Transplanting, plotting, fencing: relational property practices in community gardens

Abstract

Community gardening is an increasingly popular phenomenon. Local governments wishing to 'green' the city and make the urban environment more 'inclusive' sometimes promote community gardening as a means to meet policy goals. Scholars from various fields have been keen to focus on these positive promises of community gardening. However, community gardens are not inherently different from their surroundings or good in themselves as they are connected to wider urban landscapes and routines through practice. Building on empirical research that I conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, Australia, I reveal how property is practised in three gardens with different property models, focussing on three practices -transplanting, plotting and fencing. I show that community gardeners produce property relationally and that through each of these practices, they create overlapping understandings of common and private property. Gardeners have contradictory motivations that are geared both towards community inclusion and the protection of personal interests. The paper reveals that while feelings of ownership contribute to a sense of community belonging, they also help legitimatise a defensive and exclusive spatial claim. Community gardening is an increasingly popular phenomenon. Local governments wishing 6 to 'green' the city and make the urban environment more 'inclusive' sometimes promote 7 community gardening as a means to meet policy goals. Scholars from various fields have 8 been keen to focus on these positive promises of community gardening. However, 9 community gardens are not inherently different from their surroundings or good in 10 themselves as they are connected to wider urban landscapes and routines through practice. Disciplines Education | Social and Behavioral Sciences 11Building on empirical research that I conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, 12Australia, I reveal how property is practised in three gardens with different property models, 13focussing on three practices -transplanting, plotting and fencing. I show that community 14 gardeners produce property relationally and that through each of these practices they create 15 overlapping understandings of common and private property. Gardeners have contradictory 16 motivations that are geared both towards community inclusion and the protection of personal

Ownership and Membership: Practices and Experiences of Neighbourhood Residents in the Wijsgeren Community Garden in Amsterdam

“…Analysis of the Wijsgeren community garden shows processes of both social inclusion and social exclusion – operating together and simultaneously (see also van Holstein ; Neo & Chau ). The practices and experiences of gardeners and non‐gardeners in and around the community garden seem to produce processes of inclusion when building communities based on ownership and membership of the garden but also when increasing and improving social interaction in the neighbourhood public space beyond the garden(ing) confines.…”

“…Schmelzkopf (), for example, argues in a study on community gardens in New York that fences and gates may result in gardens being perceived by non‐gardeners as a ‘private’ space which is not accessible to them. Despite the ambitions of community gardens to be open and inclusive spaces, fences and gates are often seen as unfortunate necessities to keep out ‘unwanted others’, such as vandals and alcoholics, as well as ‘non‐deserving others’ because they do not belong to the group of people working in the gardens (van Holstein ).…”

“…Drawing on Perth‐based case studies, Evers and Hodgson () add that – even when the time and money are available – a lack of garden plots can be an important barrier for participation. Owning and gardening a plot enables the neighbourhood’s residents to become members of the gardeners’ group (van Holstein ). However, candidate or would‐be gardeners may have to be on a waiting list for several years (Kurtz ).…”

“…However, academic studies on community gardening have increasingly taken a more critical stance by also pointing to processes of social separation and exclusion (e.g. Glover 2004;Tan & Neo 2009;Tornaghi 2014;Veen 2015;van Holstein 2016;Neo & Chua 2017).…”

Autonomy, Erasure, and Persistence in the Urban Gardening Commons

“…The act of commoning here is like poaching by the cunning and make‐do bootlegger: repurposing highway infrastructure and seizing a dead zone (Doron ). We can see, then, how the commons always relates to enclosure (Blomley ; van Holstein ). In Casal da Mira the resurgence of an autonomous gardening commons is a response to a previous, violent, enclosure: the demolition of a shanty for property development.…”