Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference, Edinburgh, 3 – 5 July 2012
“Outline: Urban agriculture (UA) is a practice that has recently gained the attention of the media, local government and community groups in the cities of the Global North. After being limited or evicted from the urban fabric in ways which vary from country to country, food growing and animal husbandry are now regaining the interest of urban dwellers and authorities. Urban agricultural projects are appearing in church and school yards, housing estates and roof-tops, balconies and window sills, public squares and parks, brown fields and railways lines. And of course, allotments.
In times of financial crisis, economic insecurity and climate change, this range of initiatives is portrayed as benevolent and unproblematic. Urban agriculture is advocated for its potential to partially solve problems associated with food quality and affordability, contribute to reduced ecological footprints, increase community cohesion, achieve greater community resilience and promote urban sustainability. However, not only do many controversial and potentially unjust dynamics lie unexplored, but the connection between urban agriculture, local communities and the politics of space are still under-investigated.
This session aims to explore urban agriculture in a critical vein, with a particular focus on two issues.
The first is community cohesion. While most projects revolve around “community gardens” and seek public funding and land in name of supposed community benefits, there is little investigation around the nature of these ‘communities’. We are interested in case studies which point out the challenges, rhetoric, conflicts and praxis of actually building community cohesion and promoting an alternative urbanism through urban agricultural projects. How do these projects deal with broken down communities and trust among neighbours? Are these initiatives connected with specific new social bonds within or across neighbourhoods or do they rather emerge out of the concerted efforts of pre-existing groups, associations, and institutional agencies (e.g. social services)? We are interested in papers which reflect upon the individuals involved in these projects, their roles, community embeddedness, commitments and visions around food production in urban contexts.
The second issue we would like to critically explore revolves around land assets, land access and the challenge of rebuilding the commons. After decades of eviction from ‘the urban’, agricultural practices are now carried out not only within the cracks of the city, but increasingly at its very core. To what extent do they represent alternatives to the existing urbanism and its order? We are interested in case studies which analyse urban agricultural projects which are engaged in reclaiming the land, rebuilding urban commons and experimenting with land self management for food production.”
Session organiser: Dr. Chiara Tornaghi
ESRC Research Fellow
Cities and social justice research cluster
School of Geography, University of Leeds
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/ctornaghi/
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