The experience of intercultural gardens has developed throughout Germany during the last 15 years. Intercultural gardens are one of a number of instances of urban agriculture (Mougeot, 2005;Veenhuizen, 2006). As is often the case with urban agriculture, intercultural gardens are mostly initiated by marginalized groups and, like urban agriculture, they are a grassroots experience building on perceived local needs (Smit & Bailkey, 2006). In intercultural gardens, migrants from different countries of origin gather on a piece of land in order to garden and share common experiences around gardening and related activities. It is an exemplary case of the interrelatedness of the use of space and the practice of respect.Regarding the use of space, these intercultural gardens, bringing together individuals and families from different cultures, function as spaces of encounter and of collective action. The notion of space is apprehended here both as a geographical space that allows action and as a social space; that is, the milieu of interpersonal relations that allows social exchanges. Such a space of collective action and of encounter is decisive for migrants who are, by definition, in need of a new space of life in the country of residence. They may be blessed with a house or an apartment, but they are still in need of spaces of interaction outside of the workplace. Between the private house and the working place (should there even be one), there exists a fundamental human need for a place to interact socially and to build social capital.In order to be successfully implemented, intercultural gardens must be based on the practice of respect. They do not simply insist on tolerance, understood in its traditional liberal meaning in the sense of a passive practice of noninterference with others, rather, they require the more demanding notion of respect. New approaches to the concept of tolerance emphasize its proactive quality. Rainer Forst has recently developed a respect-based conception of tolerance which rejects the "passive" character attached traditionally to the concept of tolerance (Forst, 2003). In a similar way, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti (2010) offers a renewed definition of tolerance by associating it closely to recognition and respect. This respect-based tolerance is interesting because it adds the "active"
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.