Doctoral Researcher | Lancaster Environment Centre
Horticulture; agroecological transition; workers; labour issues in horticulture; just transition; worker rights; union organising; agroecology; ecological unionism
My research is concerned with labour issues in agriculture. I focus on the need for 'good food jobs' in the UK context where labour shortages in edible horticulture are significant. This work involves understanding where workers in horticulture fit into 'just transition' frameworks and discourse. In particular, I am concerned with the inequalities around routes into farm work, focusing on the experiences of landless wage labourers. I interrogate how worker's acquire knowledge, organise, contest and make demands across the edible horticulture sector. This involves questioning current conceptualisations of 'farmers' and 'skilled labour' in the context of agri-capitalism and rising far-right ideologies and agendas. My interest in the edible horticulture sector stems outside of academia, and led to me work on several organic market gardens, berry orchards, and commercial farms as well as completing a horticultural apprenticeship. This work has highlighted the importance of 'practical academia' that is informed by farm-centred experiences, and bridges practitioners in farming, advocacy and activism around my research topic. My doctoral research is funded by the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership and is a Collaborative Studentship. This collaboration involves working with the Landworker's Alliance (LWA), a member-led alliance of farmers and land-based workers and member of La Via Campesina. My PhD research is influenced by several years of organising with the youth branch of LWA, Food, Land Agriculture: a Movement for Equality (FLAME). This project will build an evidence base around ecological unionism, and the role of social movements in building new solidarities within and beyond agroecology, labour power and strategies for horticulture to become more diverse, attractive, and viable to new entrants. I am also a member of the Zetkin Collective which researches global trends in the environmental and climate politics of the global far-right. I co-authored the Collective’s first book titled ‘Black Skin, White Fuel: On the Dangers of Fossil Fascism’ (Verso, 2021) in which I wrote on the environmental politics of far-right groups in Spain, Poland and the UK. Alongside my PhD, I produce a podcast for the Centre for Future Natures which explores human relationships within nature and thinks critically about ownership and enclosure in relation to ecological issues.
