IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/agrhuv/v32y2015i2p229-239.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The nature of urban gardens: toward a political ecology of urban agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Classens

Abstract

With a few notable exceptions, urban garden scholarship tends to be either celebratory or critical of the role urban gardens play in wider political, social, cultural, economic and ecological dynamics. Drawing on urban political ecology scholarship, this article explores the question of nature within scholarship on urban gardens. I argue that failing to adequately scrutinize the co-constitutive character of nature and society has led some scholars to overlook the potential for urban gardens to achieve broader socio-political goals, and led others to overstate the potential. Employing a political ecology approach to urban garden analysis clarifies the material and discursive role of nature in urban garden practice, and ultimately contributes to untangling the potential and limits of urban gardens as sites of socio-political change. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Classens, 2015. "The nature of urban gardens: toward a political ecology of urban agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(2), pages 229-239, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:32:y:2015:i:2:p:229-239
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-014-9540-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10460-014-9540-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10460-014-9540-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Twiss, J. & Dickinson, J. & Duma, S. & Kleinman, T. & Paulsen, H. & Rilveria, L., 2003. "Community Gardens: Lessons Learned from California Healthy Cities and Communities," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(9), pages 1435-1438.
    2. E Swyngedouw, 1997. "Power, Nature, and the City. The Conquest of Water and the Political Ecology of Urbanization in Guayaquil, Ecuador: 1880–1990," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(2), pages 311-332, February.
    3. Maria Kaika & Erik Swyngedouw, 2000. "Fetishizing the modern city: the phantasmagoria of urban technological networks," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 120-138, March.
    4. Steven Schnell, 2013. "Food miles, local eating, and community supported agriculture: putting local food in its place," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(4), pages 615-628, December.
    5. Robert Gottlieb & Andrew Fisher, 1996. "Community food security and environmental justice: Searching for a common discourse," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 13(3), pages 23-32, June.
    6. Patricia Allen & Julie Guthman, 2006. "From “old school” to “farm-to-school”: Neoliberalization from the ground up," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(4), pages 401-415, December.
    7. Lyson, Thomas A., 2000. "Moving Toward Civic Agriculture," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 15(3), pages 1-4.
    8. Justin Schupp & Jeff Sharp, 2012. "Exploring the social bases of home gardening," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(1), pages 93-105, March.
    9. Laura DeLind, 2011. "Are local food and the local food movement taking us where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(2), pages 273-283, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Hennchen & Michael Pregernig, 2020. "Organizing Joint Practices in Urban Food Initiatives—A Comparative Analysis of Gardening, Cooking and Eating Together," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-18, May.
    2. Jana Spilková, 2017. "Producing space, cultivating community: the story of Prague´s new community gardens," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(4), pages 887-897, December.
    3. Claire E Bach & Nathan McClintock, 2021. "Reclaiming the city one plot at a time? DIY garden projects, radical democracy, and the politics of spatial appropriation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(5), pages 859-878, August.
    4. Pingyang Liu & Paul Gilchrist & Becky Taylor & Neil Ravenscroft, 2017. "The spaces and times of community farming," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(2), pages 363-375, June.
    5. Manganelli, Alessandra & Moulaert, Frank, 2019. "Scaling out access to land for urban agriculture. Governance hybridities in the Brussels-Capital Region," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 391-400.
    6. Leslie Gray & Laureen Elgert & Antoinette WinklerPrins, 2020. "Theorizing urban agriculture: north–south convergence," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(3), pages 869-883, September.
    7. Colleen Hammelman & Elizabeth Shoffner & Maria Cruzat & Samantha Lee, 2022. "Assembling agroecological socio-natures: a political ecology analysis of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Rosario, Argentina," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(1), pages 371-383, March.
    8. Daniel C. Kelly, 2023. "Committing to change? A case study on volunteer engagement at a New Zealand urban farm," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 1317-1331, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Taylor & Sarah Lovell, 2014. "Urban home food gardens in the Global North: research traditions and future directions," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 285-305, June.
    2. Gareth A S Edwards & Harriet Bulkeley, 2017. "Urban political ecologies of housing and climate change: The ‘Coolest Block’ Contest in Philadelphia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(5), pages 1126-1141, April.
    3. Steven Schnell, 2013. "Food miles, local eating, and community supported agriculture: putting local food in its place," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(4), pages 615-628, December.
    4. Kate Cairns & Josée Johnston, 2018. "On (not) knowing where your food comes from: meat, mothering and ethical eating," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(3), pages 569-580, September.
    5. Jana Spilková, 2017. "Producing space, cultivating community: the story of Prague´s new community gardens," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(4), pages 887-897, December.
    6. David Cleveland & Allison Carruth & Daniella Mazaroli, 2015. "Operationalizing local food: goals, actions, and indicators for alternative food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(2), pages 281-297, June.
    7. Maarten Crivits & Charlotte Prové & Thomas Block & Joost Dessein, 2016. "Four Perspectives of Sustainability Applied to the Local Food Strategy of Ghent (Belgium): Need for a Cycle of Democratic Participation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-21, January.
    8. Yasuo Ohe & Shinichi Kurihara & Shinpei Shimoura, 2014. "Evaluating willingness to become a food education volunteer among urban residents in Japan: toward a participatory food policy," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Matthew M. Mars & Hope Jensen Schau, 2017. "Institutional entrepreneurship and the negotiation and blending of multiple logics in the Southern Arizona local food system," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(2), pages 407-422, June.
    10. Sarah E. Cramer & Anna L. Ball & Mary K. Hendrickson, 2019. "“Our school system is trying to be agrarian”: educating for reskilling and food system transformation in the rural school garden," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(3), pages 507-519, September.
    11. Zhenzhong Si & Theresa Schumilas & Steffanie Scott, 2015. "Characterizing alternative food networks in China," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(2), pages 299-313, June.
    12. Sang-hyoun Pahk, 2022. "Who is ruining farmers markets? Crowds, fraud, and the fantasy of “real food”," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(1), pages 19-31, March.
    13. Ramesh, Niranjana, 2022. "An experiment with the minor geographies of major cities: infrastructural relations among the fragments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114952, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Leslie Quitzow & Friederike Rohde, 2022. "Imagining the smart city through smart grids? Urban energy futures between technological experimentation and the imagined low-carbon city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(2), pages 341-359, February.
    15. Daanish Mustafa & Philip Reeder, 2009. "‘People Is All That Is Left to Privatize’: Water Supply Privatization, Globalization and Social Justice in Belize City, Belize," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 789-808, September.
    16. Joshua Sbicca & India Luxton & James Hale & Kassandra Roeser, 2019. "Collaborative Concession in Food Movement Networks: The Uneven Relations of Resource Mobilization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, May.
    17. Jessica Bagdonis & C. Hinrichs & Kai Schafft, 2009. "The emergence and framing of farm-to-school initiatives: civic engagement, health and local agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(1), pages 107-119, March.
    18. Michael Takudzwa Pasara & Steven Henry Dunga, 2022. "Value Chains And Climate Change Mitigation Strategies: A Case Of Nutritional Gardens In Zimbabwe," Eurasian Journal of Business and Management, Eurasian Publications, vol. 10(1), pages 62-75.
    19. Natasha Cornea & René Véron & Anna Zimmer, 2017. "Clean city politics: An urban political ecology of solid waste in West Bengal, India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 728-744, April.
    20. von Germeten, Jan-Paul & Hartmann, Monika, 2015. "What determines suppliers' intensity of participation in the EU School Fruit Scheme," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211915, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:32:y:2015:i:2:p:229-239. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.