The hedgerow: industrial farming’s “useful idiot”?: The contributions and limitations of radical criticism in sociological analysis

What can we, as sociologists, do with radical political criticism? The publication of the book Reprendre la terre aux machines (Reclaiming the land from the machines) by the cooperative L’Atelier Paysan (2021) offers a particular answer to this age-old question. The starting point of this “manifesto for peasant and food autonomy” is the authors’ dissatisfaction with the results of their own efforts. The aim of this paper is then to address the following question: are hedgerows, and with them all those who defend their greater consideration in agricultural policies, the “useful idiots” of the dominant agricultural model? The discussion is therefore organised in two stages. Firstly, it presents the arguments showing that hedgerows can support consensual ecologisation that marginalises a more profound transformation of the agricultural economy. Secondly, however, it then explores the limitations of this position by arguing that if greening via hedgerows is indeed marginal, it is not reduced to being a useful idiot but participates in ecologisation from the margins. The main lesson of this paper is to highlight the benefits for sociology to take seriously the political analyses of stakeholders, not only as objects of study but also as sparks to inspire the sociological imagination.