PhD research: summary
The PhD research subject is community food gardening on six London housing estates. The work is participatory, meaning that I spend time with food growers in their gardeners, working along side them to gain an understanding the practice they are involved in. The main research happened 2010.
In a series of interviews, estate residents explicitly expressed frustration at the “blank”, “bleak”, “disused”, “neglected”, “barren”, “grey” and “derelict” landscapes surrounding their homes, voicing instead a desire to re-use them “productively” through food-gardening. However, the PhD argues that while food is enunciated as the primary concept, it is a set of primary practices, such as the construction of the self-built, food-producing landscape, the creation of shared social narratives and the interaction with natural resources that dominate.
Below are several images taken during the research project.

