Area zyxwvutsrqp (2000) 32.3, 307-31 5 ‘Hell on earth and paradise all at the same time’: the production of smallholding space in the British countryside Lewis Holloway Geography Subject Area, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK Email: apxl54@cov.ac.uk Revised manuscript received 7 May 1999. Summary This paper begins zyxwvuts to develop an analysis of the geography of smallholding, as a contribution to developing interest in cultural geographies of farming and the nature of the ‘post-productivist‘ countryside. The paper uses evidence from a survey of zy UK smallholders to suggest that they are in a paradoxical position in relation to ideas about ‘real’ farming, production and consumption, leisure and work. Smallholder identity is revealed as constituted through ideas about ‘nature’, food, family, community, work and rural space. The paper concludes by suggesting a framework of ideas for future intensive research into smallholding and its links with farming cultures and rural social and cultural change. zyxwvutsr Smallholding and the post-productivist countryside This paper aims to use the concept of smallholding as a way of exploring the changing role of farming in the post-productivistcountryside. A range of types of small-scale farming have been noted as occurring in the British countryside. These have been categorized as ‘part-time’ or ’hobby’ farms by authors such as Gasson (1 982, 1986) and Munton et a1 (1 989), and have been associated with significant changes in UK agriculture, where, for example, part-time farming has been adopted as a ‘survival strategy’ in the face of declining farm incomes (Gasson 1986), or ‘hobby’ farmers with no farming background have purchased small areas of land as a result of dissatisfaction with urban lifestyles (Gasson 1982). There have always been small farms and small-scale farmers, often existing at the geographical and economic margins of agricultural production. In this paper, however, it is suggested that the category ‘smallholding’ is useful in terms of thinking about a range of forms of small-scale farming where farming activities are associated with lifestyle choices involving consump- tion of the countryside. There is no absolute defi- nition of smallholding: dictionary definitions simply suggest that a smallholding is an agricultural holding smaller than a farm. Here, smallholdingrefers to what Gasson (1 982) would term ‘hobby’ farming, but the understanding of the term zyx is extended by con- ceptualizing smallholding as part of a broader range of lifestyles associated with ’rurality’, in arguing that smallholding is more than just a ’hobby’ to those involved. Offering detailed results from a survey of UK smallholders, the paper begins to develop a prelimi- nary analysis of the place of smallholding in the UK. Specifically, the paper has three inter-linked aims. Firstly, it attempts to provide an initial empirical and conceptual framework for forthcoming intensive study of smallholding cultures in the UK. Secondly, drawing on the results of the survey, it aims to identify key themes that can be used as the basis for more in-depth research. Thirdly, accepting that there is no single official definition of smallholding in Britain, the paper aims to develop a broad under- standing of the term in the context of broader social and economic changes in the British countryside. Smallholdinglies at the intersection zyx of two import- ant sets of changes in the British countryside. The ISSN 0004-0894 zyxwvuts 0 Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2000