Since the early 20th century and particularly since WWII, the ‘conventional’ or industrial agro-food system has drastically altered and deteriorated natural and social landscapes from local to global scales. Despite the many detrimental socio-ecological impacts of this type of agriculture, disconnection between production and consumption in this now-global food system obscures awareness, understanding, responsibility, and care. Understanding all socio-ecological impacts of the conventional food system to be related, born from the same modern cultural assumptions of science and technology, progress and rationality, and dominance over nature and human and nonhuman others, this dissertation targets socio-cultural issues related to connection, community, place, gender, and care. Exploring these themes within the conventional agro-food system, the study also examines the potential of agricultural alternatives to restore relationships among people, community, place, and the more-than-human world through a feminist ethnographic study of the Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture High Country Farm Tour in Western North Carolina. Following the introduction, Chapter 1 emphasizes the relationship between place and agro-food systems. Theorizing place as meaning, connection, attachment, and emotion, it explores the place-related impacts of the conventional agro-food system. Bringing together literature from scholars of place, agro-food studies, education, and tourism, this chapter employs farmer interviews and visitor surveys to investigate the role of place in local food systems as well as the potential of agricultural places to serve as important educational spaces via farm tours.Chapter 2 situates agro-food disconnection and reconnection within frameworks of ecofeminism and care ethics and engages with experiences of consumers participating in the High Country Farm Tour using participant-driven photo elicitation interviews (PDPE). The findings suggest that embodied emotional experiences in caring agricultural spaces can foster agricultural and ecological literacy and deepen consumer relationships with producers, agricultural practices and processes, and the more-than-human world. The findings also illustrate that PDPE can serve as a valuable window into experience, emotion, and meaning, affirming the method’s value for feminist, agro-food, and other critical researchers.Chapter 3 expands on the relationship between community and food systems, explores the relationship of women farmers and civic agriculture, and investigates community-based farm tours as a strategy for civic agriculture. Employing focus groups as a participatory action research methodology to bring women farmers together, it presents the impacts and challenges associated with participation in the tour. The chapter concludes that community-based farm tours, especially those highlighting women farmers, hold ripe potential as a creative civic agricultural mechanism and should continue to be implemented by more communities in the U.S. The conclusion overviews each prior chapter and ties them together within a relational feminist framework of place and care. Challenges associated with the High Country Farm Tour, limitations of the study, and future research pathways are also discussed. The overarching findings of this dissertation indicate that place, care, and gender are crucial elements of a thriving civic agriculture and support community-based farm tours as an innovative strategy for moving toward a relational agro-food system.
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