Working Group 3.3

Equine Landscapes and the New Equine Industry

Convenors:
Alexandra Franklin, Cardiff University, franklina1@Cardiff.ac.uk (contact person)
Rhys Evans, Integrate Consulting, Scotland UK
Nora Schuurman, University of Joensuu, nora.schuurman@joensuu.fi (contact person)
Riitta-Marja Leinonen, University of Oulu
Nora Brandt, Åbo Akademi University, Vasa

In the twenty-first Century horses continue to make a major contribution to sustaining the rural economy. Whereas they once facilitated production on and of the rural landscape, they now facilitate the consumption of it. Whether approached from a narrow post-productivist, or a broader rural consumption point of view, the various equestrian pursuits offer farmers and land owners natural avenues towards rural diversification and participation in the consumption economy. In so doing, equestrian pursuits have the potential to make a complex contribution to the restructuring of rural space.

Equine Landscapes offers a very productive lens through which to view the production of space over multiple scales and in multiple registers.  Equine activities operate on a micro, meso and macro scale.  These activities make important contributions to the identities of individuals, collectivities and places. It is the inter-working of activities at these different scales which gives them such power in the production of new spaces within the countryside.  Equine Landscapes are, in part, a product of the interactions of individuals with a mass sector.

A “new equine industry” can be observed in most western countries. This does not only have implications on the landscape but for equestrianism itself. There are new types of actors on the equine stage. Growing numbers of women and girls are taking up riding. Horse sports have also become a significant hobby for urban people, which brings new challenges to land use planning, including pressure to build new stables and horse training facilities – especially in areas near cities. These new actors bring with them new needs and demands, which sometimes causes conflicts such as those between rural and urban cultures, horse actors and municipality land planning organisations, competing leisure and exercise uses, etc. The rapid growth of the equine industry has also brought about the question of equine welfare. Equine activities therefore provide a lens through which we can examine embodiment, learning, norms, discourse, power and practice. 

In this spirit, this Working Group welcomes all explorations of the production of rural space, rural and urban interaction, and new identifications rising from the rider, the horse, or the horse-rider pair/unit.  Illustrative topics include:

Post-productivist equine landscapes
Environmental goods/bads of equestrianism.
Assets-based approaches to equine development.
Embodied learning, normative behaviours and disciplined bodies.   
The horse/rider unit as actant.
Animal/society relations.
The sporting geographies of equestrian activities.
Gender and equestrian pursuits.
Performing identities.
Scopic regimes of equestrian pursuits
Volunteering
Risk and the equine sector.
Equine welfare
Tradition, tourism and experience
New (urban) horse owners
Equine entrepreneurship: new farmers?