Community gardens and the making of organic subjects: a case study from the Peruvian Andes

Abstract

This research contributes to emergent theories on subject formation by showing how community garden (CG) participants in a small rural town in Northern Peru came to embrace a set of ideas and practices related to organic agriculture. Most CG scholarship describes the myriad benefits for participants and their communities, as well as individuals’ motivations for wanting to grow their own food. Relatively little research has explored how various kinds of gardens and their organizers produce subjects. Drawing from scholarship on community gardens and subject formation, I examine the emergence of what I call an “organic subjectivity” among garden participants. Based on interviews and fieldwork conducted in Peru, I argue that the making of organic subjects in the CG is the result of three primary influences: (1) the changing agrarian context in the community marked by the adoption of conventional farming practices, (2) the influence of the garden organizer as the agent of an organic ideology, and (3) the material practices associated with CG participation. This case study reinforces the notion that CGs produce subjects and that such subjects could well be oriented towards an agenda of progressive agrarian change that promotes environmental awareness and ecological farming practices, key elements of emerging alternative food networks in the global North and South.