Making a Home in the City
Urban Gardening as Practices of Domestication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37062/sf.63.26373Keywords:
domestication, ethnography, urban gardening, public spaceAbstract
The aim of the article is to explore urban gardening as a form of domestication of public space. The article proposes a framework in which domestication is, on the one hand, about ways to create homelike qualities and a sense of belonging in the city, and on the other hand, about ways to enclose a place for one’s own and exclusive use. Based on an organizational ethnographic study of urban gardening in Gothenburg, the article highlights how urban gardening can contribute to creating homelike and inviting qualities in the city, but also what inclusions and exclusions the place-making through gardening implies. The analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews in four urban gardening associations in Gothenburg and the surrounding area, characterized by different positions in the segregated city and different social compositions among the gardeners.
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