A Heart to Hand to Land-Based Ethic: Practising Intersectional Compassion at a Student-Run Farm

This chapter, written by a sociology professor, a student-farm manager, and a student farmer, explores lessons from practising ‘intersectional compassionate pedagogy’ (ICP) on a student-run vegetable farm at the University of Connecticut, the USA. Spring Valley Student Farm (SVSF), founded in 2010, is home to 11 undergraduate students who live and work together while growing vegetables for the university. On a farm, care for people cannot ethically be separated from care for the land, and so the SVSF definition of ‘community’ is expanded to include not only humans, but all of the other parts of the Earth, as well: soils, waters, plants, animals, and the land. In this way, ICP can also be expanded to include not only the myriad intersectional identities of students and educators, but also the land itself. Additionally, ICP at SVSF recognises the ‘land ethic’ as having similarities to and more importantly differences from Indigenous ethics and practices, inviting us to develop ways of conceptualising and implementing our own hybrid ‘heart to hand to land-based ethic’. An ethic that centres caring for people and the land with compassion, while recognising and drawing from Indigenous learning pathways in respectful and innovative ways.