests are the ineluctably ethically-signi"cant practices encountered in particular places. It would be valuable to understand more of commercial farmers' relationships with livestock animals, in order to prevent a too simplistic view of human}animal relationships on commercial farms from the perspective of a group who often de"ne themselves as &other' to commercial farmers. A heterogeneity and spatiality of potentially ambiguous ethical relationships might also be expected on di!erent commercial farms, as di!erent groups of animals, and di!erent individual animals, might be related to in very di!erent ways. Additionally, it is important to distinguish the discursive representation of human}animal relations, such as that given by interviewees in the case study presented in this paper, from what are likely to be the very di!erent perspectives of animals themselves. While, for example,

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an animal can be represented as a friend, this is clearly a human interpretation of the relationship. Again, such relations are constructed through practice and discourse in which animals are very much unequal partners, being owned, con"ned and managed by humans. However, the expression of alternative subjectivities by animals is evident in, for example, their abilities to confound the expectations and knowledges of the humans involved, and their participation in communication with humans. Hence, although we need to be wary of anthropomorphism and the human designation of animal subjectivity, it may still be possible to recognise and respect alternative, non-human, subjectivities. Finally, the embodiment of discourses and practices in hobby-farm animals simultaneously produces forms of animal subjectivity illustrating Foucauldian processes of the transformation of bodies into objects of power-knowledge. Hence, living animal bodies may be made the objects of organic farming (so that their dead bodies are accorded particular value), or may be categorised as breeding stock or fattening stock (to be related to in di!erent ways). Animal bodies on hobby-farms, although subject to human control, di!er from the strict and, perhaps, panoptic discipline suggested by Williams (1999) to occur in intensive farming, where humans are increasingly distanced from animals. Instead, their bodies, both alive and dead, are in close proximity to the humans who &use' them. However, and despite the relations of friendship between hobby-farmers and livestock animals, human}animal boundaries are reproduced on hobby-farms through the micro-spatiality of the holding, so that whereas those animals conventionally regarded as &pets' (e.g., dogs) were generally permitted access to the house, other animals were excluded, and con"ned to the "elds or outbuildings. Hence, animals on hobby-farms acquire a status &in between' that of the conventional categories of farm livestock and pets, re#ecting human intentionality towards the animals and evident in the spatiality of the hobby-farm. In this sense, the "gurative inscription of human discourses (of productivity or friendship, for example) on animal bodies is reinforced by the physical inscription of particular practices, and by the spacing of people and animals. Hobby-farm animals, therefore, embody and reproduce discursive and ethical distinctions between humans and animals, while acquiring an ambiguous moral status which di!erentiates them from commercially farmed livestock, and is involved in the production of &alternative' farming identities and spaces.

Acknowledgements The research upon which this paper is based was funded under the Nu$eld Foundation Social Science Small Grants Scheme. I would like to thank the human

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interviewees, and their animals, who participated in the research in di!erent ways. Thanks also to Phil Dunham, Phil Hubbard and two referees for their valuable and supportive comments on earlier versions of the paper.

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