Conviviendo con el desprecio
4.1 LA DENUNCIA DE LA DISCRIMINACIÓN
Figure 100.Habitus and Taste’. Images taken by author. 2013
“Yes, everything I grow is organic. You know it’s fresh, where it came from, and know what went into it and that’s great, … but it’s not really about the organic, I mean if you really wanted organic food you could grow organic food in a black sack, on your window ledge, in your back-yard, in pots, tubs, anywhere …”
Robert. Socio-Organic Gardener. 2012
Introduction.
Cultivation practices permeate the data collected on allotment gardening in Dublin.
Interactions, images and allotment activities are underpinned by cultivation and reveal much about allotments: their fabric, the allotment culture and the social world of plot-holders, and are significant in helping shape its nature and the particular form it takes.
Practitioners discuss cultivation during interviews and when casually interacting with (unknown) others on site. They are keen to share their knowledge, produce and experiences and motivations for investing in UA. Their practices give shape to the material and social fabric of landscape, the allotment culture and plot-holders practices, actions and worldviews. They have a profound impact on transforming the urban, practitioners’
experiences of the urban and by extension, restoring a sense of belonging to place.
173 Traditionally, cultivating an allotment was predominantly a male preserve; the provenance of a hardy band of retired males eagerly working the land, manuring the soil and engaging in ritual activities that represented a different form of cultivation from the home garden.
Displays of straggling rows of carrots, sprouts and prize leaks for example were cultivated purely for subsistence and arranged for ease of cultivation, and not for the aesthetic, pedagogic or social value they provided (Crouch and Ward, 1997, my emphasis). Keeping a fine tilth15 was often considered the most important part of allotment gardening, and plot-holders prided themselves for their workmanship in terms of their produce and for transforming land seldom chosen for its horticultural potential (ibid). Their practices represented a return to the land, a connection with nature and provided a refuge from the world and sounds of home, and the tasks of cultivation were underpinned by ‘traditional’
forms of knowledge and biologically sound agricultural practices. Today however, cultivation practices on allotments convey a different story: they convey a story of resistance to the disconnection, distrust and disenchantment with modern food systems, to hegemonic ideologies and the disconnection from the land, nature, knowledge and practice and in particular, from the social relations inherent in the production and consumption of food. They also convey a story of (re)connection, reconciliation and counter-hegemony, and an explicit attempt by urban dwellers to (re)connect with the land, nature, knowledge and practice, and particularly others. Whilst much literature today tends to focus on contemporary food production systems through the lens of economic rationality (Carolan, 2012) (see below), this chapter attempts to re-balance current debates by bringing a sociological perspective to light. As a point of departure, the chapter examines why an increasing number of urban dwellers want to produce and consume their own locally grown
15Tilth: is a descriptor for soil that combines the properties of particle size, moisture content, degree of aeration, rate of water infiltration, and drainage into abbreviated terms in order to more easily present the agricultural prospects of a piece of land.
174 food. The evidence suggests that changes in food production systems have created a dependency on the global food industry, subjugated food production systems, created an antithesis between rural and urban, town and country and humans and nature, and generated hegemonic ideologies which have disconnected urban dwellers from the land, nature knowledge and practice and in particular, from the social relations inherent in the production and distribution of food. Moreover, such change has fostered growing concerns over the provenance, quality and content of food, environmental and health concerns and a growing awareness amongst the urban citizenry (and a new found interest) of the value of engaging in local food production. The chapter then examines how urban dwellers are resisting these dis-embedding social processes by engaging in the practices associated with cultivating urban land. I examine the various factors underpinning practice, and provide a detailed sociological analysis of the various approaches being employed.
In terms of cultivation practices, the chapter identifies three growing cultures, or what I refer to as ‘Fields of Action’: (1) Organic Cultivation, (2) Conventional/Indigenous Cultivation and, (3) Transitional-Organic Cultivation (see Fig. 7.2). I discuss each category, and offer a textured analysis and visual representation of the cultivation practices being employed. Building on Pierre’s Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ (1977), the chapter provides a ‘habitus continuum’ to illuminate the complexity of factors underpinning cultivation practices and the various strategies being employed. By engaging in the tasks of cultivation and employing specific practices on site, this chapter argues that urban dwellers are transcending the disconnections generated by modernity, and (re)connecting with the land, knowledge, practice and others. They are generating an understanding of food production, which is wrapped up in a particular set of relations which involves people being in intimate contact with what they eat, how it is produced, distributed, prepared and consumed (Carolan, 2012, my emphasis).
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