Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the Irish state’s use of conservation to project itself as ‘green’ while simultaneously presenting resistant farmers as uneducated and problematic. It calls for increased attention to the manipulation of green discourse within policy and state self-representations.

Paper long abstract:

The rhetoric of green production and development is increasingly common in Irish publicity campaigns over the last decades. This idea builds off of a play on the island’s lush green aesthetics, grass-fed cattle industry, and conservation initiatives that support both tourism and EU-mandated species protections. This paper will explore the emergent identities of marginal upland farmers whose farmland has become part of the Natura 2000 network, thus reshaping the meaning of land ownership and farm futures. In doing so, I explore the intersection of plantation forests, low-intensity upland farming, and the Irish state’s use of forestry and conservation to project itself as ‘green’ while simultaneously presenting resistant farmers as uneducated, marginal, and problematic. Based on ethnographic research in north County Cork, this paper calls for increased attention to the manipulation of conservation and green discourse within policy and state self-representations. Attention to the intersection of state-led ‘green’ discourse and the ways in which locals are enmeshed, ignored, or presented within it is a necessary step in recognizing the local lives and identities that emerge within such discursively curated landscapes.