Taste in the Anthropocene: The Emergence of “Thing-power” in Food Gardens

Summary Introduction The aims of this thesis are twofold; firstly, it aims to increase the understanding of the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion for those involved; secondly, it aims to gain insight into the importance community gardeners attach to food growing per se, and the extent to which participants perceive community gardens as an alternative to the industrial food system. I define community gardens as a plot of land in an urban area, cultivated either communally or individually by people from the direct neighbourhood or the wider city, or in which urbanites are involved in other ways than gardening, and to which there is a collective element. Over the last years, community gardens have sprung up in several Dutch cities. Although there are various reasons for an increasing interest in community gardens, there are two that I focus on in this thesis in particular. The first is the assumption made that community gardens stimulate social cohesion in inner-city neighbourhoods, to be seen in the light of the 'participatory society'. The second is community gardens' contribution to the availability of locally produced food, in the context of an increased interest in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs). The Dutch government aims to transform the Dutch welfare state into a participatory society in which citizens take more responsibility for their social and physical environment. This way the government not only hopes to limit public spending, but also wishes to increase social bonding and the self-organisational capacity of society. Community gardens fit the rhetoric around the participatory society, as they are examples of organised residents taking responsibility for their living environment. Moreover, the literature suggests that gardens are physical interventions that may decrease isolation by acting as meeting places. However, both the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion and under what conditions they may do so are unclear, especially as gardens come in various designs, shapes and sizes. The popularity of community gardens also seems to be related to an overall increasing societal interest in food, and can be discussed in relation to Alternative Food Networks. AFNs are food systems that are different in some way from the mainstream, and are seen as a reaction to consumer concerns about the conventional food system. They are often considered to be dictated by political motivations and injected with a 'deeper morality'. The category 'AFN' is however a heterogeneous category, as is the conventional food system; neither can be easily defined. The degree to which community gardens can be seen as AFNs is therefore unclear. While they do improve the availability of local food and operate outside of the market economy, we do not know how much and how often people eat from their gardens, nor do we know to what extent they are involved in the gardens in order to provide an alternative to the industrial food system. Hence, there is a lack of knowledge about the sense in which community gardens are alternative alternatives. Research questions The overall research question of this thesis is: What is the significance of community gardening in terms of its intention to promote social cohesion as well as its representation as an alternative food system? This broad question is instructed by the following sub-questions: Why do people get involved in community gardens? What are their motivations?How, to what extent, and under which conditions does community gardening promote the development of social relations between participants? How do participants value these social effects? To what extent do the diets of community garden participants originate from the gardens in which they are involved? What is the importance of food in community gardens?What is the importance of growing or getting access to alternative food for participants of community gardens? Methodology An important theoretical lens in this research is the theory of practice. Practices are defined as concrete human activity and include things, bodily doings and sayings. By performing practices people not only draw upon but also feed into structure. Routinisation – of practices, but also of daily life – therefore plays a central role in practice theory. Practice theory allows for an emphasis on practical reality as well as a study of motivations. This focus on how people manage everyday life, and how gardening fits within that, makes it particularly useful for this thesis. I define social cohesion as the way in which people in a society feel and are connected to each other (De Kam and Needham 2003) and operationalised it by focusing on 'social contacts, social networks, and social capital', one of the elements into which social cohesion is often broken up. This element was operationalised as 1) contacts (the width of social cohesion) and 2) mutual help (the depth of social cohesion). This research has a case study design; I studied four Dutch community gardens over a two-year period of time, and later supplemented these with an additional three cases. As practices consist of both doings and sayings, analysis must be concerned with both practical activity and its representation. I used participant observations to study practical activities, and interviews, questionnaires and document study to examine the representation of these activities. Findings Chapters 3 to 7 form the main part of this thesis. They are papers/book chapters that have been submitted to or are published by scientific journals or books. All of them are based on the field work. In chapter 3 we compare two of the case studies and determine to what extent they can be seen as 'alternative'. We argue that although reflexive motivations are present, most participants are unwilling to frame their involvement as political, and mundane motivations play an important role in people's involvement as well. By using the concept of 'food provisioning practices' we show that participants of community gardens are often required to be actively involved in the production of their food. This means that participants are both producers and consumers: the gardens show a 'sliding scale of producership'. This chapter also shows that political statements are not a perfect predictor of actual involvement in community gardening. This finding was one of the main reasons for starting to use the theory of practice, which is the main topic of the next chapter. In chapter 4 we compare one of my case studies with an urban food growing initiative in New York City. By comparing the internal dynamics of these two cases and their relations with other social practices, we investigate whether different urban food growing initiatives can be seen as variations of one single practice. We also study the question of whether the practice can be seen as emerging. In particular, we take the elements of meaning, competences and material (Shove et al. 2012) into account. We found both similarities and differences between the two cases, with the main difference relating to the meanings practitioners attach to the practice. We conclude, therefore, that it is not fully convincing to see these cases as examples of the same social practice. We also argue that urban food growing may be considered an emerging practice, because it combines various practices, both new and established, under one single heading. In chapter 5 we use the theory of practice to explore how urban food growing is interwoven with everyday life. We compare four community gardens - two allotments and two cases which we define as AFNs. We found that participants of the allotments are involved in the practice of gardening, while members of the AFNs are involved in the practice of shopping. The gardening practice requires structural engagement, turning it into a routine. The produce is a result of that routine and is easily integrated into daily meals. As AFNs are associated with the practice of shopping, they remain in competition with more convenient food acquisition venues. Eating from these gardens is therefore less easily integrated in daily life; every visit to the garden requires a conscious decision. Hence, whether members are primarily involved in shopping or in growing has an impact on the degree to which they eat urban-grown food. This shows that motivations are embedded in the context and routine of everyday life, and 'only go so far'. Chapter 6 concerns the organisational differences between the seven case studies in this thesis and the extent to which these influence the enhancement of social cohesion. We study people's motivations for being involved in the gardens and compare these with the three main organisational differences. This comparison reveals that the gardens can be divided into place-based and interest-based gardens. Place-based gardens are those in which people participate for social reasons – aiming to create social bonds in the neighbourhood. Interest-based gardens are those in which people participate because they enjoy growing vegetables. Nevertheless, all of these gardens contribute to the development of social cohesion. Moreover, while participants who are motivated by the social aspects of gardening show a higher level of appreciation for them, these social aspects also bring added value for those participants who are motivated primarily by growing vegetables. In chapter 7 we present a garden that exemplifies that gardens may encompass not only one, but indeed several communities, and that rapprochement and separation take place simultaneously. While this garden is an important meeting place, thereby contributing to social cohesion, it harbours two distinct communities. These communities assign others to categories ('us' and 'them') on the basis of place of residence, thereby strengthening their own social identities. Ownership over the garden is both an outcome and a tool in that struggle. We define the relationship between these two communities as instrumental-rational – referring to roles rather than individuals - which explains why they do not form a larger unity. Nevertheless, the two communities show the potential to develop into a larger imagined garden-community. Conclusions This thesis shows that the different organisational set-ups of community gardens reflect gardeners' different motivations for being involved in these gardens. The gardens studied in this thesis can be defined as either place-based or interest-based; gardens in the first category are focused on the social benefits of gardening, whereas gardens in the second category are focused on gardening and vegetables. Nevertheless, social effects occur in both types of gardens; in all of the gardens studied, participants meet and get to know others and value these contacts. Based on this finding, I conclude that community gardens do indeed enhance social cohesion. Place-based community gardens specifically have the potential to become important meeting places; they offer the opportunity to work communally towards a common goal, and once established, can develop into neighbourhood spaces to be used for various other shared activities. Most interest-based gardens lack opportunities to develop the social contacts that originated at the garden beyond the borders of the garden. These gardens are often maintained by people who do not live close to the garden or to each other, and those who garden are generally less motivated by social motivations per se. Important to note is that community gardens do not necessarily foster a more inclusive society; they often attract people with relatively similar socio-economic backgrounds and may support not one, but several communities. Most participants from place-based gardens eat from their gardens only occasionally; others never do so. This type of community garden can therefore hardly be seen as a reaction to the industrialised food system, let alone an attempt to create an alternative food system. Nevertheless, certain aspects of these gardens are in line with the alternative rhetoric. By contrast, most gardeners at interest-based gardens eat a substantial amount of food from their gardens, and to some of them the choice to consume this locally-grown food relates to a lifestyle in which environmental considerations play a role. However, this reflexivity is not expressed in political terms and participants do not see themselves as part of a food movement. Participants who buy rather than grow produce showed the greatest tendency to explain their involvement in political terms, but many of them have difficulty including the produce in their diets on a regular basis. I therefore conclude that community gardens cannot be seen as conscious, 'alternative' alternatives to the industrial food system. Nonetheless, the role of food in these gardens is essential, as it is what brings participants together – either because they enjoy gardening or because the activities which are organised there centre around food. Theoretical contributions In this thesis I used and aimed to contribute to the theory of practice. Using participant observations to study what people do in reality was particularly useful. It turned research into an embodied activity, enabling me to truly 'live the practice', and therefore to understand it from the inside. Deconstructing the practice of food provisioning into activities such as buying, growing and cooking was helpful in gaining an understanding of how people manage everyday life, and how food acquisitioning fits into their everyday rhythms. It sheds light on how and to what extent people experience the practice of community gardening as a food acquisitioning practice, and to what degree they relate it to other elements of food provisioning such as cooking and eating. The focus on the separate elements of food provisioning practices helped me realise that acquiring food from community gardens represents a different practice to different people; some are engaged in the practice of growing food, others in the practice of shopping for food. This thesis showed that motivations delineate how the practice 'works out in practice'; the way in which a practice such as community gardening is given shape attracts people with certain motivations, who, by reproducing that practice, increase the attractiveness of the practice for others with similar motivations. This implies that while community gardening appears to be one practice, it should in fact be interpreted as several distinct practices, such as the practice of food growing or the practice of social gathering. Motivations therefore influence a garden's benefits and outcomes. This thesis thus highlights that motivations should not be overlooked when studying practices. Apprehending the motivations of community gardeners is also an important contribution to the literature around AFNs, since it helps us to understand the extent to which urban food production is truly alternative. By studying motivations, this thesis reveals that AFNs do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, or that not all food growing initiatives in the city can be defined as alternative. However, participants of community gardens are often both producers and consumers (there is a 'sliding scale of producership'); the gardens are thus largely independent from the conventional food system. Moreover, for participants who buy produce, the meaning of the gardens often goes beyond an economic logic (there is a 'sliding scale of marketness'). Hence, while the gardens studied in this thesis are no alternative alternatives, most of them can be qualified as 'actually existing alternatives' (after Jehlicka and Smith 2011). This thesis showed that even those gardens in which the commodification of food is being challenged do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, which is contrary to what is argued by Watts et al. (2005). This implies that understanding whether or not initiatives resist incorporation into the food system is insufficient to be able to determine whether or not they can be defined as alternative food networks. However, determining whether or not deeper moral reflection is present is not a satisfactory way of defining food networks as alternative either, as this neglects the fact that motivations do not always overlap with practical reality. This suggests that establishing whether a food network can be regarded as alternative requires studying both motivations and practical reality. The thesis also raises the question to what extent the label AFN is still useful. Since it is unclear what 'alternative' means exactly, it is also unclear whether a given initiative can be considered alternative. Moreover, the world of food seems too complex to be represented by a dichotomy between alternative and conventional food systems; the gardens presented in this thesis are diverse and carry characteristics of both systems. I therefore suggest considering replacing the term AFN with that of civic food networks, as Renting et al. (2012) advocate.

In response to the dissatisfaction with the pitfalls of the corporatised global food system over the last two decades, urban dwellers in the Global North have begun to implement alternative food initiatives (AFIs). AFIs tend to be underpinned by discourses of localism with discursive emphasis on the local place where communities can embed food production and distribution with an ethics of care, social justice and ecological responsibility. Urban AFIs consist of biochemical free production initiatives such as: commercial urban agriculture projects (city farms); growing food on sidewalk verges, vacant land and in community and backyard gardens; and distribution initiatives of crop swaps; farmers’ markets; and box schemes. This thesis builds on a growing body of research that often discuss the constructions of localism discourses with some arguing that AFIs in the developed world should realise a ‘reflexive’ localism underpinned by a discourse that acknowledges issues at scales other than the geographic point of local system i.e. discursive emphasis on structural political change at state and global scales. Critics of many current AFIs claim that the lack of capacity of AFIs to challenge, or at least offer a viable alternative to, the corporatised global food system is partly due to practitioners’ articulations of an ‘unreflexive’ discourse of defensive localism. The discourse of defensive localism embeds a non-negotiable geographic boundary enclosing a particular cohort’s personal sentiments and values, which are unrepresentative of local issues at that particular place. An ‘unreflexive’ discourse of defensive localism includes discursive emphasis on personal responsibility, voluntary action, competition and efficiency. This thesis examines this phenomenon and is based on theorisations of subjective reflexivity and constructions of discourses at the local place, focusing on urban backyard and community garden food gardeners in the city of Brisbane, Australia. The question addressed by this thesis is: Are urban food gardeners in Brisbane, Australia merely growing food or reflexively constructing the local place as a response to a dysfunctional food system?The research question is explored using a qualitative, social constructivist epistemology. Using a methodology of discourse analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 urban food gardeners who produced some of their household food requirements in community gardens and household backyards. Urban food gardeners viewed the hegemonic food system in Queensland as dysfunctional based on perceptions of the ecologically unsound, mechanised cultivation practices and unequal power relations that favour large scale food retailers over farmers —interpretations that conform in many respects to Marx’s concept of metabolic rift. Interpretations of gardeners’ strategies and motivations were theorised using Farrugia’s (2013) ‘reflexive subjectivity theory’ along with food and agriculture studies that approach the implications of constructions of localism discourses with theorisations of ‘place’ proposed by human geographers.By using these theoretical approaches, it was revealed that urban food gardeners in Brisbane have developed a localism discourse which emphasises: self-reliance; building links to the community; building links to the environment, repairing the metabolic rift; and ethical livelihoods based on market and non-market food economies. Within this discursive terrain, the feature importance is the positioning of activities at multiple scales of the garden, suburb or nation.The thesis concludes that Brisbane-based urban food gardeners are underpinning their approach to the local with a reflexive localism discourse that challenges the hegemonic food system by engaging with ecological realties and personal sentiments at the garden site, building community knowledge through teaching how to grow food using ecological systems at the scale of the suburb; and the development of an ecological based and socially just food economy scaled to include the State.

Household and Community Gardens Surge in the Philippines and Senegal during COVID-19

Lead exposure is a serious health threat for children. Soil is an important exposure pathway, primarily through ingestion and inhalation. Urban agriculture is increasing. Potential environmental health risks associated with residential gardening may not be well known to community residents. A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach was implemented to explore the relationship between urban residential vegetable gardening and lead exposure in children. The primary objectives were to characterize local backyard vegetable gardening practices, measure residential and commercial soil lead concentrations and spatial distributions, and identify priorities for individual and collective action. Participants were recruited in two stages. In phase 1, adult gardeners participated in structured interviews. In phase 2, a multistage representative sampling approach was implemented to recruit adult gardeners for interviews and soil testing. Twenty adults participated in gardening practice interviews. Adults perceive many benefits from backyard gardening and initially expressed few concerns about lead exposure risk. Results indicate that children are actively involved in backyard gardening. Total soil lead concentrations from 17 residential properties ranged from 7 to 3,234 mg kg-1(median, 187; mean, 432). Commercial soils had lead concentrations that ranged from 6 to 13 mg kg(-1) (median, 6.5; mean, 7.6). Nonparametric Mann-Whitney comparisons indicated a significant difference in lead concentration between commercial soil and residential soil (p<0.0001). Advocacy for resources needed to eliminate dangerous levels of lead from the environment, especially in communities where divestment has occurred, is enhanced through CBPR. Increasing access to soil testing is an important action step.

&#x0D; Investigation approach to migrants adaptation process in host countries has always been placed specific, in order to understand the whole connections to all aspect of life. In Melbourne, community gardens have been a place where immigrants start their interaction with others. The literature argues that the gardens can foster social inclusion, while at the same time providing space to preserve their cultural identity. This paper will investigate the adaptation of migrants within the garden setting, by considering the extent to which cultural practices in gardening affect their ability to adapt to the host country (Australia). The findings confirm a complex relationship between historical garden practices/culture and the reality of practices in the community gardens.&#x0D; Keywords: self-built housing, donated housing, lifestyle, social interaction, adjustments&#x0D; eISSN 2514-751X © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning &amp; Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

Backyard garden sharing projects can be viewed as a small-scale alternative to traditional community gardens. These shared spaces are able to overcome some of the pressures on community gardens such as competing demands for housing and other services and amenities while still providing many of the health-promoting benefits community gardens are noted for. This study is a small-scale participatory qualitative project that explores three backyard garden sharing partnerships. The aim of this study is to explore the benefits and challenges of these shared spaces and to discuss the overall feasibility of shared backyard gardens. Partnerships comprised an older adult homeowner (i.e., greater than age 65) and a non-senior gardener. At an individual level, the results suggest that backyard garden sharing can promote physical activity, psychosocial well-being, and social connectedness for both older adult homeowners and volunteer garden partners. To be successful, partners benefit from an established agreement about what to grow and how to share the garden's produce. In addition, a dedicated project coordinator and a limited amount of community resources can ensure the viability of these small-scale projects.

Community gardens connect to many organizations in order to receive and offer resources and services. The complex sociotechnical systems in which community gardens inhabit bring both opportunities and challenges for designers who endeavor to support them. In this study, we investigated three community gardens to explore the organizational connections that support them. Our aim is to articulate an expanded understanding of a community garden as an end-user that includes a diverse connection of stakeholders. By revealing the multiple connections they make, our results show that the community gardens in our study have established three paths to connections with diverse organizations. The reasons for these connections include community inclusion, assistance, peer-support and administration. In these connections, the roles community gardens play are also distinct. In addition, a community garden’s role is fluid rather than fixed. Based on these findings, we propose design implications to support community gardens beyond the gardens themselves and three scenarios to illustrate opportunities for design. We thus suggest researchers to broaden the existing limited focus on gardeners and their practices in gardens. Our work reveals a new space that design and HCI could support to promote urban agriculture and civic engagement. By providing practical design scenarios as illustrations to support community garden that are actively embedded in complex sociotechnical systems, this work responds to the theme of the session DesignX: Acting to Complexity which calls for designers to “play an active role in implementation, and develop solutions through small, incremental steps.”

ABSTRACTBackgroundNutritionists and dietitians play an important role in supporting sustainable food systems and diets; however, their involvement in local alternative food networks remains poorly defined. These actors are well placed to apply their extensive expertise in food, nutrition and health to the transformation of the contemporary food system and the promotion of more sustainable dietary practices that integrate locally available, seasonal and nutritious food. This study aimed to explore the role and connectivity of nutritionists and dietitians within a local food system, focusing on a peri‐urban region in Australia, to better understand their potential contribution to sustainable and transformative food practices.MethodsUsing Social Network Analysis, the study mapped ties and attributes (sector, subregion, participation in local initiatives) and calculated in‐degree centrality, betweenness centrality, density, path length and community structure.ResultsFindings reveal that 23 nutritionists and dietitians (of 242 actors in the network) are strongly connected to each other but less integrated with other actors across the local food network. While they engage in personal sustainability practices, such as home gardening (57%) and sourcing food from local food channels (57%), collaborative participation was low (community gardens 0%; crop swaps 9%; volunteering at co‐ops 4%). In contrast, the most visible and influential actors within the network, representing a range of disciplines/sectors, were more likely to be involved in these collaborative activities.ConclusionLimited integration of nutritionists and dietitians within the broader network of actors may indicate potential opportunities for greater contribution to local food system transformation. Greater participation in collaborative, place‐based food activities could support systems‐based practice, strengthen cross‐sector relationships and enhance collective impact on local food environments, where supported by organisational roles and structures.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the trends shaping the community gardens in Arctic and non-Arctic areas to better understand the similarities and differences in the uses of community gardens. In addition, national culture was examined to better understand if culture impacts establishing or maintaining community gardens. Background: Community gardens are growing in popularity, and discussions about sustaining ways in which food and natural resources can be grown in remote and harsh areas is a topic of concern and discussion worldwide. Methodology: The characteristics of the community and allotment gardens (used as synonyms) are summarized for three Arctic and non-Arctic countries, including what types of plants are allowed to be grown and why, who is involved in the gardens, and land ownership. In addition, the motivations, benefits and challenges of community gardening were assessed through a social science methodology of benchmarking interviews and observations. Findings: Based on the exploratory study of community garden practices in six countries, both Arctic and non-Arctic rural areas, regarding the aims of community gardens, organizational structure, and key successes and weaknesses based on expectations set by national culture as described by Hofstede (1983; 2011; 2017), it can be seen that national cultural expectations can give insight into basic organizational and communication preferences within the garden community and the larger society it operates in. This study highlights the importance of cultural insights, government policy, and societal benefits in the management of community gardens and supports the notion that urban agriculture and planning should be regionally specific, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach. Despite policy remaining a regionally specific requirement, a common thread this study found between all responses for all nations compared was the word “people” which represented the top word or the second most utilized word for all responses from all nations. Impact on Society: Understanding of the key variables for successfully establishing and maintaining community gardens in remote areas such as the Arctic or remote areas in the non-Arctic will aid in food security measures and community sustainability as the benefits of community gardens stretch beyond growing food and into social, health, and wellness spheres.

This doctoral thesis defines the relationship between the urban and rural in the 21st century, and focuses on food as a key component. The fact that food is, for the most part, produced in the countryside and then transported to the city has a significant influence on this very unbalanced relationship today. The main goal was to show that it is necessary to bring agriculture, urban gardening, the breeding of domestic farm animals, and beekeeping back to the city, which would have a positive affect on both the city and the countryside. All of this is already taking place at the local level, within the neighbourhoods of our cities and through the work of self-organised activities and initiatives, which have been taken up by city residents themselves. One example of this is the community garden, a new model of gardening which offers fertile ground for growing vegetables and to test various forms of co-existence, different ways of designing spaces, the creation of alternative values, and a positive vision for the future of city residents. In 2010, I co-created the community urban garden Beyond a Construction Site, which is the central part of this artistic research. Throughout the entire four-year process of creating this community garden, theory and artistic practice were intertwined, and informed one another. This community garden is an example of a self-organised and self-managed community space located in a residential neighbourhood in the centre of the city of Ljubljana, and as such is a typical example of urbanism from the bottom up. I placed the creation and development of our community garden in a dialogue with the formal way of arranging urban gardening in Ljubljana, a top-down approach, which the city has been carrying out intensively since 2007. I compared the solutions being proposed by the city of Ljubljana for organising urban gardening with the way it is organised in other European cities, the UK, and the USA. I also researched the recent rapid growth of self-organised initiatives which are focused on the local production of food and seek to find more economic and ecologically friendly models to visibly influence the future of cities and the countryside. Here, community gardens play an important role, as in addition to the production of food they are also spaces for the criticism of existing urban policies, a self-organised revitalisation of neglected spaces, and places of resilience, because they differ from that which real estate agencies, large financial companies, and city authorities desire them to be. The community garden Beyond a Construction Site has become living proof that, through a group action, the residents of a neighbourhood can influence existing city policies and the future of both their own neighbourhood and that of the entire city. The initiators of this garden are artists and architects, and we began this community garden in the context of an art festival, which also shows that art can influence the processes of everyday life and help to create much needed spaces within cities to serve various purposes. Our community garden has also shown itself to be an important platform for the exchange of knowledge on organic gardening, ecology in everyday life, and critical architecture, as well as serving to connect related initiatives. Together with these other initiatives we are stronger, and are influencing structural changes within city politics, thereby also co-creating the future of Ljubljana. This community garden is helping us to redefine our relationship with the city and re-awaken the desires and actions of residents connected with realising their fundamental right, the right to the city. My other artworks, which I am presenting in the context of this doctoral thesis, show an optimistic vision for the future of cities. The video animations Back to the City (2011) and The Right Balance (2013), as well as the accompanying collages, visualise a city of the future where urban and rural practices live together side-by-side. This vision is being realised by city residents themselves, with their active participation in the creation of community gardens, growing their own vegetables, urban beekeeping, and by having egg-laying hens in their gardens. My desire was also to present the theoretical concept and scientific research to a non-academic public, and to people without specialised training. Using the method of storytelling I included knowledge from the research into the video animations and collages. In this way my artistic work, with an intentional playfulness, challenges today’s faith in science and theoretical concepts, as well as directing attention to working with common sense, with one’s own hands, and with the earth. This can contribute to a change in the still dominant anthropocentric view of nature, which is an urgently needed change for our future. Keywords: rural, urban agriculture, community gardens, urban beekeeping, the bottom-up approach to urban planning, alternative spaces

Community Gardens: Space for Interactions and Adaptations

Este artículo se enfoca en la comida local y los significados asociados en el área étnica de China central, y está basado en trabajos de campo realizados en la prefectura de Enshi, una prefectura tujia-miao autónoma que se encuentra en el suroeste de la provincia de Hubei. Como muchas otras áreas en China contemporánea, la comida local en el suroeste de Hubei, conocida como comida hezha, ha sido integrada al sistema de restaurantes urbanos y ha adquirido una variedad de significados. En la prefectura de Enshi, varios platillos locales especiales, como hezha, baogufan (un platillo hecho de harina de maíz y arroz), tularou (puerco ahumado) y zhaguangijao (una conserva hecha de harina de maíz y chiles), han sido vistos por mucho tiempo como símbolo de la comida regional local o de la cocina “rústica” del campo. Tanto la gran producción de maíz en los campos de la montaña como la sabiduría culinaria de los locales le han otorgado a la comida hezha un papel esencial en la historia moderna de esta área montañosa. Hasta los primeros años de la década de 1990, el platillo común hecho de maíz había funcionado como indicador de la vida de la montaña (descrita algunas veces como una vida miserable). Pero en ese mismo periodo, cuando el gobierno chino lanzó un proyecto nacional de desarrollo rural, los oficiales enshi fueron a las cocinas de los aldeanos para revisar si el platillo de maíz estaba siendo reemplazado con uno de arroz. Sin embargo, con el desarrollo rural estas comidas de gente pobre no desaparecieron. Muchos granjeros manifestaron que ahora tenían mayor acceso a carne (de cerdo) y al arroz (símbolo de una mejor calidad de vida, pues generalmente se asocia con la mayoría han) que antes, pero desde la mitad de la década de 1990, la prefectura de Enshi había sido testigo de un fenómeno sobresaliente: la gente regresaba a la comida “rústica” local a pesar de la abundancia de carne y arroz. Más aún, esta comida local incluso fue incorporada al sistema urbano de restaurantes: en los restaurantes Hezha, en los étnicos y los de corte rural, los llamados restaurantes “Felicidad del agricultor”. La estandarización de la comida local en estos restaurantes ha involucrado tanto las cocinas como sus significados asociados, y ha puesto de relieve las maneras locales de conseguir alimentos (i.e., cultivos de plantas, cría de animales y recolección), la estructura general de la comida (platillo principal fan, platillo con vegetales y carne caj, y bebidas), las características generales del patrón de sabores de la comida local (ácido, dulce, glutinoso y picante), y los métodos de cocina más comúnmente usados. Alrededor de la comida hezha coexisten diversos significados, que emergieron en periodos históricos diferentes. En los medios locales y en los discursos de masas, la comida hezha ahora significa comida del diario, comida de granjero, comida de gente pobre, comida de montaña, comida de hambruna, comida étnica, comida deliciosa, comida saludable, exquisitez en las mesas de extranjeros, etcétera. Este artículo traza la historia de los alimentos hezha y examina cómo y por qué han sido integrados y estandarizados por los restaurantes. También analiza las razones detrás de la coexistencia de tantos y tan contradictorios significados, y reflexiona sobre cómo la construcción de imágenes étnicas y la promoción de la modernización agrícola y del turismo en la prefectura Enshi contemporánea han ejercido influencia en estos significados.

Over the past generation, advocates for healthier food and agriculture have drawn on the farm-to-fork trope to define spatial arrangements in the foodshed. Consider farmers' markets, food hubs, community supported agriculture (CSA), co-ops, rooftop, community, and schoolyard gardens, 100-Mile Diets, and urban farms: the architecture of reform is endless, but every part seeks to reduce the distance between food producers (farms) and consumers (forks). For all the intuitive appeal of the farm-to-fork trope, however, there are other ways to think about the local food movement's spatial configurations that could be more inclusive, multidimensional, and politically potent. This article argues that instead of a distance versus proximity orientation, good-food advocates might envision a kind of cultural ecology of various efforts toward healthier food and agriculture. This perspective shows the various organizational efforts of a region interacting like species in a healthy ecosystem. Where farmers' markets might be gentrified, for example, community gardens and urban farms might not; where urban farms might be labor intensive, food hubs might not and could offer healthier food in urban spaces; where food hubs might not be convenient enough, virtual marketplaces might. The downsides of one part are carried by the advantages of another; the limitations of the first are helped by the strengths of the next. What matters here are not just the particular individual innovations—farmers' markets, CSAs, food hubs, etc.—but the ways in which they overlap to build an interdependent whole. No longer one-dimensional, this cultural ecology adds political and organizational integrity to the physical integrity of food.

ABSTRACTAlthough best management practices have been recommended by government agencies and non-profit organisations to reduce community gardeners’ potential exposure to soil contaminants such as lead, some gardeners do not perform these practices. Understanding gardeners’ beliefs and motivations is critical for effective promotion of safer gardening practices. This study, grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), employed five focus groups to investigate Atlanta community garden leaders’ perspectives concerning three gardening practices: composting, hygiene behaviours, and mulching. These general practices are also considered safe gardening practices in that they can reduce exposure to toxicants in urban gardens. Qualitative analysis identified advantages and disadvantages; supporters and non-supporters; and barriers and facilitators that might influence gardeners’ opinions regarding these behaviours. Gardeners expressed that more funding, volunteers, and training are needed to promote these behaviours. Gardeners noted that mulch and compost provided advantages such as improving soil quality, but a primary barrier was concern about contamination of source materials. Focus group participants did not directly associate composting and mulching with reduction of exposure to soil contaminants. Behavioural challenges related to hygiene included concerns about decreased exposure to salubrious bacteria, inadequate access to potable water, and limited availability of gloves and wipes. These study findings characterise factors that community garden stakeholders should consider when promoting safe gardening practices and interventions.

Urban fringe landscapes with a juxtaposition of segmented agricultural lands and urban land uses, seen to result from the incomplete application of Western urban planning concepts, have been regarded as a symbol of disordered Asian urban fringe areas. However, such a mixture of urban and agricultural land uses in the fringe is not a modern invention of Asian cities but may be identified in their history. Almost half of the land area of Edo, the former Tokyo, was in agricultural use, even up to the end of the Edo era. This was despite Edo being already one of the largest cities in the world with over one million populations. Various activities relating to agriculture can be found today in the fringe of Asian mega-cities including professional farming, poverty alleviation programs, community gardens and backyard gardening. These facts suggest that the order of land use in the fringe of Asian mega-cities should not be achieved by a simple application of Western urban planning concepts, but by an application of a fresh approach, which regards agro-activities as a vernacular element of the area. The integration of agro-activities in the urban fabric is one of the key issues for bringing a new order to the urban fringe landscapes of Asian mega-cities.