This paper explores the production of farming identities and spaces, focusing especially on the relational construction of situated ethical identities. Using three case studies drawn from research with very small-scale farmers, the author examines processes of identification, drawing on ideas which suggest the importance of encounter, farming discourse, physical relation and heterogeneous association in the emergence of ethical identity in specific farming situations and places. The case studies examine the ethical positioning of interviewees, and their mobility of ethical identification, in relation to ‘other’ types of farmer and the human and nonhuman components of their farming assemblages. The paper illustrates the importance of examining situated farming moralities and identities in current debates over alternative ways of thinking about and practising agriculture, and over different ways of using rural space.
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