Guardianship and Ownership on Nebraska Century Farms

Century farm families are those that have held title to a farm for at least one hundred years. Depth interviews and participant observation with Nebraska Century farm families extends our understanding of the limits to fungibility of possessions imbued with relational symbolism within a kinship group. Our research exposes cultural tensions between ownership and guardianship as well as the way these tensions shape curatorial consumption. Engagement with, access to, and transfer of Century farms illustrate the interplay between ownership and guardianship across generations of farm families. Our paper calibrates a variety of curatorial tactics that illustrate how access and ownership are subordinated to guardianship. We develop contrasts between this cultural model of guardianship and a corporate model of management and ownership