Moving dirt: soil, lead, and the dynamic spatial politics of urban gardening (original) (raw)
Related papers
A critical physical geography of urban soil contamination
Geoforum, 2015
Anthropogenic lead (Pb) is widespread in urban soils given its widespread deposition over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries via a range of point- and non-point sources, including industrial waste and pollution, leaded paint, and automobile exhaust. While soil scientists and urban ecologists have documented soil Pb contamination in cities around the world, such analyses rarely move beyond proximal mechanisms to focus on more distal factors, notably the social processes mediating Pb accumulation in particular places. In this paper, I articulate a critical physical geography of urban soil Pb contamination that considers the dialectical co-production of soil and social processes. Using soil Pb contamination in the flatlands of Oakland, California as an empirical case, I integrate conventional quantitative geochemical mapping with theory and qualitative methods regularly employed in urban political ecology to explain the various spatio-temporal processes that bifurcated the city into flatlands and hills, a topography that is as much physical as social, and one that is fundamental to differentiated soil Pb concentrations and the disproportionate impact on low-income people of color. I demonstrate how understanding soil contamination through the lens of social metabolism – with particular attention to the materiality of the socio-natural hybrids emerging from processes of capitalist urbanization – can complement conventional analyses, while contributing to a "material politics of place" to support struggles for environmental justice.
Reclaiming urban space as resistance : the infrapolitics of gardening
Revue Française d’Études Américaines, pp. 33-49, 2012
Even though half of the world's population now lives in cities, the “right to the city,” which was called for by Henri Lefebvre in the 1960s, is not yet a reality for all. Not only do most urbanites lack the power and ability to shape their living environment, but they are sometimes excluded from the so-called public space altogether. Against this double rejection of their right to the city, some of them have imagined, whether consciously or not, daily acts of resistance by marking their surroundings or subverting their use. Urban gardening, despite its apparent innocuousness, has proved to be a powerful tool for protesting against the urban condition as shaped and defined by the ruling powers, both public and private. Even though the practice is now gaining recognition all over the world, the claiming of urban space—even minimal—through horticulture is still underway.
In the last decade, a large variety of grassroots actors – urban harvesters, guerrilla garden- ers, community growers and landsharers – have been promoting a diversified set of projects that, while interstitial and very often considered “residual”, are nonetheless significantly challenging the mainstream place-making of cities in the Global North, and sometimes changing the face of the neighbourhoods in which they are located. These initiatives unfold in a variety of forms: the spontaneous appropriation and rehabilitation of marginal and neglected spaces at the city periphery, new bilateral agreements for sharing private land, community stewardship of urban greens and parks in well-maintained city centres are just a few of the arrangements through which gardening in both public and private spaces is taking place in various urban settings. While 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 aims to investigate and reflect on the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of these initiatives, by questioning and interrogating them as forms of political agency that contest, transform and re-signify “the urban”. While as editors of this special issue, we are interested in understanding the potential of urban gardening practices as agents of counter-neoliberal urban transformation, we do not take the progressive political stance as a starting point, but as a working question. We are interested in exploring what ideas about the city and belonging these practices embody and bring forward, how they make use of biological material as a means of political expression, what innovative relations of care, decision-making and politics of place they build, and what weaknesses, contradictions or emancipatory potentials they carry with them. Our aim is to populate the link between political gardening and the politics of space with a range of reflections that, seen in their complexity, constitute the basis for furthering urban politics from the ground up.
Critical urban gardening as a post-environmentalist practice
Local Environment, 2011
This paper investigates the emergence of the urban gardening movement as a form of post-environmentalist political practice. Despite the general acknowledgment of the relevance of environmental issues in the contemporary world, according to Post-Environmentalism, environmental thinking is becoming increasingly “de-politicised”. The aim of the paper is to suggest that “re-politicisation” of environmental politics is possible, taking into account the political practices emerging in urban space. The attachment to place materiality can, by means of common practices, make evident forgotten or ignored environmental relations; and it can make them a “public issue”. These kinds of practices relay upon the association of humans and non-humans, as crucial actors in the political constitution of urban space. For instance, critical urban gardening practice may oppose the mainstream of environmental politics; it implies the use of biological material as a form of political expression, and activates material-semiotic networks existing in the urban environment.
Cultural Geography and Gardening Activism
Breath Mark, 2012
Perhaps what gives gardens their political meaning are those practical features that all gardens—including dooryard gardens, house gardens, community gardens, allotment gardens and school gardens—share in common.1 According to Clarissa Kimber (2004), “[a]ll . . . gardens depend on the gardeners for maintenance and are spaces made meaningful by the actions of people during the course of their everyday lives” (p. 263). More than philosophers, cultural geographers have consistently explored the connections between community gardening and political activism. For example, Lauren Baker (2004) has conducted research on Toronto’s Community Food- Security (CFS) movement, which is not only about gardening, but also about challenging the food system status quo (especially its corporate leaders) and securing alternative food sources (food security) for area residents (especially immigrants and the poor).2 Christopher Smith and Hilda Kurtz (2003) consider the controversy over New York City Mayor Giuliani’s plan to auction and redevelop the land occupied by 114 community gardens, describing it as “a politics of scale in which garden advocates contested the fragmentation of social urban space wrought by the application of neoliberal policies” (p. 193). Giuliani’s redevelopment project exemplifies neo- liberal economic policy, for it attempts to privatize public use land, maximize property values and, ultimately, remove government involvement in a free market.3 Mary Beth Pudup (2008) describes the conflict between New York City gardening activists and the Giuliani administration in the early 1990s, claiming that “gardening in such collective settings is an unalloyed act of resistance” (p. 1232). Poised to contest neoliberal policies at various geographical scales (local, city-wide and state-wide), members of New York City’s gardening coalition successfully ended Giuliani’s ambitious plan to redevelop and auction the public land. The city’s extensive network of community gardening activists, including guerrilla gardeners, prevailed.
Growing Gardens in Shrinking Cities: A Solution to the Soil Lead Problem?
Sustainability, 2016
As cities shrink, they often leave a patchwork of vacancy on the landscape. The maintenance of vacant lands and eventual transformation to sustainable land uses is a challenge all cities face, but one that is particularly pronounced in shrinking cities. Vacant lands can support sustainability initiatives, specifically the expansion of urban gardens and local food production. However, many shrinking cities are the same aging cities that have experienced the highest soil lead burdens from their industrial past as well as the historic use of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline. Elevated soil lead is often viewed as a barrier to urban agriculture and managing for multiple ecosystem services, including food production and reduced soil lead exposure, remains a challenge. In this paper, we argue that a shift in framing the soil lead and gardening issue from potential conflict to potential solution can advance both urban sustainability goals and support healthy gardening efforts. Urban gardening as a potential solution to the soil lead problem stems from investment in place and is realized through multiple activities, in particular (1) soil management, including soil testing and the addition of amendments, and (2) social network and community building that leverages resources and knowledge.
2018
Converting vacant lots into urban gardens can be an effective way to increase food production and build community relationships, advancing goals of urban environmental sustainability. However, the history of a site, specifically whether it used to contain buildings and other infrastructure, is essential to understanding potential health concerns, as the historic use of lead can leave a toxic legacy on the landscape through the soil. Through a partnership with Seedleaf, a Lexington, KY non-profit, eight properties currently in production, or slated for production, were intensively sampled for soil lead using handheld x-ray fluorescence technology. The rapid sampling time and portable nature of the x-ray fluorescence analyzer allowed for numerous samples to be taken at each property. Soil sampling revealed that seven of the eight sites contained at least one area of the property where soil lead concentrations exceeded 400 ppm, the USEPA reportable limit. The site with no lead readings...
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2021
Unsanctioned "guerrilla" gardens, long a feature of North American cities, are frequently planted as radical challenge to conventional urban land use. Over the past decade, a number of community-led garden projects-projets citoyens-have appeared on sidewalks and in vacant lots, and alleys of Montreal, Quebec's inner-core neighborhoods under the banner of "appropriating" or "reclaiming" urban space. In this article, we examine the rise of these DIY (do-it-yourself) garden projects and the extent to which they have been institutionalized via municipal agencies and NGOs. We find the distinction between institutionalized and "guerrilla" projects to be quite blurry, and ask whether such spaces-and the social relations forged within and between them-are able to effectively challenge hegemonic abstract space (as conceived by Lefebvre) and contribute to a radical democratic urban politics (as conceived by Rancière). We conclude that the power of these projects to transform capitalist urban space and challenge the dominant socio-spatial order is limited. We argue, however, that their transformative potential lies instead in their functioning as spaces of political subject formation, where participants collaboratively articulate counter-hegemonic imaginaries and master the skills of collective autogestion-albeit only for a small and relatively homogenous group of Montrealers. Critical attention to absent and silenced voices and self-reflexive awareness of historical and contemporary processes of exclusion and displacement are crucial in order for these projects to become truly radical democratic spaces.