Troublesome Ground presents an ethnographic account of the relationship between land and Irish upland farmers in north County Cork, Ireland. Amid the colliding influences of agricultural professionalization, forestry expansion, a global environmental crisis, and the subsequent implementation and rotation of various politically motivated projects meant to spur economic growth and simultaneously better the environment, Asselin tells the story of challenges farmers in one region face in the conflicting worlds of program payments, shifting policy initiatives, and the joint cultural and economic requirements of farming. Like many marginal regions, the uplands of north County Cork serve as a catchall geography for nation-building dreams and economic development schemes. Asselin argues that this landscape has become conceptually stretched and oversaturated, containing numerous possible futures and their inherent contradictions. Recent pressures to address climate change and declining