The Changing Face of Scottish Farming: Identity, Ethics, and Knowledge in an Agricultural Just Transition

This project will explore how a 'just transition' is changing farmer identity in Scotland.

A 'just transition' aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045 while producing environmental health, social justice, and economic growth.

Despite opposition by most farmers, this will recast Scottish agriculture as subsidies are bound to sustainability standards, and farmers are tasked with emissions reductions and nature conservation. My project draws a correlation between daily work and identity.

Hence, it asks how a just transition will change farmers' traditional economic practices and thus reshape farmer identity.

Exploring this by engaging directly with farmers in Scotland through ethnographic fieldwork, I will address this broader question by delving into the ethics and environmental knowledge that guide farm practice.

Further I will ask how they are changing as sustainable agriculture requires additional processes of expert certification (organics, environmental schemes) or forwards values associated with environmentalism, animal rights, and social justice.

By doing so, I will gain valuable empirical insights into how farmers are reacting to the new policy framework, how it is impacting their self perception, and what the future of farming looks like.

As rethinking agriculture is crucial to mitigating climate change on a global scale, this is critical well beyond Scotland.

Meanwhile, in answering these questions, this project will also contribute to an emerging anthropological perspective on identity that ties it to how people know and ethically relate to the world, and how their daily lives are guided by their aspirations to live a good life.