Sophie O'Connor

About the project

Mother nature: an intersectional analysis of environmental engagement in Kentish farm women 

With farms accounting for 69% of land use and 12% of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the UK (DEFRA, 2025), environmental solutions must be co-designed with farming communities - yet farm women are rarely included in policy debates about land care and sustainability. This is despite industry estimates suggesting that around 83% of UK farms are family-owned (Farmers Guardian, 2024), many of which are co-owned (and increasingly co-managed) by women. 

Drawing on rural feminist geography and theories of empowerment, Sophie’s PhD examines how ‘farm women’ in Kent (defined here as women who live on, own, or manage farms) engage with the land and how this shapes environmental action. Not only does this research include the perspectives of paid women farmers, but also of farmers’ wives, daughters, and grandmothers whose physical, emotional, and care labour structure the family farm - even if they do not formally work the land. 

Walking alongside participants across fields and farmyards, Sophie utilises ‘walking interviews’ to explore how women relate to the farm as a business, as a natural space, and (in many cases) a home. These everyday relationships reveal subtle forms of environmental care, negotiation, and constraint, illuminating how power circulates within family farms and how women exercise agency within - and sometimes against - existing structures. 

This research also draws on structured interviews with policymakers and private-sector actors who work with farms to achieve environmental aims, situating women’s experiences within wider institutional and organisational contexts. 

By looking beyond the farm business and into the farmhouse, Sophie’s PhD hopes to expand our understanding of how farm communities can engage with the environment while balancing food security and business concerns.

About the researcher

Sophie O’Connor is a Human Geography PhD student at the University of Kent. Her research explores how Kentish farm women engage with environmentalism and how we can use this knowledge to work with farm communities to discover and implement agri-environmental solutions. Having partly grown up on a farm in Kent, Sophie is passionate about reconciling the tensions between agriculture and environmentalism.

Sophie joined the University of Kent in 2022 to study for her MA in Social Anthropology: Humanitarian and Environmental Crises, for which she received a distinction. She was also awarded the External Examiner’s Commendation Award for her MA dissertation, “From the Field: Kentish Farmers and Climate Change”. Before returning to the University of Kent to pursue her PhD, Sophie undertook a habitat management internship with the RSPB. 

Prior to joining Kent, Sophie gained her undergraduate MA in History and Politics at the University of Edinburgh in 2016, then spent six years in corporate communications. 

Sophie has been awarded a SEDarc PhD studentship, which is funded by the ESRC. 

Sophie’s primary research interests are: 

• Agriculture
• Gender
• Environmentalism
• Ruralism
• Intersectionality
• Power and empowerment 

Supervised by Professor Joseph Tzanopoulos and Dr Eleanor Jupp.