Limit groups and groups acting freely on R^n-trees

We give a simple proof of the finite presentation of Sela's limit groups by using free actions on R^n-trees. We first prove that Sela's limit groups do have a free action on an R^n-tree. We then prove that a finitely generated group having a free action on an R^n-tree can be obtained from free abelian groups and surface groups by a finite sequence of free products and amalgamations over cyclic groups. As a corollary, such a group is finitely presented, has a finite classifying space, its abelian subgroups are finitely generated and contains only finitely many conjugacy classes of non-cyclic maximal abelian subgroups.Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol8/paper39.abs.htm

The Importance of Next Generation Farmers: A Conceptual Framework to Bring the Potential Successor into Focus

Journal ArticleThis is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1111/gec3.12131. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Intergenerational succession is understood as an integral facet of the family farm. The importance of the succession process and more specifically, successor identification, are critically discussed in the context of the widely propagated projections of global population growth and associated demands on the agricultural sector. Having established the merits of successor identification, the article then highlights the absence of the 'potential successor' from contemporary research and continues by offering a conceptual framework, capable of bringing this important research subject into focus as an autonomous and valuable actor, which, given the anticipated renaissance in agriculture, is perhaps now, more important than ever. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

The value of the 1941-1943 National farm survey as a method for engagement with farmers in contemporary research

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Chiswell, H. M. (2014), The value of the 1941–1943 National Farm Survey as a method for engagement with farmers in contemporary research. Area, 46: 426–434. doi: 10.1111/area.12136, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12136/abstract. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.This article proposes the use of National Farm Survey (NFS) data and maps as a resource to support interviews with farmers and their families, across a wide range of geographical topics. The paper explores the origins of the NFS and evaluates its use as a reconstructive tool. Drawing directly on its use in recent empirical research into family farm succession as an example, the paper details the methodology, including the development of a Geographic Information System and the integration of the NFS data and maps into interview questions, as prompts and starting points. Using empirical data the paper evinces the benefits of deploying the NFS as a resource, including improving response rate, establishment of rapport, capturing of participant interest, facilitation of detailed responses and the stimulation of new trajectories and topics during the interview. Critically, use of the NFS in the proposed way means, in contrast to its previous applications, it is unencumbered by its inherent problems and inconsistencies, and interestingly, these problems can even become a source of strength for the researcher.John Oldacre Foundatio

A Recruitment Crisis in Agriculture? A Reply to Heike Fischer and Rob J.F. Burton's Understanding Farm Succession as Socially Constructed Endogenous Cycles

PublishedArticleThis is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1111/soru.12071. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.This short article responds to Fischer and Burton's article, ‘Understanding farm succession as socially constructed endogenous cycles’, featured in the last issue of Sociologia Ruralis. Broadly the article commends the concept of ‘socially constructed endogenous cycles’ as a way of conceptualising successor creation, but challenges some of Fischer and Burton's claims, with the aim of stimulating further discussion and research into intergenerational farm transfer. Drawing on a range of empirical research, the article explores the reality of the ‘recruitment crisis’ that Fischer and Burton suggest is occurring, and subsequently asks, is there an optimum level of familial succession? The article continues by exploring some of the other claims made by Fischer and Burton, including the impact of mechanisation on farm children's involvement in farm work, and challenges their suggestion that farmers are currently marginalised in society

‘“As long as you’re easy on the eye”: Reflecting on issues of positionality and researcher safety during farmer interviews’

This reflective paper explores gendered experiences of fieldwork encounters with farmers. Specifically, the paper considers how the particularities of farmer interviews – including the geographical remoteness of many farm holdings, the strength of tradition in farm families and the male-dominated nature of the industry – pose a unique and challenging prospect for the young and relatively inexperienced female researcher. Drawing on a number of the authors’ own fieldwork experiences, we consider some of the ethical and safety challenges we have faced, and offer some practical strategies for addressing these. The paper also reflects on the implications of our positionality – specifically the intersection of our age, gender and non-farming status – on our own, and participants’ interview performances. Although, as we discuss, we found these aspects of our identity broadly advantageous in securing and conducting successful farmer interviews, we also recount how they invited a number of unwelcomed behaviours, and often left us vulnerable to emotional risk. In sharing such experiences, we raise a number of questions concerning the ethical responsibility of negotiating or conforming to the identities conferred on us during farmer interviews and hope to prompt further discussion around these challenges. The paper concludes that young female researchers face a number of ethical and safety challenges during fieldwork in the rural and farming context and highlights the need to consider the impact of researcher positionality on the researcher, the participant(s) and the overall research process. By stimulating such a debate, we aim to bring the issue of gendered experiences of rural research to the fore, and hope to provide some reassurance and support to others working in similar areas

‘From generation to generation: changing dimensions of intergenerational farm transfer’

The transfer of managerial control between generations on the family farm has long been understood as a critical and often problematic phase, with implications for both the individual farm business and more broadly, the sustainability of family farming systems. Drawing on empirical data from interviews with prospective successors and farmers in Devon, England, the article provides a contemporary analysis of the transfer of managerial control on family farms. Although in line with traditional conceptualisations, findings reaffirm how many prospective successors were delegated tasks of increasing responsibility, with limited access to the higher responsibility financial management tasks, an emergent cohort of younger prospective successors enjoyed a contrasting progression towards managerial control, involving varied involvement across all aspects of farm management. With reference to late modernity and the individualisation thesis, the article explores how unconstrained by tradition the emerging cohort described a wealth of off-farm experiences, including what the article terms short-term diversions, which the analysis reveals have informed and shaped their progression towards managerial control. In view of these findings, the article offers an alternative and up-to-date conceptualisation of the transfer of managerial control in the form of the succession matrix, before considering the potential applications and some avenues for future research

Affine actions on non-archimedean trees

We initiate the study of affine actions of groups on $\Lambda$-trees for a general ordered abelian group $\Lambda$; these are actions by dilations rather than isometries. This gives a common generalisation of isometric action on a $\Lambda$-tree, and affine action on an $\R$-tree as studied by I. Liousse. The duality between based length functions and actions on $\Lambda$-trees is generalised to this setting. We are led to consider a new class of groups: those that admit a free affine action on a $\Lambda$-tree for some $\Lambda$. Examples of such groups are presented, including soluble Baumslag-Solitar groups and the discrete Heisenberg group.Comment: 27 pages. Section 1.4 expanded, typos corrected from previous versio

\Lambda-buildings and base change functors

We prove an analog of the base change functor of \Lambda-trees in the setting of generalized affine buildings. The proof is mainly based on local and global combinatorics of the associated spherical buildings. As an application we obtain that the class of generalized affine building is closed under ultracones and asymptotic cones. Other applications involve a complex of groups decompositions and fixed point theorems for certain classes of generalized affine buildings.Comment: revised version, 29 pages, to appear in Geom. Dedicat