Photo‐elicitation and the agricultural landscape: ‘seeing’ and ‘telling’ about farming, community and place

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  • RBRuth Beilin
    Ruth Beilin
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Abstract
This paper explores a photo‐elicitation study with farmers in the steeply degraded hill country of south‐eastern Australia. The photographers are the participating family farmers in the study. Their efforts to explain and to change their farming practice are linked to their relationship to the landscape, to the local Landcare conservation groups and to the imperatives of contemporary production systems. Their use of their landscape images is deliberate. They send a message to others about the complexity of being a ‘farmer’, a land manager and a conservationist. The photo‐elicitation process empowers them to articulate closely held values and understandings about their lives and work in this difficult terrain.