PSU / UQAM 2015
Agriculture MTL-PDX
  • Blog
  • MTL
  • PDX
  • About

Urban agriculture and gentrification in sustainable cities: a case study from Montreal and Portland

12/11/2015

22 Comments

 
We are writing a paper to present at the Association of American Geographers Annual Conference in San Francisco in April of 2016. The aim of the paper is to create space for urban agriculture (UA) practitioners, scholars, and policymakers to reflect upon, plan for, and potentially leverage the role of UA in cycles of investment and disinvestment. We point to the fact that UA is one of many interrelated factors that contribute to gentrification and displacement. We'd love feedback on the abstract in the comments and will post the paper here before the conference! Without further adieu .. 

Urban agriculture projects often locate in low-income neighborhoods where vacant lots and other spaces are relatively accessible to budding urban farmers, community gardeners, and food justice activists. Locating in these neighborhoods also helps enable the inclusion of marginalized communities – an objective that is often central to the mission of urban agriculture practitioners. Common goals include providing urban greenspace and community gathering space, offering gardening and nutrition education, and expanding fresh food options in the neighborhood. Yet, in providing these amenities, urban agriculture projects sometimes contribute to gentrification and therefore play a role in displacing the very communities they intend to serve. In this paper we explore these tensions in Portland, Oregon and Montreal, Quebec, two cities renowned for their vibrant urban agriculture scenes and innovations in urban sustainability planning. Based on intensive fieldwork in August 2015, our research includes over two-dozen semi-structured interviews with government officials, city planners, and urban agriculture practitioners, as well as site visits to collective and community gardens, commercial and non-profit farms, rooftop beehives, school gardens, community orchards, ecoquartiers and ecodistricts. We position urban agriculture practice as a spatial and cultural urban frontier implicated in the investment and disinvestment cycles of uneven development . We compare how the tensions between urban agriculture and gentrification manifest in these two North American cities, and we raise questions about what types of policy and planning—both within and beyond the realm of urban agriculture—might best serve existing communities in place and resist tendencies towards displacement and gentrification.

Diana, Amy, Dillon

22 Comments

Cultivating Image: Urban Agriculture as Spectacle in Portland and Montreal

12/2/2015

20 Comments

 
After our summer field work ended, the students from Portland State University split into three groups, each of which decided to explore different topics based on our findings. Over the next few months, all three groups will be sharing reports on our chosen topics.

You can read about the other two topics HERE and HERE.

Our group (Gwyn, Dirk, and Claire) has chosen to focus on how the image of urban agriculture (UA) has been deployed in Portland and Montreal, and for what purposes. We use Guy Debord’s classic work, The Society of Spectacle (1967), in order to interrogate how UA is increasingly being deployed as a form of ‘spectacle’. For Debord, the concept of the spectacle primarily refers to the intensification of capitalist development. Debord’s spectacle is characterized by the production and dissemination of images, which commodify and colonize spaces and social relations for the advancement of capital accumulation. In recent decades, the ‘spectacle’ has `become a touchstone for urban theorists engaging with the impact of increased cultural production and its urban manifestations. This includes the development of cultural amenities such as festivals, spaces of leisure, and mega-events. Beyond simple representation, Debord’s spectacle embodies the tension between emancipatory practice and the commodification of everyday life.

As cities seek to develop global brands built on sustainability and innovation, “green” practices such as urban agriculture (UA) are increasingly deployed as yet another cultural amenity. Although the literature has extensively examined UA, its spectacular dimensions have yet to be fully explored. Drawing on fieldwork from Montréal, Québec and Portland, Oregon we critically and dialectically analyze UA initiatives in order to understand how these practices reflect the contradictions and conflicts inherent to capitalist urban systems. Our analysis reveals two distinct forms of ‘spectacle’ associated with UA; (1) an abstract and performative spectacle related to the appearance and image of UA, and (2) a concrete, grounded version embodied in material urban space. Ultimately, we hope to reveal how UA is simultaneously subsumed by capitalist accumulation, and deployed as an emancipatory tool - as the two types of spectacle - albeit differently in each city. 
20 Comments

    Who we are / 
    Qui Nous Sommes

    We're a group of graduate students from Portland State University, l'Université du Québec à Montréal, and l'Université de Montréal. We're studying urban agriculture in Portland, Oregon and Montréal, Québec. Follow along as we document our research during the summer and fall of 2015!

    INSTAGRAM

    Archive

    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.