Imagining the farm: spectacle, nationalism, and agri-tourism in Canada

"My decision to explore the spectaclization of rural and farm life in Canada was fuelled by the desire to answer the following questions: 

• What motivates the nostalgia and the longing that people have for farming, pioneer and rural life?
• Why are people longing for this? What is it about modernity that is so disrupting and fragmenting that people would pay money to visit an old farm, to milk a cow, to pick some apples? 
• How are farm tourism and nationalism connected? Is the farm as tourist site a physical manifestation of the desire to locate a strong national identity?
• What are the implications and complications of this transformation of the farm? 

The nature and length of this research paper is insufficient in dealing with the topic of farm tourism in all its detail. Rather than offer a conclusive discussion on the nature and implications of farm tourism, I hope this paper will bring to light issues of local and rural manifestations of nationalism, otherness, longing and fragmentation as well as call attention to the implications and complications that potentially arise out of agri-tourism" -- From Introduction, page 4.