Towards the geographies of loneliness: interpreting the spaces of loneliness in farming contexts

Holton, Mark, Riley, Mark ORCID: 0000-0002-3259-323X and Kallis, Gina (2023) Towards the geographies of loneliness: interpreting the spaces of loneliness in farming contexts. Social and Cultural Geography, 24 (10). pp. 1-19.

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Abstract

Loneliness is a ‘silent epidemic’, challenging people’s emotional and ontological sense of being in the world. Whilst loneliness has been the focus of medical and psychological research, often being synonymous with discourses of mental ill health, trauma and relationship breakdowns, it has remained under-theorised from a geographical perspective. In offering a critical engagement of how and where loneliness exists geographically, this paper identifies three key spatial dimensions that Geographers can proceed from. First, that loneliness is experienced relationally ‘in place’ through everyday practice and behaviour. Second, that loneliness has the capacity to infiltrate felt socio-emotional relationships and interactions. Third, that loneliness is multi-scalar, affecting bodies, families, friendships, workplaces, neighbourhoods and communities in diverse and intersecting ways. Focusing on farming and farm workers (a group recently referred to in the popular press as potentially facing isolation and loneliness) we draw on interviews with young UK farmers to examine how loneliness can be expressed through labour and routine, how farming loneliness becomes entrenched in the spaces of farming practice and habitus and the relational (and contested) responsibilities of farming communities in identifying, supporting and mediating problem loneliness in increasingly solitary contexts.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Mental Health, 3 Good Health and Well Being
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	05 Aug 2022 10:22
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2024 07:46
DOI:	10.1080/14649365.2022.2104360
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3160429