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- Bergame, Nathalie
(författare)
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More than flowers! : On the transformative practice of commoning urban gardens
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Urban gardening is a burgeoning practice that increasingly takes place in urban centres of the world. In this thesis, I define urban gardens as socially mediated yet materially rooted phenomenon through which social and material relations are elaborated in common through time and space. And, I understand the garden not as an object, but as an entity that emerges out of the relationships between gardeners and non-human nature. I draw on the recent turn in commons’ theory shifting the focus on commoning, and not, as in earlier commons research, on the commons as structure. Grounded in the case of a new wave of urban gardening initiatives in the City of Stockholm, Sweden, I examine how commoning urban gardens transforms the people doing the gardening, the commoners, including their agency, subjectivity, and identity. But also how the commoners shape their structural environment.Ontologically, I deploy a critical realist social theory perspective which means that I acknowledge the a priori existence of structures and agency and their conditioning by each other relationally. This means that I (i) look at how spatial, societal and temporal structures affect the agency of gardeners (ii) how those gardeners are affecting their structural environment through the practice of urban gardening, as (iii) well as how their agency is conditioned by the practice.I deploy a qualitative mixed methods approach, comprising of interviews, a questionnaire, observations, participatory dissemination and poetic inquiry and find that high green public space availability in the City of Stockholm, municipal policies in favour of urban gardening, and a rich historic culture of associational life in Sweden provide a supportive context for urban gardening. I find that commoning gardens in public spaces bring together people and build collective relations despite a context of neoliberal individualisation. It emancipates individuals by reorganising the management of urban space, and changes how the City of Stockholm is urbanising towards more collective organising. Among those that partake in urban gardening, some remain grounded in a need-fulfilment (“I want to garden to be more in nature”), whereas others change through the commitment of being part of an urban garden, become political and collective subjectivities with a social identity that overlaps with their personal identity. This shows that structures condition people differently, and do not deterministically affect agency in the same way for everyone. Yet many remain entirely excluded from the new urban garden commons, such as people of colour, indicating that urban gardening, while it can be transformative for those that partake, is reproductive of structures of whiteness in urban public space. At the same time, historical structures of patriarchy in public spaces are being transformed. At the expense of the unpaid social reproductive labour of female gardeners, who make out the majority of urban gardeners, public green space is being transformed into spaces of care and community.I conclude that urban gardening deserves a critical analysis of its immanent contradictions to safeguard against unwanted and unintentional reproduction of injustices and for the promotion of practices that emancipate and empower people.
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- Bergame, Nathalie, et al.
(författare)
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Preparing the grounds for emancipation. Explaining commoning as an emancipatory mechanism through dialectical social theory
- 2022
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Ingår i: Environment and Planning E. - : SAGE Publications. - 2514-8486 .- 2514-8494. ; , s. 1-20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While there is evidence that commons have the potential to counteract socio-spatial injustices unleashed by neoliberal and capitalist forms of urbanisation, less is known about how commons lead to emancipatory change. Anchored in dialectical social theory, this article explains commoning as a mechanism through which people reproduce/transform their structural context and agency, arguing that the potential for emancipation through commoning lies in the commoners’ ability to induce processes of structural/agential transformation. Empirically grounded in interviews with urban community gardeners in the City of Stockholm, Sweden, we show that collective gardening conceptualised as practice of commoning contributes to structural change in that female volunteer labour collectivises the mandate over municipally managed public space, transforming socio-spatial relations. Yet, garden commoning proves to reproduce structural whiteness and middle-class agency in public space, fails to establish autonomy from waged-labour relations, and is unable to abolish the separation from the sources of reproduction and subsistence.
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- Björklund, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
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Local selling as a driving force for increased on-farm biodiversity
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Sustainable Agriculture. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1044-0046 .- 1540-7578. ; 33:8, s. 885-902
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper addresses the question of whether local selling of farm products improves on-farm biodiversity in rural areas. In contrast to the main agricultural trend of farms specializing and increasing in size in response to national and global markets, increasing numbers of Swedish farmers are diverting their efforts towards selling at local markets. Based on case studies of six farms selling their products locally, this paper explores the nature of the diversity on these farms and identifies qualities in the interaction between the farmers and their consumers that are supporting this diversity. The study showed that farmers who interacted with consumers were encouraged to diversify their production. Marketing a large diversity of products at a local market led to better income for participating farmers. Animal farms maintained important biodiversity associated with their extensive way of rearing animals on semi-natural pastures. Access to local markets promoted this.
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- Darnhofer, Ika, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptive farming systems – a position paper
- 2008
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 8th European IFSA Symposium. - : IFSA. ; , s. 339-351
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the last decades, there have been profound changes in the understanding of farming systems, in particular regarding their need for on-going adaptation to an ever-changing environment. Indeed, the rapid pace of change and its often unforeseeable direction requires farmers to keep their farms flexible and adaptive. We thus need to understand the attitudes, structures and activities that build and sustain the ability of farmers and of farming communities to cope with change and to use the opportunities offered by change. The approach we propose is based on an understanding of the workings of complex systems and entails another viewpoint on system properties, boundaries and dynamics. It focuses on ensuring sufficient room to manoeuvre, identifying transition capabilities and extending the degrees of freedom. It emphasises the need to ensure that farmers are prepared for turbulences by increasing their adaptive capacity. The concepts of flexibility, resilience and adaptive management may help in learning how to make constructive use of unforeseen change. Indeed, changes are the triggers for experimentation, for the reorganisation of resources, for the renewal of systems capable of learning and adapting. In particular, we will examine the factors that may support the capacity of farming systems to create, test and maintain an adaptive design.
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- Darnhofer, Ika, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptiveness to enhance the sustainability of farming systems : A review
- 2010
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Ingår i: Agronomy for Sustainable Development. - : Springer. - 1774-0746 .- 1773-0155. ; 30, s. 545-555
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the last decade the context in which farmers must manage their farm has changed rapidly, and often with little warning. Dramatic price swings for agricultural commodities, more stringent quality requirements, new environmental regulations, the debates surrounding genetically modified crops, extreme climatic events, the demand for energy crops, the revision of the Common Agricultural Policy and the consequences of the financial crisis all create uncertainty regarding future threats and potentials. During such turbulent times, a one-sided focus on efficient production is no longer enough. Farmers also need to be able to cope with unexpected events and to adapt to new developments. Based on a literature review, we identify three strategies that strengthen the adaptive capacity of a farm: learning through experimenting and monitoring its outcomes, ensuring a flexible farm organisation to increase the options for new activities by the farm family, and diversifying to spread risks and create buffers. Implementing these strategies enlarges the farmer's room to manoeuvre and allows identifying transition options. These options do not depend only on the farm itself, but also on the farmer's ability to mobilise external resources and to engage in collective action. Change is then no longer seen as a disturbance, but as a trigger for the reorganisation of resources, and for the renewal of the farm organisation and activities. Implementing these strategies comes at a cost, so that farmers need to tackle the inevitable trade-offs between efficiency and adaptability. However, unless farmers master this challenge they cannot ensure the sustainability of their farms.
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- Jaklin, Ulrike, et al.
(författare)
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Why do farmers collaborate with a food cooperative? : Reasons for participating in a civic food network in Vienna, Austria
- 2015
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Ingår i: International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. - : Cardiff University; Florida Atlantic University. - 0798-1759. ; 22:1, s. 41-61
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food cooperatives can be qualified as a civic food network as they can create more embedded market relations between consumers and farmers and increase knowledge about food consumption. In this study, we explore why farmers collaborated with the consumer-initiated food co-op D’Speis in Vienna, and assess the food co-op’s potential to support a peasant mode of farming. Farmers and working members of the food co-op were interviewed. As the food co-op selected their suppliers depending on their production methods, i.e. small-scale and organic farming, all farmers showed some elements of peasant farming. The interaction between farmers and co-op members, especially regarding price negotiations and quality standards, provided farmers with more room to manoeuvre. As the food co-op’s contribution to farmers’ incomes was negligible, the food co-op mainly supported peasant farming in the sphere of social and cultural capital. However, the degree of collaboration differed substantially as more peasant farmers interacted more closely with the food co-op. The farmers and co-op members shared their criticism of the hegemonic food system, but on the other hand missed clear common goals. Both farmers and food co-op members regarded their practices as political acts for a different food system. Values deduced from these practices point towards food sovereignty, which could serve as a compass for common political actions.
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| 10. |
- Katzeff, Cecilia, et al.
(författare)
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Encouraging organic food consumption through visualization of personal shopping data
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 12:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although food retailers have embraced organic certified food products as a way to reduce their environmental loading, organic sales only make up a small proportion of total sales worldwide. Most consumers have positive attitudes towards organic food, but attitudes are not reflected in behaviour. This article addresses consumers' attitude-behaviour gap regarding their purchase of organic food and reports on how visualization of personal shopping data may encourage them to buy more organic food. Through the design of the visualization tool, the EcoPanel, and through an empirical study of its use, we provide evidence on the potential of the tool to promote sustainable food shopping practices. Of 65 users that tested the EcoPanel for five months, in-depth interviews were made with nine of these. The test users increased their purchase of organic food by 23%. The informants used the EcoPanel to reflect on their shopping behaviour and to increase their organic shopping. We conclude that the visualization of food purchases stimulates critical reflection and the formation of new food shopping practices. This implies that food retailers may increase sales of organic food through using a visualization tool available for their customers. In this way, these retailers may decrease their environmental impact. © 2020 by the authors.
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