Table Of ContentUrban Gardening as Politics
W hile most of the existing literature on community gardens and urban agriculture
share a tendency towards either an advocacy view or a rather dismissive approach
on the grounds of the co-optation of food growing, self-help, and voluntarism to
the neoliberal agenda, this collection investigates and reflects on the complex
and sometimes contradictory nature of these initiatives. It questions to what
extent they address social inequality and injustice and interrogates them as forms
of political agency that contest, transform, and re-signify “the urban”.
Claims for land access, the right to food, the social benefits of city greening/
community conviviality, and insurgent forms of planning are multiplying
within policy, advocacy, and academic literature; and are becoming increasingly
manifested through the practice of urban gardening. These claims are symptomatic
of the way issues of social reproduction intersect with the environment, as well
as the fact that urban planning and the production of space remains a crucial
point of an ever-evolving debate on equity and justice in the city. Amid a
mushrooming of positive literature, this book explores the initiatives of urban
gardening critically rather than apologetically. The contributors acknowledge
that these initiatives are happening within neoliberal environments, which
promote – among other things – urban competition, the dismantling of the
welfare state, the erasure of public space, and ongoing austerity. These initiatives,
thus, can either be manifestation of new forms of solidarity, political agency, and
citizenship or new tools for enclosure, inequality, and exclusion. In designing this
book, the progressive stance of these initiatives has therefore been taken as a
research question, rather than as an assumption.
The result is a collection of chapters that explore potentials and limitations of
political gardening as a practice to envision and implement a more sustainable
and just city.
Chiara Tornaghi is Research Fellow in Urban Food Sovereignty and Resilience
at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry
University, UK, and Chair of the AESOP Sustainable Food Planning group.
Chiara Certomà is Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the Centre for Sustainable
Development (CDO), Ghent University and affiliate Researcher at the Sant’Anna
School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.
Routledge Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City series
Series editors: Julian Agyeman, Zarina Patel,
AbdouMaliq Simone and Stephen Zavestoski
T his series positions equity and justice as central elements of the transition toward
sustainable cities. The series introduces critical perspectives and new approaches
to the practice and theory of urban planning and policy that ask how the world’s
cities can become “‘reener” while becoming more fair, equitable and just.
R outledge Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City series addresses sustainable
city trends in the global North and South and investigates them for their poten-
tial to ensure a transition to urban sustainability that is equitable and just for all.
These trends include municipal climate action plans; resource scarcity as tip-
ping points into a vortex of urban dysfunction; inclusive urbanization; “complete
streets” as a tool for realizing more “livable cities”; the use of information and
analytics toward the creation of “smart cities”.
The series welcomes submissions for high-level cutting-edge research books
that push thinking about sustainability, cities, justice and equity in new direc-
tions by challenging current conceptualizations and developing new ones. The
series offers theoretical, methodological and empirical advances that can be used
by professionals and as supplementary reading in courses in urban geography,
urban sociology, urban policy, environment and sustainability, development stud-
ies, planning and a wide range of academic disciplines.
Housing Sustainability in Low Carbon Cities
Ralph Horne
Just Green Enough
Urban Development and Environmental Gentrification
Edited by Winifred Curran and Trina Hamilton
Design for Social Diversity, 2nd edition
Emily Talen and Sungduck Lee
Urban Gardening as Politics
Edited by Chiara Tornaghi and Chiara Certomà
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Equity,-Justice-and-the-Sustainable-City-series/book-series/REJSCS
Urban Gardening as Politics
Edited by Chiara Tornaghi
and Chiara Certomà
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Chiara Tornaghi and Chiara
Certomà; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Chiara Tornaghi and Chiara Certomà to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-415-79380-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-21088-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures vii
List of tables viii
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Politics and the contested terrain of urban gardening
in the neoliberal city 1
CHIARA CERTOMÀ AND CHIARA TORNAGHI
2 Everyday (in)justices and ordinary environmentalisms:
community gardening in disadvantaged urban
neighbourhoods 12
PAUL MILBOURNE
3 A practice-based approach to political gardening:
materiality, performativity, and post-environmentalism 32
CHIARA CERTOMÀ
4 Cultivating food as a right to the city 46
MARK PURCELL AND SHANNON K. TYMAN
5 Public-access community gardens: a new form of urban
commons? Imagining new socio-ecological futures in
an urban gardening project in Cologne, Germany 66
ALEXANDER FOLLMANN AND VALÉRIE VIEHOFF
6 Challenging property relations and access to land for
urban food production 89
GERDA R. WEKERLE AND MICHAEL CLASSENS
vi Contents
7 UK allotments and urban food initiatives: (limited?)
potential for reducing inequalities 108
WENDY M. MILLER
8 Contesting the politics of place: urban gardening in
Dublin and Belfast 132
MARY P. CORCORAN AND PATRICIA HEALY KETTLE
9 Exploring guerrilla gardening: gauging public views
on the grassroots activity 148
MICHAEL HARDMAN, PETER J. LARKHAM, AND DAVID ADAMS
10 The making of a strategizing platform: from politicizing
the food movement in urban contexts to political
urban agroecology 167
BARBARA VAN DYCK, CHIARA TORNAGHI, SEVERIN HALDER,
ELLA VON DER HAIDE, AND EMMA SAUNDERS
11 Contesting neoliberal urbanism in Glasgow’s community
gardens: the practice of DIY citizenship 186
JOHN CROSSAN, ANDREW CUMBERS, ROBERT MCMASTER,
AND DEIRDRE SHAW
12 Political gardening, equity, and justice: a research agenda 209
CHIARA TORNAGHI AND CHIARA CERTOMÀ
Index 216
Figures
3.1 The allotments in the Parco delle Energie, Rome; on the backdrop
a view of the densely populated Pigneto district in Rome 37
3.2 One of the flower beds realized by the guerrilla group Giardinieri
Sovversivi Romani on a former dumping area in Centocelle
district, Rome 38
5.1 The location of Kölner NeuLand in Cologne 72
5.2 The site of the urban gardening project Kölner NeuLand 74
6.1 Anan Lololi, Executive Director, African Food Basket in suburban
backyard garden 98
7.1 The capital-assets framework used in this research 114
9.1 The three guerrilla gardening sites, from left to right: F Troop,
the solo guerrilla, and the women’s group 154
9.2 Hardman and F Troop in action 155
Tables
7.1 Different types of urban food activities, their land/space
requirements, and key impacts 109
9.1 A basic overview of the data collected across the sites 158
Contributors
David Adams is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Prior to this David was Senior Lecturer in Planning at Birmingham City Uni-
versity and a Planning Policy and Research Officer at Staffordshire County
Council. David brings this experience to his academic post and teaches across
both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Contact: [email protected]
Chiara Certomà is Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the Centre for Sustainable
Development (CDO), Ghent University. Chiara’s research focuses on innova-
tive modes of geographical production, planning, and governance performed
by heterogeneous, multi-layered, and multi-scalar networks. Contact: Chiara.
[email protected]
Michael Classens currently works in the public sector in Toronto, Ontario, Can-
ada supporting Indigenous energy security. He has a PhD from the Faculty of
Environmental Studies at York University, and was a SSHRC Postdoctoral
Fellow in the Department of Geography at Western University. Contact:
[email protected]
Mary P. Corcoran is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland
Maynooth. Her research interests lie primarily in the sociology of migration,
urban transformation, and public culture, areas in which she has published
widely. Contact: [email protected]
John Crossan is an independent researcher working across the fields of Human
Geography and Education. His research interests centre upon the urban
environment – its production, its use, and its potential. He has a PhD from the
School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow and
is currently training to be a secondary school teacher. Contact: www.johncros
san.co.uk
Andrew Cumbers is Professor in Regional Political Economy, University of
Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School. He has a long track record of research
into urban and regional development in old industrial cities and regions.
He has carried out numerous funded research projects including two recent
Joseph Rowntree Foundation projects on Globalization and Communities and
