Back-to-the-land migration can be summarised as the intended adoption of a primarily agrarian lifestyle by individuals from non-agrarian backgrounds. Back-to-the-land has historically served as both an ideal and a set of practices, a set of push-and-pull factors that influence rural in-migration and a range of activities that work in service of this ambition. The radical shift in lifestyle that characterises this kind of migration is often tethered to a political radicalism, but one that is not easily identifiable in visible social movements or organised political action. Rather, it manifests itself in practices of self-sufficiency, alternative economic structures and experiments in social organisation. This review looks at the historical roots of back-to-the-land as a radical movement, asking what relevance it has for contemporary political issues such as human and non-human welfare, environmental sustainability and non-capitalist economic relations. A strong focus on the material dimensions of back-to-the-land is maintained, highlighting the specific potential of rural spaces to host and catalyse radical ambitions. Furthermore, a case is presented for interrogating the relationship between alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) and back-to-the-land migrants, since these structures often provide an explicit articulation of their participants' values and strategies.Migrants to rural areas who attempt to achieve a predominantly agrarian lifestyle have been christened -confusingly -with several labels: neo-farmers (Mailfert 2007), neopeasants , new pioneers (Jacob 1997), new agrarians (Trauger 2007) and, most commonly, back-to-the-landers. The commonalities that unite these individuals are an experience of migration to the countryside and the adoption of farming or horticultural practices as a significant lifestyle component. In placing food production at the forefront of their adopted lifestyles, back-to-the-landers promote a positive, pro-rural ideal over reactionary anti-urbanism (Halfacree 1997anti-urbanism (Halfacree , 2007aanti-urbanism (Halfacree , 2008. In this survey I reflect on back-to-the-land as an ideal and set of practices, situating it within a lineage of radical political beliefs, from early antecedents of American anarchism to a modern-day critique of consumer culture. I treat this radicalism as a contingent process rather than a given fact, exploring historical and contemporary angles, and speculating as to how future back-to-the-land research might present the phenomenon in relation to contemporaneous political conditions. I suggest two routes for further study, the first concentrating on the performance of particular ideas and values through local ecologies, where material interaction with nature empowers broader, less immediate agendas. The second avenue examines how back-tothe-landers' participation in alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) might offer a more traceable manifestation of their politics and relate disparate, individual practices to a more unified purpose. I conclude with an en...

Back-to-the-land migration offers a unique and insightful opportunity to explore how individuals from non-agricultural backgrounds adopt, adapt and perceive the demands of farming. There is considerable variation in the forms of study and methods of preparation that back-to-the-landers undertake before trying to create a livelihood from the land, not to mention highly disparate results from their efforts. This article considers the value that new farmers in Italy attach to different forms of knowledge, in particular the discrepancies between formal scientific and local knowledges. The utility of different forms is discussed in relation to the individual experiences of farmers, as well as formal networks that exist to impart technical knowledge of agriculture. Two case-study organisations, Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and Associazione per Esperienze (APE) are analysed with regard to their abilities to assemble and transmit specific forms of knowledge to new and aspiring farmers, thus strengthening the viability of back-to-the-land as a lifestyle choice and farming as a vocation.

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Embodied methods have become popular tools for exploring subjective dimensions of social science research, including emotion and affect, as well as contributing substantively to empirical data. Concurrent growth of more-than-human research, in which the human subject is dethroned from an exclusive position of power and agency, offers an opportunity to explore methods beyond human subjectivity. This paper embraces this task by drawing on embodied methods in the context of food research, asking what the practices of transforming nonhuman matter into food reveal about the politics of food and the more-than-human world. Recounting field experiences from two discrete projects in Italy and Australia, we argue that being explicit about the role of the body in research has potential to elicit novel insights about politics and the contingency of human agency. Specifically, our research with food contributes to debates about the relationship between local knowledge and the market, animal welfare and farming standards, and wild foods and discourses of belonging. Disciplines Education | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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