ABSTRACT
Social practices come and go. They emerge, merge, evolve and disappear amidst a range of other social practices. How these dynamics of change take place, how we can identify emerging social practices and how social practices develop over time are interesting questions, the answers to which can contribute towards a better understanding of what makes up a practice and how different social practices interact. Grasping how social practices emerge, persist and disappear also aids understanding and assessing social change from the perspective of practice theory (Warde, 2005; Shove et al., 2012). In this chapter we aim to address issues related to practice theory and social change by taking a closer look at the practices of growing food in urban environments. Our analysis will be guided by the following questions: what exactly do we mean when referring to ‘urban food growing’ as a social practice, and how does this specific practice relate to other relevant social practices already existing and unfolding in urban spatial contexts? In recent years, urban food growing has attracted much interest from science, the public and policy in OECD societies (Kneafsey et al., 2008; Lovell, 2010; Oosterveer and Sonnenfeld, 2012; Sonnino and Spayde, 2014; Steel, 2008). While often framed as an emerging food movement (see for example Mah and Thang, 2013; Renting et al., 2012; Specht et al., 2014), growing food in cities is not a new practice per se. The United States, for example, saw victory gardens during World Wars I and II (Kortright and Wakefield, 2011; Lawson, 2005) and a community gardening movement that took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Lawson, 2005; Saldivar-Tanaka and Krasny, 2004). In Europe, allotment gardens have existed for centuries. As early as in the fourteenth century, Dutch workers grew food to supplement their diets in rented gardens or on land donated by philanthropists (Berendsen, 2001). Today, what we observe is a vast diversity of urban food growing projects, ranging from small-scale window farming to allotment and community gardens to large-scale rooftop farms and hydroponic greenhouses. Some scholars (Cohen et al., 2012) have categorized urban food growing initiatives into community gardens (which are managed by a group of
local individuals or volunteers); institutional gardens and farms (which are affiliated to schools, hospitals or churches); community farms (which are managed by a non-profit organization); and commercial farms (which are managed as forprofit businesses). In both public and academic discourses, the various types of urban food growing tend to be subsumed under the notion of ‘urban agriculture’ (McClintock, 2014). However, given the diversity of urban food growing initiatives, one might wonder if it is warranted to talk about one social practice? More specifically, we in this chapter address the question whether or not and to what extent one should regard urban food growing as a social practice in terms of what Elizabeth Shove has labelled a ‘recognizable entity’ (Shove et al., 2012). Although it may be analytically helpful to employ an umbrella concept such as urban agriculture, one then risks losing sight of the multiple logics, dynamics and forms which are present within the field of urban food growing. For example, while in former times, the practice was linked to meanings of selfsufficiency and community empowerment (Lawson, 2005), urban food growing today is increasingly framed as an innovative activity for young and hip urbanites who want to foster new skills and capabilities, gain new experiences and help change the relationship that urban people have with food and the environment. Thus, categorizing all urban food growing initiatives under the heading of urban agriculture would make us treat them as if they were characterized by the same doings and sayings, which might not necessarily be the case. In this chapter, we use social practice theory to gain a closer and more nuanced view of the heterogeneity of food growing activities unfolding in the urban centres of OECD countries today. We focus on developments in OECD countries because, contrary to developing countries, for many years, growing food in cities was considered a disappearing phenomenon. Over the past decade however, this social practice seems to have become part of a modern urban lifestyle. In the United States, for example, the recent popularity of urban food growing is reflected in the vast number of websites and blogs, the growing number of dedicated print and online publications, the emergence of educational training programmes as well as in the coverage of the topic in United States news media. Also in a large number of cities, for instance Toronto, Malmö and Barcelona, practices of growing food in the city are supported by municipal authorities since they are considered to be key elements of the sustainability profile of the city. By employing a social practice perspective we go beyond a restricted perspective on food growing per se, aiming to develop a more grounded understanding of the social dynamics that are taking place. This enables us to identify differences between multiple urban food growing initiatives and assess whether urban food growing can and should be defined as a new emerging social practice, as a resurgent practice, or as a combination of both. For this purpose, we apply Shove et al.’s (2012) concepts of competences, materials and meanings as integrated elements of social practices to two examples of urban food growing:
an urban community garden in Amsterdam and an entrepreneurial urban farm in New York City. By choosing two cases that appear from the outset to be rather dissimilar, we hope to gain a more in-depth understanding of how the meanings, competences and materials associated with urban food growing may differ. In this way, we contribute to the discussion on practice theory and research by further developing the understanding of what actually constitutes a social practice, by specifying in empirical detail the elements or components which make up a practice, and by showing how different practices interact and how these interrelations co-define what the practice is about. The two cases are likely to show pathways of development which are different because of the interrelationships they establish with other practices over time. By following their pathways of change we are able to better grasp the kind of practice dynamics at work. In the next section we provide arguments for conceptualizing urban food growing as a social practice. Subsequently, we present the two case studies and then compare them in order to gain a better understanding of their characteristics and dynamics as social practices. Finally, we present our main conclusions and discuss how studying empirical cases is instrumental for deepening the theoretical understanding of how social practices develop and change over time.
