Hybrid Lives and Heirloom Seeds: Tensions Among Activist-Entrepreneurs in the Young Farmers Movement

Andrew Raridon, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation project explores tensions arising from activists’ participation in an alternative agrifood movement called the Young Farmers Movement (YFM). YFM activists are young people seeking to make the US food system more sustainable and just through the creation and operation of their own local, small-scale farms. This project examines how young farmers engage in protest as “activist-entrepreneurs” by blending their goals for self-actualization and broader social change with the marketplace. They do so by growing, distributing, and selling politicized products in purposeful ways, a process I call “politicized production.” Using gender, agrifood, and social movement theories, this project investigates how YFM activists manage competition between market demands and movement ideals, and how they lead “hybrid lives” to negotiate the multidimensional interpersonal strains their entrepreneurial lifestyle activism imposes. Data come from several types of movement cultural materials as well as archival and semi-structured interviews with young farmers. Findings contribute to understandings of protest and activism in an individualized and market-oriented context, elaborate on the identity work processes activists use to facilitate their work, and illustrate how gender and family status impact activists at the confluence of their professional and personal lives.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Einwohner, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Sociology

COinS