Benjamin Bernard-Herman

This project examines how small-scale farmers in the Driftless region of the American Midwest negotiate their values with the values of consumers interested in ethical consumption. In an economic environment where ethical consumption dictates much of the market for small-scale farmers, these farmers often have to present their produce as ethically produced goods in specific, marketable ways in order for their goods to be legibly understood as “ethical” by consumers. The marketable frameworks for “ethical consumption,” however, do not directly line up with the values held by three major groups of farmers in the Driftless: biodynamic, anarchist, and Amish farmers. This dissertation project will use ethnographic research with farmers from each of these groups to understand their values and the strategies they use to interact with the market: how and when do these farmers embrace discourses of ethical consumption, and how and when do they resist or ignore them? In doing so, this project will reveal new ways of thinking morally that challenge the appropriation of ethical thinking into market practices.