Search
On-Site Program Calendar
Browse By Day
Browse By Time
Browse By Person
Browse By Room
Browse By Unit
Browse By Session Type
Search Tips
Change Preferences / Time Zone
Sign In
Bluesky
Threads
X (Twitter)
YouTube
Objectives
In mainstream discourses, community gardens are understood as sites that support the well-being of vulnerable groups such as immigrants, aiding their integration into society (Tracey et al., 2020). Such discourses however neglect the more complex and nuanced dimensions of placemaking efforts undertaken by immigrants as they navigate unfamiliar terrains, both physically and socially. In this context, our study illustrates the ‘rhizomatic trajectories’ (Semetsky, 2007) of racialized immigrant gardeners volunteering at a community farming site in Canada as they navigate growing edible plants commonly found back in their home countries.
Methods and Data Sources
Our participatory design study, in collaboration with community partners, generates a public-facing video and illustrative story-based mapping to highlight agentic actions by immigrant gardeners who are often overshadowed in the scenes of place-based climate actions (Bang &Vossoughi, 2016). We explore visual narratives focussing on the evolving relationships and placemaking perspectives of the growers through detailed interviews and participant-observer interactions. Through the co-design process of public stories, we have been collecting both interviews and video data of immigrant gardeners in action. Our analysis focuses on how immigrant resettlement through community gardening initiatives involves active learning and unlearning of food growing practices, as well as negotiating aspects of land that remind them of the alien conditions, and by extension their own evolving socio-political identities.
Theoretical Framework
We explore the visceral, affective encounters (Goodman, 2016) with plants, land, humans and more-than-human (MTH) communities (Bang & Marin, 2015). Rather than being assimilated into the new culture and surroundings, we argue that immigrants actively engage in Third Space-making (Gutiérrez, 2008) which involves adapting features of their home ecology and environment into the settled land thus countering settler imaginations of simple integration. The challenges also provide them with opportunities to create newer imaginaries of learning and flourishing through embodied engagements with the evolving landscape and communities comprising different ethnicities and places.
Findings
Their narratives reflect a keen attunement to the micro-climate stemming from the pragmatic need to grow edible plants, and thus offer an alternate lens to understand climate change from immigrant perspectives who are more familiar with change and displacement. More-than-human entanglements also emerge as the immigrant gardeners build amicable relationships with plants generally considered as weeds at the new site, thus unsettling categorisations of “what is local” and “who is local.” We extend “how emotions and affective relationships also shape the practices and politics surrounding the procurement of food” (Hayes-Conroy & Hayes-Conroy, 2013, p. 88). In doing so, we explore the dynamic relationality involved in growing food, as well as examine intergenerational learning/teaching aspirations voiced by immigrant gardeners, most of whom feel the absence of elders in their family owing to displacement.
Significance
Through stories brought forth through this study, we characterize the emerging dimensions of “response-abilities” (Haraway, 2008; Kayumova et al., 2019) co-created by the volunteers, facilitators and MTH beings as different visions of placemaking are enacted. We further explore how food thus takes on the role of invoking cultural memories while also creating stories of future possibilities.