Domestic Wild: Memory, Nature and Gardening in Suburbia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sticky lives: Slugs, detachment and more-than-human ethics in the garden
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2014
In response to the pressing need to re-constitute the ways we live with non-humans, more-than-human geography’s distinctive contribution has been to describe an ethics based not on ‘certain subjects’ but on the relational entanglement of life: to show that ‘we’ are connected and thus invited to care. This paper aims to suggest, however, that this relational diagnostic obscures as much as it reveals and that detachment, as much as relation, provides an everyday ethic that can accommodate more-than-human difference. I do this by analysing how life is stuck together and pulled apart in the British domestic garden, drawing on life history interviews and ‘show me your garden’ walking tours with experienced gardeners. The article is aligned with a widening bestiary of companion species in geography, and considers the appearances and disappearances of a domestic monster: the slug. Therefore in contrast to existing literature the paper explores gardening’s darker aspects. First, I describe how slugs and gardeners are ‘sticky’: joined together by shared histories, curiosity and disgust. The paper then shifts to examine how gardeners practice detachment: distancing themselves from the act of killing slugs but yet avowing the violence of their actions; acknowledging the limits of their capacities to bend space to their will and imagination; recognising the vulnerability of slugs, and being transformed by that recognition. The analysis shows first, that the emphasis on gathering together and relationality obscures what lies outside relations, and second how detachment emerges not as the negation, but as an enabling constituent of more-than-human ethics. In conclusion the paper argues for looser mappings of relationality and ethics that attend more fully to the distance between species.
The coherence of official environmental discourse in Singapore is torn apart by the continued existence of two conflicting visions of the state-led landscaping project. On one hand, the idea of the " man-made garden " favors exotic lifeforms at the expense of native biodiversity. On the other hand, the increasingly popular notion of the " ecological garden " seeks to create a sacred space for native species at the total exclusion of foreign ones. This ideological incoherence directly contradicts the Foucauldian paradigm of ecological biopolitics which takes rational governmentality as its axiom. Consequently, this paper argues for a paradigmatic shift in the field of ecological biopolitics by proposing the " gardening paradigm " as a replacement for the mainstream Foucauldian paradigm of ecological biopolitics. Rejecting the Foucauldian paradigm's assumption of a rationalist state, the gardening paradigm demonstrates how the aesthetic and ecological imperatives of gardening influence state biopolitical management of non-human populations. The ecological imperative seeks to create a nativist utopia for local biodiversity by entirely excluding all exotic species while the aesthetic imperative seeks to create a cosmopolitan microcosm which often privileges exotic ornamentals at the expense of native species. This zero-sum situation forces the state to practice biopolitics by making non-human populations live and die based upon their overall contribution to the garden. At the same time, this paper will also account for the emergence of biopolitical tensions between the aesthetic and ecological imperatives by using the " gardening paradigm " to trace the historical evolution of official environmental discourse in Singapore. This narrative will illustrate how the ecological imperative, in the guise of " natural heritage, " has broken the continuity of Singapore's environmental discourse. By creating a parallel discourse alongside the predominant aesthetic imperative, this discontinuity has resulted in the two discordant visions of the garden city. Citation: Goh, Ngee Chae Joshua, “Ecological Biopolitics in the Garden City: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and the Discourse of Natural Heritage”. Yale-NUS Undergraduate Journal. (2017): 80-98
Natural Neighbors: Indigenous Landscapes and Eco-Estates in Durban, South Africa
Annals of The Association of American Geographers, 2011
In South Africa, new gated communities have begun branding themselves as “eco-estates,” “game estates,” “nature estates,” and “forest estates.” The marketing and consumption of nature has become prominent in the production and consumption of gated communities. A particular emphasis is placed on the use of native or indigenous plant species in landscape design. Suburbanites seeking to escape the increasingly mixed and threatening post-apartheid city are offered a chance to reconnect with nature in eco-estates. Where largely white elites often feel a precarious hold in the new South Africa, natural heritage offers attachment to place. These natural landscapes are highly selective engagements with the local. Nature-oriented gated communities offer spaces that exclude problematic plants and people alike. Yet, while attempting to capitalize on this new gardening trend, developers have risked alienating conventional gardeners of exotic horticultural plants. The result is a strategic accommodation of different material expressions of landscape.
Mexican Immigrant Gardeners: Entrepreneurs or Exploited Workers?
Suburban maintenance gardening is one service sector that has grown in the United States, and in many parts of the country it has become a gendered occupational niche for Mexican immigrant men. What is the social organization of this occupation and to what extent are Mexican immigrant gardeners following in the footsteps of Japanese gardeners, achieving socioeconomic mobility through gardening? Based on interviews conducted with 47 Mexican immigrant maintenance gardeners in Los Angeles, this article examines the occupational structure of this informal sector job, the social context in which it has developed, the mix of informal and formal economic transactions involved, and the strategic challenges that gardeners negotiate. The data show that there is occupational differentiation and mobility within the gardening occupation, and that mobility in the job remains dependent on combining both ethnic entrepreneurship and subjugated service work. Gendered social and human capital, together with financial and legal capital are necessary for occupational mobility. Jardineria, or suburban maintenance gardening, is analogous to the longstanding labor incorporation of female immigrant domestic workers into affluent households, but it is also indicative of a new trend: the proliferation of hybrid forms of entrepreneurship and service work and the incorporation of masculine "dirty work" service jobs into affluent households.