East Midlands Researchers Living La Vida Local
For the month of September, a lecturer from the University of Leicester and his partner from the University of Nottingham plan to live solely off produce sourced from within a 1.5 mile radius of their home.
As part of his work at the renowned Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester, Dr Richard Jones, a lecturer in Landscape History, is undertaking the project to examine the meaning of locality and community in the twenty-first century.
He will be joined in the study by his partner Dr Naomi Sykes, a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Nottingham, a specialist in medieval and earlier food production and consumption. Both are interested in the relationship that develops between people, their animals and crops, wild fauna and flora, and the soil.
Together they have designed what is a truly organic experiment that will be part of their normal daily life. Rather than spending months filling their stores, the couple have deliberately minimised their preparation; the results will thus be a realistic reflection on their lifestyle, rather than an artificial one.
Although the researchers plan to live off the land, unlike 'The Good Life' Dr Jones stresses that the experiment is not designed to be an exercise in self-sufficiency or 'back-to-basics' ; the couple will not be dependent on themselves but on their local community for support, and will continue to use mains water and refrigeration.
Drs Jones and Sykes will conduct the experiment from their home in Upton, Nottinghamshire. The village has a population of approximately 400. Although they have their own chickens and cultivate a small vegetable patch, they will be largely at the mercy of this community for a month's supply of food and drink. They anticipate buying milk at the farm gate and have discovered a local source of honey to replace sugar. They also intend to dabble in recipes for nettle tea, dandelion coffee and cider.
Dr Jones said: "In the modern times of globalisation in which our food travels half way around the world, the research wants to discover if it is still possible to live entirely from within a local community.
"From churning butter to baking bread, we know we will have to learn new skills. We also know that at times we may fail, but we believe that it is at these times that we will learn how far the 'local' really extends.
"We also want to measure the response of the community - to discover whether anyone will offer surplus produce from their gardens and what the farmer believes is the honest price of a pint of milk. "
Dr Sykes added: "'Food is an excellent medium through which to explore the ideas of locality and community both past and present because it has always been so important in the formation of individual and group identities. We all use food to say something about ourselves and we hope that in this experiment food might also offer perspectives on both the people and places we currently share our lives with and also those past communities we study as historians and archaeologists."
The meaning of locality and community underpins Dr Jones' research which focuses on aspects of medieval rural society, ranging from the idea of 'sense of place' in Anglo-Saxon England, to understandings of the medieval natural world, place-names and settlement archaeology, and peasant farming practices -Dr Jones is an expert in medieval manure!
Both Dr Jones and Dr Sykes will maintain all their usual commitments, heading into work every day with their locally-sourced packed lunch. In addition, Dr Jones plans to keep a blog for the duration of the project, whilst Dr Sykes hopes to attract interest of a filmmaker.
