How agriculture performs urbanity: connecting urbanization and socio-practical shifts in farming cultures

Abstract

Agriculture and farming practices are often at the center of idealized imaginaries and characterizations of rurality. At the same time, agriculture is in flux, undergoing rapid change through globalized economic restructuring and new globalized cultural paradigms. Agriculture is thus a venue where farmers put into practice the latest technological advances to remain competitive economically, a process which simultaneously challenges farmers’ (self-)perceptions and the characterizations of rural communities. Scholars of urbanization theory propose exploring rural transformations through the everyday, as performed through practices and reflected in the habitus. Building on such scholarship, this article connects insights from urbanization studies with a qualitative assessment of practice shifts in farming by situating digitally-assisted farming practices as indicators of rural transformation. Using the participatory visual method of photovoice, the article follows how farmers from south-eastern Austria outline contexts in which digitization has led to transforming their farming practices. The conceptual framework of habitual urbanity (Dirksmeier 2006, 2007, 2009) is used to analyze the resulting material. The main qualitative results highlight how digital technologies led to the reordering, reassessment, and at times, discontinuation, of everyday farm tasks. These disruptions potentially lead to a growing variety of business modes and at the same time, mark cornerstones of rural transformation in thought and behavior.