Selling Tradition: Impression Management and Draft Animal Agriculture of a Mississippi Farmstead

<p>This thesis is a case study of a family of farmers in Mississippi’s Piney Woods who use horse-drawn equipment to grow crops. This practice is notable in the context of a larger agricultural system that prioritizes mechanization (particularly the use of tractors). The production style and their use of local direct selling via farmers markets allowed them to thrive economically because they were able to tap into a niche market of consumers desiring an alternative to the modern, conventional agricultural system. </p> <p>Other literature on Alternative Food Networks (AFN) discusses the issues of alterity and appropriation—that is, whether AFN ventures are sufficiently alternative and are not simply fronts for the very institutions or global players being resisted—but does not get into how participants—producers in particular—might utilize impression management strategies to convince others that they are sufficiently alternative. The family in question used narrative, rhetoric, and space to convince others that they carried alterity and also that they were traditional; the spaces they constructed on their property, which included a general store, gave visitors the impression of a restoration of the past. Both impression management and nostalgia played into what I call the traditional–modern framework, a conceptional arena that allowed participants to reflect their sense of identity and ideology.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology and Sociology

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Lance, Matthew Corbin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jeffrey Kaufmann
• Bridget Hayden
• Dana Fennell

• alternative food networks
• impression management
• farmer's markets
• draft animal
• organic
• modernity
• Anthropology
• Geography
• Sociology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/45

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1044