Urban School Gardens as Convivial Spaces: Climate Change Imperatives for Mindful Learning and Eating

• In Event: Academ-ecologies: Learning, Unlearning, and Resistance

Abstract

This paper builds on Illich’s framework of conviviality to address climate change especially as it affects our connection with food in urban areas. With tens of thousands of school gardens that have sprouted and are being used as milieu for academic learning and for growing food, teaching children and youth to be connected to their bodies and soils by growing, harvesting, and cooking, this paper makes the case that we can find in these urban school gardens Illichian convivial spaces where climate change imperatives make both mindful learning and mindful eating are possible. Examples from site visits to school gardens in four urban school districts will be shared.

Author

• Dilafruz R. Williams, Portland State University