Abstract
This thesis contributes to the established literature on farm women within the context of family farming. It recognises that not enough is yet known about the discourses and agency which influence their lives. Consequently, this study has sought to establish what dominant discourses shape the lives of farm women, their responses to these discourses and how their discursive positioning influences their agency.
This study employed a qualitative case study approach involving interviews with a diverse mixture of independent farm women, along with women farming in marital relationships. This thesis engages these narratives to showcase the colourful, complex life-experiences of farm women. In addition, and where present, women's partners were interviewed to provide male farmers' perspectives about women in family farming.
This research has found that women's lives are shaped by positioning and contextualising discourses, with which they comply to ensure that the family farm survives. Their subservient discursive positioning limits the agency they can express, although they are able to mobilise indirect agency through supporting their partner; an implicit form of agency which has previously been unrecognised or understated.
Cumulatively, this thesis highlights the need to recognise the diversity of farm women, and how they are able to exercise agency from their constrained subject positions within the family farming context. Furthermore it emphasises that agency is a dynamic, and far more varied concept than previously understood.