Working Farms

The connection between people and companion animals has received considerable attention from scholars. In her original and provocative ethnography Livestock/Deadstock, sociologist Rhoda Wilkie asks, how do the men and women who work on farms, in livestock auction markets, and slaughterhouses, interact with - or disengage from - the animals they encounter in their jobs?

Country music’s golden boy. His small-town ex. A competition neither of them saw coming. When Cambry returns home, she never expects to become the nanny for her ex-boyfriend’s brother—especially when that ex is Kyler Holden, now a famous country star with a stunning city-girl girlfriend at his side. She tells herself she’s moved on. So has he. Everything will be fine. But when a documentary crew arrives to film Kyler’s life, a challenge is thrown into the mix: a city vs. country showdown between Cambry and Kyler’s girlfriend, all in front of the cameras.

Adam Henson has spent his whole life on Bemborough farm - over 50 winters and Christmases. During that time, the troughs have frozen over, snow has fallen so thickly riding shire horses out to the fields has been the only option, puppies have been found under the Christmas tree - and crises out in the world have almost brought the farm to a close. Christmas for a farmer takes a different shape to everyone else's, because the animals always have to come first. So settle down to hear the tales that have defined festivity for the Henson family.

Things aren’t looking good for 14-year-old Mehrigul. She yearns to be in school, but she’s needed on the family farm. The longer she’s out of school, the more likely it is that she’ll be sent off to a Chinese factory...perhaps never to return. Her only hope is an American woman who buys one of her decorative vine baskets for a staggering sum and says she will return in three weeks for more. Mehrigul must brave terrible storms, torn-up hands from working the fields, and her father’s scorn to get the baskets done. The stakes are high, and time is passing. A powerful intergenerational story of a strong, creative young artist in a cruelly oppressive society.