Cultivating citizens? : urban gardens in a neoliberalizing city : a typology of urban gardening projects in Amsterdam

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Cultivating citizens?

Urban gardens in a neoliberalizing city

- A typology of urban gardening projects in Amsterdam –

Luca Sara Brody

Student number: 10599851

Master thesis

Supervisor: Mandy de Wilde

Second reader: Prof. dr. Justus Uitermark

Social Problems and Social Policy track – Sociology

Graduate School of Social Sciences

University of Amsterdam

Amsterdam, July 2014

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Abstract

This thesis analyses the recent proliferation of urban gardening projects in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Wandering around the city, the observer can often run into these new forms of urban spaces. In recent years, citizens, institutions and other private actors both engaged in the creation of urban gardening projects.

The focus of this study is based on the understanding of goals and practices of urban gardening projects. Besides grassroots initiations, local governments, public and private stakeholders show interest in and support creating urban gardens. Driven by the great diversity of actors, the research focuses on the political context in which urban gardening projects are embedded. How and why these different actors have become engaged in creating and supporting urban gardens? What is the meaning of the gardens for the different organizers? What motivations and goals drive them? How do they make use of public space?

In order to understand these general questions, the research first summarizes the growing body of literature that interprets the urban gardening phenomena. On the one hand, urban gardens are understood as social movements. Urban gardens have been applied to reclaim urban space, alleviate food insecurity, and to create an alternative form of lifestyle in a highly globalized world. On the other hand, urban gardens can become contested in their aims. Neoliberal governance thought to summon urban gardens as vehicles to promote urban policy goals. Urban gardening has appeared on the neoliberal agenda in fostering urban regeneration and citizen participation programs.

The empirical part of this study is based on interviews with urban garden organizers in Amsterdam. It investigates how urban gardening projects come about, what are their goals, and how do they assemble space. It explores where social movement ends, and the neoliberal agenda begins in the structures of urban gardening projects. Findings suggest that these structures are very complex, simultaneously empowering and constraining citizens.

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Keywords: urban gardening, social movement, urban regeneration, citizen participation, neoliberalizing city, public space

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Acknowledgements

This research has been conducted with the help of urban garden organizers across Amsterdam. I would like to thank all the enthusiastic people working on urban gardening projects who make efforts to create a better and more just city. They made my fieldwork very exciting and enjoyable. Their honesty and willingness to cooperate helped me to gain far-reaching insights on the essence of urban gardens. This research would simply not have been possible without them.

I would like to thank my supervisor Mandy de Wilde, for her tireless support and patience during the whole process of the research. Her comments and helpful advices greatly improved the design and implementation of the research. I would also like to thank Justus Uitermark, who gave me the first push to start the fieldwork. His observations and suggestions on the proposal were very much appreciated and helped me to develop the focus of the study.

Luca Sara Brody Amsterdam, July 2014

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List of tables

Table 1: The four analytical groups of urban gardening projects ... 22

Table 2: Summary of bottom-up initiated urban gardens ... 24

Table 3: Summary of non-regulated hybrid urban gardens ... 33

Table 4: Summary of regulated hybrid urban gardens ... 42

Table 5: Summary of top-down greening projects ... 53

Table 6: Summary of top-down activating projects ... 56

Table 7: Summary of top-down social projects ... 59

List of figures

Figure 1: The pre-empirical conceptual framework ... 18

Figure 2: The five main aspects of urban gardening projects ... 19

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Chapter 1 Introduction: Understanding the urban gardening phenomenon

Urban gardening has increased in popularity over the last decades. Its proliferation can be observed through the emergence of a range of urban agricultural phenomena, such as guerilla gardening projects, community gardens, urban farms, and the growing importance of food safety concerns. Urban gardens are accepted as an increasing tool of tackling a variety of urban issues, such as empowerment of citizens and maintaining sustainability of cities. This chapter provides an understanding of the emergence of urban gardens, focusing on the structural context of Amsterdam, as a neoliberalizing city.

1.1 Worldwide urbanization

Due to the rising number of the world’s population in cities, urbanization has become an important issue. The number of people living in cities increases steadily and the UN predicts that by 2030, 60% of the world’s population will live in cities (Van Veenhuizen, 2006). The growth of cities can be understood as a natural process driven by the growing number of urban population and is also due to migration from rural areas to cities. This growth of population creates difficulties around the world to cope with: the challenge of unemployment, growing urban poverty, providing basic services, education, or green spaces are all rising issues. As a consequence, cities have become the main territories of intervention and strategies against these challenges.

In contemporary Western society, the urbanizing world causes a growing separation of culture and nature, where urban greenings gain more attention, and are considered as powerful tools of urban renewal (Newman & Dale, 2013). Over half of the population interacts with nature only within urban, constructed landscapes; therefore urban gardens are thought of as important vehicles of promoting ecological consciousness.

1.2 A definition of urban gardens

The wide definition of urban garden differs from one study to another, presenting a lot of concepts in the wider literature. This section aims to first make these distinctions clear. According to the definition of United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO, 1996, p. 43), urban agriculture is defined as:

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“…food production that occurs within the confines of cities. Such production takes place in backyards, on rooftops, in community vegetable and fruit gardens and on unused or public spaces. It includes commercial operations that produce food in greenhouses and on open spaces, but is more often small-scale and scattered around the city“.

The definition given by FAO encompasses a wide variety of practices, including small livestock as well. Guitart et al. (2012, p. 364) provide a narrower definition in terms of products: the phrase ‘community garden’ refers to “open spaces which are managed and operated by members of the local community in which food or flowers are cultivated”. This description excludes the breeding of livestock, but does not emphasize its urban characteristic. Furthermore, the communal nature of urban gardens is not evident: the broad variety of gardens informs us to treat definitions carefully. Thus, I will use the term ‘urban garden’, as the focus of this paper is on gardening projects carried out especially in the urban environment.

In line with the building blocks of the definition of urban agriculture mentioned by Mougeot (2000), a number of concepts highlight the characteristics of urban gardens: types of activities, food categories of products, its urban character and types of areas where production is carried out. First of all, urban gardens are defined by mostly producing activities, not involving processing and trade of products. Regarding food categories, urban gardens focus on cultivated food products, such as vegetables and plants. Furthermore, these gardens are located in cities and large, dense urban areas, where agricultural activities are not common to practice. The criteria of the types of areas have a wide spectrum in the definition of urban gardens. It can refer to residence (on-plot or off-plot), status of site (open space or built), type of tenure (cession, lease, authorized or unauthorized), and also category of sector (residential, industrial, institutional).

In summary, the definition of urban gardens can be highly diverse from one author to another. In the present study I will use the definition of urban gardens as mentioned above, characterized by the concepts described by the typology of Mougeot (2000) and critically using the motivational and beneficial features portrayed by Guitart et al. (2012). Thus, urban gardens in the present study refer to open space projects that are carried out in an urban environment, focusing on food or flower cultivation.

1.3 Empowering through urban gardening projects

The number of studies done on urban gardens expanded mainly in the last decade, between 2000 and 2011. In order to understand aims and define characteristics of urban gardens, Guitart et al. (2012) assessed the literature of these recent decades on urban gardens. However they only

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3 analyzed papers including the term ‘community garden’, the review showed that research was investigated in North America (66%), especially in the US (57%), and only a few in Europe (12%). The comprehensive study also focused on motivations and benefits of urban gardens, which the authors found often very similar. The most common motivations include the consumption of fresh food, social cohesion, community building and cultural exchange. Furthermore, the studies reported the following major benefits: social cohesion, enhanced health, access to fresh food, saving money and education (Guitart et al., 2012). Research suggests that urban gardening projects can serve various individual and communal benefits.

Local food movements are considered to enhance conscious consumer choices of food purchases. Wakefield et al. (2007) highlighted important health impacts of urban gardens in Toronto, where gardeners experienced an improved access to food and better nutrition. Most gardeners expressed positive developments in physical health, by gaining better access to food through the gardens. Relationships increased in number and quality in the neighbourhood. Blair et al. (1991) explained urban gardens as an important component of empowering citizens to access better nutrition. Gardens found to be related to increased consumption of vegetables by gardeners than non-gardeners, and a lower consumption of sweet food and drinks.

Furthermore, studies emphasized the role of gardens in facilitating social networks and stronger ties across the community. Armstrong (2000) found that social cohesion was especially improved in neighbourhoods characterized by lower income and minority groups, and urban gardening contributed to the mental health of gardeners. Similar studies (Baker, 2011; Firth et al., 2011; Glover, 2004) suggested that urban gardening initiatives have positive outcomes regarding community development.

Finally, densely populated areas with high level of unemployment and immigrants claimed to benefit from urban gardening projects. Baker (2004) argues that in these areas the number of social service amenities is quite low, therefore it is harder to get access to healthy food, as people usually have to travel far to fulfill these needs. Urban gardens can serve as a solution for marginalized citizens to such insufficiencies, achieving not only economical, but social benefits as well through the creation of a social space. Some studies (Holland, 2004; Ferris et al., 2001) argue that urban gardeners in poor areas are passing on new knowledge acquired on gardening to younger generations as well, and excluded vulnerable groups – such as drug addicts or former prisoners – can find new job opportunities in gardening.

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1.4 The political context of urban gardening projects

Differing from the perspective on the empowering nature of urban gardens, this paper will focus on the political context of urban gardening projects. The rise of neoliberalism and the changes steered by it in society – such as shifts in urban planning and the growing demand of active citizenship – can lead to changing roles of urban gardening projects.

As neoliberalism turned into the dominant mode of governing, cities and urban regions are characterized by continuous social and spatial transformations. Institutions have become the instruments to promote market-based regulations and to reconstitute the relation of the state and the economy (Brenner & Theodore, 2005). According to Peck and Tickell (2002), actually existing forms of neoliberalism are always a hybrid of different structures – cities are “neoliberalizing”, rather than being in a neoliberal end state. It is an ongoing process of developing neoliberal structures and emerging counter-tendencies at the same time.

1.4.1 Shifts in urban planning

Neoliberalism is characterized by the expansion of gentrification in inner-city areas. An ongoing increase of state involvement can be observed in housing and spatial restructurings on the one hand (Aalbers, 2011; Hackworth & Smith, 2001), and the growth of market forces and interests in the decisions of the state on the other hand (Gent, 2013; Oudenampsen, 2007). Many geographers (Aalbers, 2011; Hackworth and Smith, 2001; Graham & Auguri, 1997; Mitchell, 1995) emphasized the normalization of behavior in urban public spaces as a means to fulfill the needs and desires of the dominant classes by driving out the original population in order to gentrify an area and drive up financial value, resulting in the exclusion of certain groups of citizens from public space. The growing interest in urban gardening projects was partly a result of concerns about urban regeneration projects, food insecurity, and social exclusion.

In Amsterdam, urban restructurings have been a major policy since 1997. The aim is to achieve a socially mixed population, in terms of income. The consequence should be that people interact more often and enjoy the facilities of a newly restructured area (Van Beckhoven & Van Kempen, 2003). Since 1994, the so-called Big Cities Policy aimed to create stable, mixed and integrated neighborhoods, where parallel societies does not exist next to each other (Musterd & Ostendorf, 2008). The policies targeted specifically the restructuring of the physical environment. Gentrification intended to strengthen economic position rather than improving social well-being (Lees, 2008), as the facilitation of social mix aims to attract higher-income residents, who are less

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5 problematic in terms of social service provisions. Middle-class values therefore experienced an intense promotion in governmental agendas.

1.4.2 Responsibilization of citizens and the rising role of non-state actors

The transformation of the welfare state has led to an activating state, which increases the importance of non-state actors in social service provisions. This process goes hand in hand with the strengthening of civic engagement and individual responsibility in local politics. Welfare state restructurings resulted in retrenchments of welfare service-provisions, and the expansion of community-based sectors (Brenner & Theodore, 2002). In a neoliberalizing city, social service more heavily rely on private approaches and the introduction of mandatory voluntary work, linked to social welfare requirements.

Active citizenship can be understood as an instrument that creates social cohesion, or the opposite: a mode of dispersing the welfare state’s powers to local governments and community groups to practice control over society (Marinetto, 2003). Ghose (2005) points out how complex active citizenship is, simultaneously being empowering and constricting, as spaces of citizenship are not always equally distributed among citizens. Active citizenship is aimed to achieve greater social inclusion and emancipation, but as it can reach a high level of social inclusion, it can similarly enforce social exclusion (Tonkens, 2011).

Considered problematic to the assumption of positive effects of activating citizens, is they often fail to tackle problems and causes of inequality. Pushing citizens to be more responsible and self-organized does not increase social empowerment in itself. This is realized in the different and competing interests of citizens who often do not unite in a common goal, as there is power imbalance and uneven voice. The link between empowering citizens and economic development is not well-established, as it is structured among market relationships and regulations (Brenner et al., 2009; Amin, 2005, Rose, 2000).

Urban gardens have appeared in urban policy strategies of Amsterdam as well. Amsterdam developed a strategy on healthy, sustainable and regional food chains named “Proeftuin Amsterdam” (meaning test or taste garden, or a field of experiment), which was initiated in 2007 (Vermeulen, 2007). The main goals of Amsterdam Food Strategy involved the creation of food awareness, a healthier and more sustainable food production, and to find new roles for peri-urban farmers. In practice, the strategy implied the launch of discussion platforms in the city to find common interests, to build alliances between public and private actors (institutions, associations, movements) during the period of 2008-2010 (Vermeulen, 2007). Urban gardens thus received a

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6 prominent role in policy goals in the last few years, and were utilized to improve the sustainability of the city through public-private partnerships.

In conclusion, two major trends of contemporary political context are crucial in the understanding of the proliferation of urban gardening projects: urban regeneration and growing citizen participation.

Gentrification of inner-city areas and housing developments are argued to favor the middle-class, while the poor receive less help from the state. Urban policies direct business developments instead of social services which were formerly a duty of local governments. Non-state actors receive a bigger role in urban transformations, and take over several responsibilities of the state, such as service provision.

The growing responsibility of citizens defines local communities as relevant actors in urban programs. Community is fostered as a solution to the welfare cutbacks of local governments, who praise communities as the answer for the lack of state-presence. Under these circumstances, urban gardens can be seen in new light as both remedies and threats to social justice.

Thus, the aim of this study is to understand how urban gardens as new emerging public spaces are contested in the dominance of neoliberal policies in Amsterdam. The overarching question of this study therefore is:

How do urban gardens in Amsterdam assemble space?

To answer the research question, the thesis aims to focus on the interpretations of the role of urban gardens in a neoliberalizing city. The dynamics of urban gardening projects will be explored through an empirical study, gaining insights through the eye of garden organizers. Subsequently, the empirical findings will be introduced and related to theoretical implications.

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Chapter 2 Urban gardens as contested space

Although studies have revealed several benefits of urban gardens, the example of urban gardening projects can be considered controversial in today’s neoliberalizing cities. Their complex nature shows both bottom-up characteristics as well as they have become administered by local governments as an instrument of urban restructurings and activating citizens.

On the one hand, urban gardens seem to embody an alternative to social welfare retrenchments and represent a way of claiming rights to the city. Projects can be interpreted as social movements mobilizing citizens to raise attention to urban injustices. Urban gardens also provide an alternative to the increasing marketization of cities.

On the other hand, urban gardens can be understood as serving the neoliberal governance by creating spaces that promote social responsibilities and civic engagement. Urban gardening projects become more popular and are thought to be welcomed by local governments as an alternative to welfare retrenchments.

This chapter examines the central aspects that blur the lines between seeing urban gardens as grassroots initiatives or instruments of neoliberal urban policy.

2.1 Urban gardens as instruments of challenging the neoliberalizing city

Urban gardening initiatives are seen as a symbol of resistance that confronts social order, and a proof of the ability of prosperity of bottom-up, citizen initiatives. In some aspects, urban garden initiatives can be perceived as a social movement, as it mobilizes resources, raises consciousness and confronts dominant powers, reclaiming control over urban public spaces.

2.1.1 Reclaiming the city

Urban gardens have been interpreted by scholars as being part of the “right to the city” movement. Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the “right to the city” is based on his investigation of the urbanization of Western industrialized nations – especially France – in the 1960s, where urban transformations and modernization led to a crisis of the city (Schmid et al., 2012). Lefebvre was not proposing a right to basic human needs, but to a certain urban quality, an access to resources which is open to all segments of the population. The slogan “right to the city” has changed in meaning since the 1960s, but Schmid et al. (2012) highlight three main tendencies that are still – or again – relevant in the Western cities of today: first, focus is again on basic needs, such as shelter, food, health and

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9 education. Second, the increased fragmentation of social life caused by state withdrawals resonates with the call to the right of the city. Many tasks are now given back to society on a local level, which were formerly decided by the state, giving space for the third tendency, the increased need of new forms of collectives in the city. The “right to the city” framework understands social movements as they arise against neoliberal urbanization with the goal of creating a more just city (Uitermark et al., 2012), therefore the goal of urban gardening projects can be understood as resisting neoliberal urban restructurings.

Urban gardening movements are seen as instruments of winning back urban public spaces by creating new ways of alliances. The history of urban gardens started with guerilla gardening in New York in the 1970s, when citizens reclaimed spaces by throwing seeds away on vacant lots or other spaces of urban design that often lacked any greenness. It was a form of protest against the appropriation of land, and evolved into urban gardening in a fast pace. As a social movement, urban gardens thought to make social problems more visible, as they are situated in the inner city, and gardeners become a visible part of the landscape (Schmelzkopf, 2002).

The creation of urban gardens thus lies somewhere “on the continuum of activist and political, individual and collectivist action” (Baudry, 2012). Urban gardens provide an interesting form of protest, as they seem unlikely to be challenged: they are not destructive, but productive activities. Besides making claims for urban public space (Staeheli et al., 2002), urban gardens can also be perceived as a part of food justice movements, raising concerns about food-related issues, such as access to fresh food and healthy nutrition (Wekerle, 2004).

2.1.2 From leisure to social action

Urban gardening can be seen as a new, non-aggressive way to express views on contemporary life. Local communities, such as urban gardens can be seen as critiques of the government, perceiving it as either indifferent or distant to address local issues (Baudry, 2012). Similarly to graffiti, decorative blinds on construction sites and street photography, urban gardening is referred to as a part of slow movement that intends to change urban sight. The symbolic of slow art emphasizes the reclaiming of the accelerated city, regaining power to shape our environment in a “culture of speed” (Lindner & Meissner, 2014). They define slow movement as a cultural activism that aims to confront globalization and neoliberalism, and the accelerated life through developments. In general, slow movements aim to slow down life’s pace, disagreeing with the notion of “the faster the better”, and quality over quantity. Slow movement is not a single organization; it works with several spin-off movements, such as the Slow Food movement.

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10 In recent decades, the increased marketing for creativity has appeared not just in urban development strategies, but increased as a need to mediate individuals’ urban life experiences. Lindner and Meissner (2014) have examined especially the slow movements in contemporary urban life. As a part of cultural activism, slowness appears as a strategy for confronting neoliberalism: to create new modes of citizenship in an era, when urban space is more and more privatized. Drawing on Jamie Peck’s (2012) work, Lindner and Meissner offer a critical approach on how slowness became popular. They focus on creative interventions: construction sites, community art, and urban gardens. According to Peck (2012), the high mobility in creative economies causes a lack of connection to place and community by the high rates of mobility, to which parallel, urban space is commodified: places are experienced as a temporary event, something without social bonds and responsibilities. Slow movements emerge from these conditions, but also counter them. Urban gardening as slow art therefore emerges as a field of tension between the promotion and resistance of neoliberal transformation of urban space.

2.2 Urban gardens as instruments of maintaining neoliberal social policies

As neoliberalism is thought to exist in many realms of our everyday practices, urban gardens can serve as a key site to study neoliberalism and its implications. Research on the neoliberalization of space has focused on the implementation of neoliberal ideas in urban policy since the last few decades (Peck, 2012; Brenner & Theodore, 2005; Peck & Tickell, 2002), emphasizing the changing role of the state and the outsourcing of governmental duties towards society. The most important shifts include greater responsibilities of citizens by emphasizing volunteerism and community engagement, and the role of municipalities in implementing and supporting urban restructurings based on economical consideration.

2.2.1 Urban regeneration

Nowadays, urban farming is not only supported by municipalities and community groups in urban locations worldwide, but has also been integrated into the core of design thinking about the future of smart and sustainable cities (Lindner & Meissner, 2014). Municipalities are taking steps towards involving citizen participation in urban restructurings, and in addition, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are involved more and more in negotiating between citizens and municipalities (Eizenberg, 2012b), taking away control from citizens to make decisions on their own.

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11 Pudup (2008) draws attention to the difference of the post-war community gardening era when gardens were constructed for resistance, and today’s urban gardens which are projects driven by the ethos of responsibility.

Urban gardens were employed as urban greening strategies from the 1980s, when attention towards food security increased, particularly in poor neighbourhoods. It was considered a source of community empowerment, but initiators changed over the decades: in the beginning, it was mostly neighbourhoods that reclaimed their communities and stood up against marginalization, but nowadays it is more typical of non-state actors and urban planners to initiate gardening projects in order to achieve desired transformations and mobilization (Pudup, 2008). After the 1990s, gardening projects were proliferating, but instead of bottom-up approaches, gardens were initiated by NGOs and the voluntary sector. However urban gardens address their goals in the context of resisting urban transformations while rooted in urban social movements, Pudup (2008) argues that gardens are mostly created by institutions, and not people of a neighbourhood or community. Ideas and goals of gardening are undermined with neoliberal traits, such as the aim of surveillance, behaving in a community-minded way and facilitating participation in society. Urban gardens hence become mechanisms of social reproduction rather than transformation (Eizenberg, 2012a). A similar argument is given by Schmelzkopf (1995), who highlights a general problem with urban gardens: that they always depend on local governments and future real estate developments. Urban gardens are usually built on a land with low value, and as the value increases, local governments tend to withdraw support and focus on more profitable investments (Schmelzkopf, 1995).

2.2.2 Active citizenship

Neoliberal urban restructurings have changed the conditions of participation in today’s European societies as well, which can lead to ambivalent outcomes considering urban gardening projects. Looking at urban gardens, it is considered a special case of participation, as it has grassroots traits while it is characterized by the outsourcing of work by the state at the same time. Participation in gardening projects differ from a loose group to formally registered participants. Creating a garden can differ quite much: some are self-organized, supported by professional community workers, a grassroots project, a part of a wider social movement confronting urban planners, or an initiation by politicians and urban planners. Rosol (2010) argues that the tendencies show that urban gardens are turning from a social movement to a form of voluntarism, and voluntary engagements in the eye of policymakers are seen as a means to deal with cuts in public spending. Hence urban gardens can be interpreted as spaces of the promotion of neoliberal urban policies.

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12 Local activism and the demand of community engagement are seen as they have never been as much incorporated in social policies of economic growth as before. Local activities, such as urban gardening can play a crucial role in shaping ideas of competitiveness and the implementation of neoliberal workfare policies (Mayer, 2003). Volunteerism is only one way to involve residents in the production of green spaces. The continuously emphasized responsibility of citizens, and connecting “good citizenship” to the level of engagement in communal activities give the burden to residents to deal with money withdrawals if the level of participation does not reach a satisfactory level (Rosol, 2012). These processes render citizens to adjust to a marketized citizenship and high competitiveness. The emergence of this new participation can maintain existing power hierarchies (Van Schipstal & Nicholls, 2014), and may dissolve the effects of grassroots urban gardening movements. Ghose & Pettygrove (2014) highlighted how responsibilization can lead to conditional citizenship, where everyone is expected to take responsibility for themselves, but the opportunity is only given to few.

Conclusion

Explaining gardens only through the lens of the right to the city concept gives problematic aspects to consider it as a social movement. The “right to the city” concept states that mobilization in cities arise as a response to neoliberal urbanization, and to fight for a better and more just city (Marcuse, 2009; Harvey, 2003). Yet, the ideals of social movements are not just instruments of resistance, but also instruments of the government to maintain social order. Cities concentrate social and symbolic power, which can be the engine of social movements, but it is also exploited by authorities to use it for their own goals (Uitermark et al., 2012). Concentration of symbols can be deployed by policing strategies to enforce social order, and apply it for governmental programs. Thus, the dualism of cities as both breeders and soothers of social movements has to be taken into account. Demands of citizens can therefore become standardized monitoring instruments to control individual behavior (Uitermark et al., 2012).

Having a closer look on urban gardens requires recognizing this duality of social movements. On the one hand – as argued – urban gardens can play a role in resisting the rapid transformations and the commodification of urban spaces by greening projects. Yet, on the other hand, they can be utilized by local governments to increase control, community involvement and individual responsibility in managing citizens’ life.

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Chapter 3 Methodology

In order to understand how urban gardens create a contested space and whether they contribute to either resistance or promotion of neoliberal governance, characteristics of urban gardens are explored through a qualitative approach. The research follows main steps of traditional qualitative research: after defining the research questions, relevant sites are selected and data is collected of urban gardening projects, which is interpreted and conceptualized after analyzing results (Bryman, 2004, p. 268-270).

This chapter summarizes the main research questions. Further, the mode of data gathering is explained. Next, the central aspects of urban gardens are specified. Based on theory, this chapter introduces the conceptual framework that was initially employed in the fieldwork. The listed final analytical categories of urban gardens are based on the method of grounded theory, as these categories unfolded during fieldwork.

3.1 Research questions

The goal of this study is to explore the role of urban gardening projects in contemporary urban life, answering the main research question: How do urban gardens in Amsterdam assemble space? The following subquestions are asked to further understand central issues:

How is an urban gardening project set up? What measures are instrumental in describing them? Thus the first question comes to surface: (1) What constitutes an urban gardening project? The project design of urban gardens play a key part in understanding their roles in today’s society. Projects can differ in the type of gardening mode they use, the type of contract they have, and whether it has a legal status at all. They vary in terms of accessibility, received support from various actors, relationship with local governments, or in the sense of temporality. Furthermore, gardening projects can be differentiated by the type of space they use: some are placed at public spaces, or they have been made public, while some are privately owned.

In addition, gardening projects can show a difference in how these initiations have been implemented. Was it a top-down or bottom-up initiative, and who participated in making the gardens? Accordingly, the following question is investigated: (2) Who initiated the project and

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14 or independent groups. Furthermore, contributors, such as policy makers, local government, or activists’ role are explored in the process. Subsidies from different institutions, financial matters can further broaden the cognition of initiators that create urban gardening projects.

Projects are created to fulfill a certain aim, hence the following question is further examined: (3)

What are the goals of urban gardening projects? It is important to understand what principles

play a key role in the eye of organizers when they create a public space. Aspirations can vary whether they aim to improve social inclusion, economic development, or to reach cultural or educational growth. The particular emphasis of different goals can have diverse effect on the way of structuring public space.

A fourth sub-question of the research posed the matter of (4) How do urban gardening projects

assemble people? Here the exploration of the role of organizers in defining the means of operation

is crucial. Project leaders have a central role in structuring the work at urban gardens by defining the frequency of leaders’ presence and mode of supervision. Moreover, the research wants to explore the selection procedures of participants, and if there is an explicitly targeted social group.

Finally, the research aims to answer (5) What practices are employed in urban gardening

projects? Urban gardens can differ in their provided activity: whether they organize workshops, or

individual plots to work at. Besides, do they provide necessary equipment on the location, is it for free, or participants have to buy the products? Is there any social event organized on a regular basis? Exploring all these differences will lead to a better understanding of the role of urban gardening projects in modern everyday life.

3.2 Data gathering and analysis

Information on urban gardens is first gathered from field trips and non-participatory observation in order to have an initial aerial view of the main characteristics of the gardens, such as garden design, goals and accessibility, main activities. Pictures were taken during fieldwork. Besides the theoretical background, prior field notes and photographs helped to create a pre-empirical classification of the gardens, which highlights the most important factors that distinguish urban gardening projects, such as type of initiation, mode of operation, and the different types of sustainers. This initial logic of inquiry follows an analytic inductive approach (Bryman, 2004, p. 400-401), where the observation of urban gardens resulted in generalized groups. First, urban

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15 gardens have been divided by the type of initiation: bottom-up versus top-down gardens were classified as the main categories, and those gardens that do not fit this dichotomy were put in a third category.

Accordingly, urban gardens were classified to three major categories on the basis of establishment. The first group consists of bottom-up gardens, which are initiated by individual groups of people, not connected to any formal institution. The second group forms hybrid gardens, which is a mixture of individual and institutional initiatives. The third group contains gardens that are initiated by a top-down approach: institutions organize the gardens without including future gardeners into decision-making processes and the setup of the gardens.

The interviews were semi-structured interviews (Bryman, 2004, p. 320-321). They were conducted with garden organizers, and in some cases, gardeners, when the organizer was not approachable. The interviews took place at the location of urban gardens, or if it was not possible, at the offices of organizations or other alternative places, such as bars or cafes. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for the analysis. Finally 20 interviews were available for analysis, the average duration of interviews were around 30-60 minutes. The interviews are conducted in English, but most of the garden organizers are Dutch. Language mistakes and phrasing were corrected only when it was necessary in terms of understanding responses.

Transcriptions were coded in two phases: first on a descriptive level, than on a conceptual level (Friese, 2012, p. 17-18). The aim of the descriptive phase is to explore the available data, and to find out all relevant aspects that should be included in the analysis. The second stage focuses on tailoring the number of codes that emerged from the first stage, to create the analytical basis and to find out relations between the data. In the end, 21 code families and 67 codes were used for the analysis (for details see Appendix B).

3.3 Central aspects of urban gardens

Analyzing urban gardening projects as assemblages constitute the basis of this exploratory study. The word ‘assemblage’ refers to the coming-together of various elements within a place. This concept has actively been mobilized in critical urban theory, and led to the emergence of actor-network theory (ANT) in urban studies (Brenner et al., 2011).

The core idea of actor-network theory is to not limit the description of society to human actors, but to extend the analysis to non-individual entities. It derives from the claim that society is very complex and it is impossible to understand what holds together modern societies as a whole

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16 (Latour, 1996). ANT therefore does not ask where the activities of actors come from, but rather what their effects are. The goal is not to purify a theory on society, but to enrich perspectives on them, and to understand the ordering of things – how realities hang together (Mol, 2010). The present research therefore will focus on effects and role of urban gardens in contemporary urban social life, by analyzing its components: human and non-human actors, the given public space, and its function as an assemblage.

ANT rejects the stability of social and natural categories; it focuses on the interrelations between humans and nonhumans (Madden, 2010) and asks how urban assemblages came to be assembled as they are. McFarlane (2011) stresses the importance of the concept of assemblage in opening up new questions and methods for critique by accepting that relationships cannot be reduced to individuals alone. Farías (2011) agrees that one of the major critiques of the notion of assemblage is that it leaves out structural contexts from the analysis, therefore it is important to include the way how power shapes city life. Hence the neoliberal context of urban gardening projects constituted an important part in the research. The assemblage approach focuses on actors, but it is important to consider the political-economic structures and institutions as well in which they are embedded, as these constraints define the margins for action (Brenner et al., 2011).

Gardening projects are analyzed as urban assemblages, where various elements come together. According to the research questions, urban gardens are investigated by five different aspects: the project design of gardens, the type of initiators and maintainers, the aims, the mode of assembling people, and the practices that urban gardening projects engage in.

First, the elements of what constitutes an urban garden are explored. It concerns the project

design of gardens. Projects are carried out on different areas, with different legal statuses and land

ownership. Furthermore, the study discovers the accessibility of gardens: how protected the area is, do they hire garden supervisors, or are there built fences? Is it accessible throughout the week, or just on certain days? Received professional help from outside actors are also revealed. In addition, the duration and planning of gardens are analyzed: if it is a long-term project or just a temporary one.

Second, the type of initiators and maintainers that runs the urban garden are categorized. Most gardens are run by public, private or independent groups, or by a mixture of these. The role of local

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17 governments, activists, diverse foundations and housing corporations are found crucial; therefore the key actors are also investigated in the making or urban gardening projects. Furthermore, gardens can be divided by their form of production: whether it is profit oriented or not, and what subsidies help to operate the gardens.

Third, the aims of urban gardening projects – in the interpretation of organizers are defined. They can vary in their objectives, which can be either social (community development, increasing social cohesion, sense of ownership, bring people together), economic (enhance entrepreneurship, financial sustainability, creating jobs), environmental (leisure, production), or educational (improve health and well-being, acquiring new skills).

The fourth focus is the mode of assembling people. This includes organizers’ decisions regarding the way of selecting participants, and targeting specific social groups. The structuring of work is dependent on the organizers, defining the frequency of presence and mode of supervision. Access can vary in terms of financial contribution: some gardens are free to anyone, at other places a fee is required to be able to participate in certain activities. The selection of groups plays a key role: how and which groups are addressed to participate (local residents, youth, lower class people, ethnicity, expatriates).

Finally, the study investigates the practices that urban gardening projects engage in. The research focuses on the practices of urban gardens: such as do they provide private plots or workshops. Additionally, facilities are explored at urban gardens: where do they buy equipment from, do they provide all necessary equipment to gardeners (are they for free), and are there shops on the location to acquire gardening tools. At last, events for the project participant are explored: is there an opportunity to “get to know” each other? The types of offered social programs by urban gardens are included in the analysis, such as opportunities to harvest together, programs with participants’ families. Research investigates how often and where these social programs take place.

3.4 Conceptual framework

The following conceptualization aims to explain the pre-empirical, theoretical interpretations of urban gardening projects. The fieldwork investigates the potential of these projects in light of the theoretical basis, which unfolded in more detailed findings based on methodology.

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Figure 1: The pre-empirical conceptual framework

Urban gardening projects can be conceptualized through two major interpretations of a neoliberal context. On the one hand, they can be explained as instruments of challenging the dominant social order, by reclaiming public space and promoting the slow movement. Urban gardens in this perspective are considered as social movements that either mobilize citizens or promote alternatives to the dominant social order. On the other hand, gardening projects can serve as instruments of maintaining neoliberal governance of society by implementing neoliberal policy goals, such as urban regeneration and active citizenship, including the promotion of workfare, community participation and responsibility towards community. Urban gardening projects can serve as instruments of neighborhood beautification and increased governmental control of poorer neighborhoods. These different approaches engage urban gardens as contested spaces, giving way to confronting ideologies.

3.5 Analytical framework

To explore underlying intentions of urban gardening projects, they are analyzed by five main aspects: characteristics, aims, type of management, mode of assembling people and practices.

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Figure 2: The five main aspects of urban gardening projects

During analysis, a grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006) was used to reveal additional important indicators of urban gardening projects. Type of initiation, regulation of operation, and financial sustainment of gardens emerged as fundamental characteristics. This method resulted in the final four main categories of urban gardens (see Chapter 4).

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Chapter 4 General findings on urban gardening projects

In this chapter the main findings of the emerged typology of urban gardens are presented. The main drivers of the typology are three characteristic: the type of initiators, the mode of operation of the gardens, and the mode of sustainment.

4.1 Typology of urban gardens

Types of initiations are divided into two categories: the ones that are initiated by individuals, and the ones that are initiated by institutions. The first group consists of initiatives where individuals are close friends, acquaintances, or usually close neighbors, who already knew each other before the garden was set up. Institutional initiators involve for instance a local government, private investor, a housing corporation or a foundation – a formal legal entity.

The mode of operation typically implied two forms: either the gardeners decided on how they operate or the maintaining institution. Accordingly, gardens were classified as non-regulated or regulated. In non-regulated gardens, the members of the project decided on every aspect of how they operate: frequency and conditions of participation, what to spend the budget on (if they have any), what activities are organized, and what gardeners do with the crop. In regulated gardens, the institutions defined at least one of the points in the mode of operation. For example, if an institution decided on what kind of seeds are given to the gardeners, but other factors were not regulated, the garden was ranked as one that regulates the mode of operation.

Finally, the mode of sustainment implies whether the gardeners received funding or support from any institutions. Support can be very diverse across the gardens. Some receive no outside help, and sustain themselves from donations, while others are completely funded by the municipality or a housing corporation, providing the gardeners with the required tools and facilities. Based on these three main aspects, urban gardening projects were divided into four main groups.

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Table 1: The four analytical groups of urban gardening projects

Bottom-up gardens are always initiated by individual groups, without the help of institutions, and their mode of operation is not regulated by any institutions. Gardeners decide themselves together on the rules and responsibilities. As they are financially independent from any institutions, they lack subsidies and funding, and maintain the garden from their own budget or donations.

Non-regulated hybrid gardens are created from the collaboration of individuals and institutions together, but members have an active role in defining rules and the mode of operating the garden. Funding and subsidies are more frequent than in bottom-up gardens, as the institution helping in the initiation provides funding for the gardeners, while others sustain themselves also partly from member fees.

The gardens that are made from the collaboration of individuals and institutions, but are regulated in the mode of operation by institutions, are classified as regulated hybrid gardens. Here gardeners have to adjust to the rules and regulations that the maintaining institution or board sets up. Often frequency and conditions of participation are set, which gardeners have to accept and adapt to. Most typical funders are local governments and various organizations.

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23 Top-down gardens are exclusively initiated by institutions, and the mode of operation is defined by them as well. Funders and sponsors include local governments and housing corporations, but organizations also intend to sustain themselves by making profit from workshops and selling products.

Interviews were made in 20 gardens, which have been classified in one of the four main categories. The classification resulted in four bottom-up gardens, four non-regulated hybrid gardens, three regulated hybrid gardens, and nine top-down gardens. Top-down gardens have been further categorized in three main groups, based on the aim of the gardens.

Figure 3: Overall classification of urban gardens

The three groups in top-down gardens address certain issues among their aims, which show a clear division between them. The first group set the goal to make urban spaces greener and advertise sustainable cities. The second group promotes active citizenship and voluntary work through gardening, while the third puts emphasis on self-responsibilization by setting up gardens in deprived neighborhoods.

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Chapter 5 Bottom-up initiated gardens

This chapter summarizes the findings on bottom-up initiated garden projects. The gardens are initiated by individuals, without any financial help from institutions. Rules are set by the gardeners, and gardens operate with a very low budget and sometimes a few donations.

Table 2: Summary of bottom-up initiated urban gardens

5.1 Motivations

Most bottom-up gardens are neighborhood initiatives, a group of neighbors or close friends decide together in the creation of an urban gardening project. Two out of the four interviewed gardens have a legal contract and two of them do not. One of them is a squat, and the other lies on a private investor’s land, which is why they have no contract for the land. Motivations for creating the garden

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25 are lucid. Some people were already familiar with gardening, and wanted to expand the available space for themselves:

“Basically 3-4 people initiated it from [the neighborhood], mainly the people who live in

these front houses, they started doing gardening in their own gardens, like this already, and then they were looking at the patch of grass and thought, oh, we have more space here. Last year we did some guerilla gardening on a very small scale, I can show you which part was it on the field.” (Garden3 organizer)

“The people who started the garden already had other gardens at other places in the city, and wanted to have another place. I started the one at [a non-regulated hybrid urban

garden]. There was a garden called Swomp, it was evicted, so we wanted to find something

new. My idea was to have a garden for people with not much money to pay for the land, I wanted to make the garden for free. So the squatters and people without money are thrown here together…” (Garden13 organizer)

Both gardens are based on prior knowledge on gardening and gardeners have experience on maintaining a garden. The squat garden idea started as the former squat garden had to close up, so the people who were gardening there could move to a new place. Traces of contemporary activism can be found in both bottom-up gardens: Garden3 started with guerilla gardening, while Garden13 have squatted the land they use.

However, not all bottom-up gardeners are familiar with gardening when they decide to start an urban gardening project, but they have a stable group of people who can lean on each other, and they try urban gardening as a new activity in the neighborhood.

“The garden is a result of a previous working group. You probably have been in the back, we have been organizing [activities] I think 3 for years. A few of us organized a party once a year on the square. It was nice, but it was like a lot of energy, somebody was happy, somebody was not happy about it, so after 3 years we stopped. We decided to go on with the group, to get going and do something nice with the neighborhood, but different.” (Garden4

organizer)

The fourth garden – the one that is placed on a private land – had a quite different idea in mind. They wanted to create a garden where the people living close by can spend their time and do healthy activities, such as gardening:

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“Our original idea was to make just a fruit garden for elderly people, who live nearby in the home [name of elderly home] and in the surrounding area. They have not much possibility to go outside because they need extra care and attention. We would like them to participate as well, with all kinds of light gardening.” (Garden16 organizer)

The garden in this case was meant to be a place that provides light activity for elderly people, which is an exception to the above mentioned gardens. Here the garden is created for another group of people, not solely for the gardeners who started it:

“In the very beginning we were only with 3 volunteers. A few years before I have founded the “stichting”[foundation] because we liked the idea of making gardens in ‘grey neighborhoods’ together with volunteers from that neighborhood, and we needed a bank account for future subsidies. We were very optimistic back then.[…] So, after a while, the only one who still believed in gardening with neighbors was me. I went ‘hunting’ for plots and found this one.”

(Garden16 organizer)

Certainly, it is much harder to organize a gardening project if it misses a group of candidates who are willing to do it from the beginning. Setting up a garden and finding gardeners later on does make it more difficult to have a successful project.

5.2 Characteristics

Bottom-up urban gardens are initiated by a group of close friends or acquaintances, characterized by horizontal relations. The non-hierarchical connections result in a non-regulated operation of the garden. This means that gardeners can decide independently from each other how much effort they would like to put into the gardening project, there are minimum expectations. Bottom-up gardens are also highly or completely independent from any form of institutions. Gardens are rather small-scale, assembling a core group of 3-5 people and giving space to 10-15 plots overall. Support from the municipality somewhat vary across the gardens: two of them do not receive any support, one garden is accepted by the municipality as they signed a contract with them, and one garden received concrete help as well in the form of building fences and a water tap. However support varies in these terms, there is no financial support from the municipality or any other actors, only incidental help here and there:

“[The municipality is] probably going to make a water point here somewhere – a tap. One of us lives here at the back, now we are the only ones who can fill the water tanks from the

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house, all the others are without water. And now it looks like they are going to bring water.”

(Garden4 organizer)

Not all gardens have a legal contract. Some of them occupy unused construction sites and abandoned areas, while others have a signed contract with the municipality. Squatted urban spaces reuse lands where constructions have been shut off due to the crisis or bankruptcy, and sometimes even the developer allows the gardeners to use the land until the construction can start again. Indeed, the time limit is blurred, and without a contract the gardens can be swept off anytime. Municipalities ignore these types of gardens and show no interest in collaborating with them, or in supporting the project in any way. These gardens usually do not survive on a long term as they are not acknowledged, they last more-or-less a few years, but as they do not have any legal backup, there is nothing the gardeners can do to keep their project alive.

Squat gardens on construction sites. Source: L S Brody

The ground of legal gardens belongs to the municipality. The land is given out to the gardeners for self-use, which means that the contract allows gardeners to use the ground and consume what they produce. Contracts are typically signed for a one-year period, which get renewed either automatically, or by signing one for the next period. This gives a great flexibility to municipalities to have a chance in finishing up the project when a better alternative comes across – mostly in the form of a profitable investment, such as new buildings, bars or cafes.

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28 In general, gardens are very accessible, they are not fenced-off, protected, locked or closed up for the night, and anyone can visit them. Fences only appear if the type of planting requires it to be protected from small animals. Sustainment is sponsored from donations and from gardeners’ own pockets. Organizers claim that sustainment is possible from a very low budget as well. They use a lot of recycled material and things collected from the streets. Waste materials, for example car tires are commonly used to grow potatoes in them, as they can grow up high in the piled tires, and they do not use much horizontal space. Other gardens collect furniture, tables and benches from clear-outs from the streets, and reuse them in the garden.

Bottom-up garden with benches and chairs collected from streets and clear-outs. Source: L S Brody 5.3 Independent socialities

Bottom-up gardens operate without restrictions on conditions of participation and frequency of attendance. Anyone can join who is interested in gardening, and people are usually welcoming to new gardeners. Newly opened gardens sometimes set a fixed gardening day, but only for new participants to meet.

When gardens are based on close relationships, there is no struggle with inviting new participants, but neither is it a goal. These gardens do not try to reach out for more people to join, but are open if someone is willing to. Most gardens function with individual plots. This makes

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29 cooperation even easier, as working days do not have to be synchronized. However, some gardens also have a communal part. In the mixed-area gardens (communal and individual plots can be found as well) the core group takes care of the communal garden, and newcomers start with an individual plot, or helping out with the communal area. Communal parts can be beneficial to show beginners how gardening works. Some gardeners never learned about gardening or did it professionally, so people can learn a lot from each other, and share new ideas:

“[The garden is] completely self-run, and that’s why we also make small mistakes and we are naïve sometimes.” (Garden4 organizer)

Naivety refers to the lack of professional help in designing the garden, as most gardeners have a do-it-yourself design, without any green architect or professional gardener around.

Bottom-up garden without professional design. Source: L S Brody

Activities are mostly focused around leisure programs, such as having a garden party, cooking together from the harvest, or just doing something together:

“Last week there was a festival, with music and all kind of stuff, people were in the garden as well, so it works out…we plan to have a play or music on the field, camp fire, chilling and that kind of stuff” (Garden3 organizer)

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“We also stay here a lot. Now it’s a chatting place, having barbecue, and that’s what is nice about it: the neighborhood is together” (Garden4 organizer)

Activities do not focus on working on the garden, as recreation is given a greater emphasis in these gardens. There is no time schedule that people have to adapt to, therefore gardens aim to provide a place to relax and spend free time at:

“But as I said, we try to be very open, I never try to say to people I don’t know how to do it, I don’t try to keep it for myself. I like to see people coming, people interacting and start their own thing. It is a strong statement. Most of the people I met here, I would not have met them if I was at home. Or if I had my own garden at home, sitting on my balcony…You know in Holland it doesn’t come that natural, so…people sometimes play the guitar over there, and you listen to them, you ask something, you exchange plants, it just brings people together. It is very social, especially when the season is good, in the summer every second day we sit in the garden until late. You can bring some wine, make a salad, it is a nice way of sharing some extra things with friends.” (Garden4 organizer)

“Here people can ask each other, what they are growing, how you do this, so the community thing is going very good here. This is kind of a goal too, people sharing the garden and mixing with each other, exchanging knowledge.” (Garden13 organizer)

What is important for the gardeners is to create a lively space. As gardens are mostly temporary, goals rather focus on creating lively and open socialities.

5.4 Health and food awareness

Besides providing leisure space for the neighborhood, bottom-up initiated gardens show a commitment to healthy nutrition, and gardeners promote the importance of getting into contact with food, especially in the urban environment. They want to cultivate their own food, for safety and health reasons:

“In terms of food sovereignty, people want to have their own food, and near them, and not coming from Africa and have to be shifted around the supermarket. So to grow your own food near your own house, and to learn gardening… some people are experts already, and some people don’t know anything.” (Garden13 organizer)

The gardeners are not concerned with urban food insecurity in general. The goals they want to achieve are only for themselves. They do not try to change policies on food production:

Cultivating citizens? : urban gardens in a neoliberalizing city : a typology of urban gardening projects in Amsterdam