MAKING SPACE FOR FOOD: EVERYDAY COMMUNITY FOOD GARDENING AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO URBAN AGRICULTURE MIKEY TOMKINS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Brighton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2014
Abstract Abstract This thesis presents research on community food gardens as an example of urban agriculture that aims to provide evidence on the factors that influence their ability to produce food. Drawing on participant observation research and interviews with community food gardeners on six London housing estates in 2010, this thesis explores the everyday community food garden practices of residents. It explores the factors that influence food growing, from discourse, everyday practice, and spatial interactions of those who garden. Key results show that the process of transforming, constructing, and inhabiting material space occupies residents time, leading to a reduced emphasis on food production. The research concludes that food harvests as an edible outcome are only sort in quantities relative to confirming the embodied situation of social practices, a key aspect of which is the need to gain spatial sovereignty over estate s landscape. This thesis therefore concludes that these community food gardens play a minor role within urban agriculture, where an agricultural accent seeks a consolidated harvest in order to feed cities. However, they do contribute to residents sense of dwelling through cultivation, creativity, and community, arguably a major contribution in our understanding of urban agriculture where accessing space is a precursor and barrier to growing food in cities.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Chapter one... 1 Introduction... 1 1.1 Introduction to research concepts and written approach... 1 1.2 Introduction... 1 1.3 Urban agriculture and global food... 5 1.4 The Global North... 8 1.5 Urban agriculture example: Communal food growing... 10 1.6 Making a space for food... 12 1.7 Research evolution: scoping to primary... 15 1.8 Thesis overview... 19 2 Chapter two... 22 Literature review and conceptual approach... 22 2.1 Section one: Definitions and literature.... 22 2.1.1 Introduction... 22 2.1.2 Definitions... 22 2.1.3 Urban agriculture, community gardens, and community food gardens. 24 2.1.4 Spatial and temporal aspects of urban agriculture and communal growing... 28 2.1.5 Historical aspect of spatial tension... 31 2.1.6 Key issues: embodiment, spatial creation, and food harvests... 35 2.1.7 Methodological implications... 39 2.1.8 Summary: food, spatial transformation, and the everyday... 41 2.2 Section two: Conceptual approach... 42 2.2.1 Lefebvre and the production of space... 42 2.2.2 The everyday... 48 2.2.3 Dwelling... 51 2.2.4 Security and sovereignty... 55 2.3 Research questions and aims... 57 3 Chapter three... 60 Methods, and primary case studies... 60 i
3.1 Section one: Methods and primary sites... 60 3.1.1 Introduction... 60 3.1.2 Participant observation... 61 3.1.3 Influencing methods: constructivist grounded theory and hermeneutic phenomenology... 63 3.1.4 Challenges... 65 3.1.5 Using multiple case studies... 66 3.1.6 Primary research case studies... 68 3.1.7 Summary... 74 3.2 Section two: Data, analysis, and positionality... 74 3.2.1 Approach to data collection... 74 3.2.2 Data collection and data gathering... 75 3.2.3 Research as continual process... 76 3.2.4 Interviews, field notes, and artefacts... 77 3.2.5 Transcription, analysis and interpretation... 79 3.2.6 Reflexivity... 83 3.2.7 Postionality... 85 3.3 Summary... 86 4 Chapter four... 88 Transforming, contesting, and imagining space... 88 4.1 Introduction... 88 4.2 Section one: Results and analysis... 90 4.2.1 The landscape... 90 4.2.2 Against conceived space... 93 4.2.3 Transformative agents... 98 4.2.4 Motivations... 102 4.2.5 Imaginations... 105 4.2.6 Summary... 107 4.3 Section two: Discussion... 108 4.3.1 Contesting landscape... 108 4.3.2 Connecting and disconnecting... 111 4.3.3 The contingent garden... 113 ii
4.3.4 The mutability of community food gardening... 116 4.3.5 Gardens as compressed social spaces... 118 4.4 Conclusion... 120 5 Chapter five... 122 Making spaces for food... 122 5.1 Introduction... 122 5.2 Section one: Results and analysis... 124 5.2.1 Fusing construction and cultivation... 124 5.2.2 Qualitative aspects of making space... 127 5.2.3 Borrowing: between design and everyday making... 131 5.2.4 Why grow food?... 134 5.2.5 Variable harvest... 137 5.2.6 Bracketing... 140 5.2.7 Summary... 143 5.3 Section two: Discussion... 144 5.3.1 Dwelling... 144 5.3.2 Building: demolition and entanglement... 147 5.3.3 community food gardens and everyday creativity... 150 5.3.4 Food gardening as catalyst... 154 5.3.5 Food-(es)scapes... 156 5.4 Conclusion... 159 6 Chapter six... 161 Embodiment, enacting, and harvesting... 161 6.1 Introduction... 161 6.2 Second one: Results and analysis... 162 6.2.1 Performance... 162 6.2.2 Making marks, walking and routes... 167 6.2.3 Material resources: soil, wood and water... 172 6.2.4 The harvest... 178 6.2.5 The influence of community on harvest... 183 6.3 Summary... 187 6.4 Section two: Discussion... 187 iii
6.4.1 A tangle rather than a totality... 187 6.4.2 Temporality of food... 189 6.4.3 Making space for bodies, performance and food... 192 6.4.4 Contextualising food harvest... 195 6.4.5 Scaling up: Making space for food... 197 6.5 Conclusion... 200 7 Chapter seven... 203 Conclusions... 203 7.1 Section one: Aims and questions, summary, and reflecting... 203 7.1.1 Thesis aims and questions... 203 7.1.2 Summary... 204 7.1.3 Reflexivity and positionality... 205 7.2 Section two: Conclusions... 208 7.2.1 Introduction... 208 7.2.2 Harvest as embodied, contextual, abstract... 210 7.2.3 Making space for food... 213 7.2.4 Scaling... 215 7.2.5 Borders, brackets, and borrowing... 215 7.2.6 Dwelling and the everyday... 216 7.2.7 Urban agriculture literature... 217 7.2.8 Spatial sovereignty... 220 7.2.9 Further work, limitations... 222 Bibliography... 224 Appendices... 245 7.3 Edible Map of Surrey Street, Croydon.... 245 7.4 Initial site visits... 246 7.5 Interview database.... 247 7.6 Participant information sheet.... 248 7.7 Consent form... 249 7.8 Summary description of estates, research period and data collection... 250 iv
LIST OF FIGURES All figures within this thesis are by author unless stated. Figure 1: A topology of urban agriculture types... 8 Figure 2: Surry Street Croydon showing the Garden in the Sky circled in red, 2010.... 16 Figure 3: Food gardening in public place, Pedley Street, Tower Hamlets, E2 2007... 17 Figure 4: Lefebvre's triangulation applied to community food gardens... 44 Figure 5 (left): View across De Beauvoir estate showing shopping precinct... 73 Figure 6 (right): St John s estate garden and low-rise blocks... 73 Figure 7 (left): Part of Haberdasher estate garden and adjoining street... 73 Figure 8 (right): Brownfield estate garden under construction... 73 Figure 9 (left): Lansbury estate community garden... 73 Figure 10 (right): Dirty Hands garden with a view towards the estate... 73 Figure 11: Screenshot of ExpressScribe software... 80 Figure 12: Examples of inappropriate interventions, incremental additions.... 96 Figure 13: TICArchitects: photomontage of De Beauvoir estate.... 98 Figure 14: Runner beans Haberdasher estate... 126 Figure 15: Dirty Hands (upper image) and Lansbury estate garden (lower image)... 128 Figure 16: The tonne bags, Haberdasher estate... 130 Figure 17: De Beauvoir estate, Left 1987 and right 2010... 132 Figure 18: Ball court, Brownfield estate showing gardener placing palettes... 133 Figure 19: Haberdasher estate, showing the outline of the demolished pram shed... 166 Figure 20: Greening Brownfield East End Life newspaper story... 167 v