Steven Emery

Steven is trained across anthropology, human geography and sociology and is interested in the intersection between farming culture, the political economy of food systems and agri-environmental governance. He is particularly interested in the role of specific cultural values in mediating farmers’ practices, their relationship to the landscape and their engagement with external policy interventions. He is also keen to ensure that farmers’ local and experiential knowledge is recognised and incorporated into decision-making around sustainable food futures. He has conducted long-term participant observation among British farming communities and specialises in qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviewing, discourse and narrative analysis and finds fertile conceptual ground in combining phenomenological and political economy approaches. Steven has been engaged in a number of projects over the longer-term exploring the barriers and opportunities to greater farmer cooperation and collaboration in relation to food production and the delivery of landscape-scale environmental benefits. He has also worked recently for Defra, exploring the concerns and future plans of English farmers in response to Brexit and the Agricultural Transition to a new agricultural policy and support framework in the UK.