Observing guerrillas in the wild : reinterpreting practices of urban guerrilla gardening

Adams, D; Hardman, M

Abstract

Despite an emerging literature on guerrilla gardening as a political practice in public spaces, with few exceptions, these accounts theorise it as working against many corporate
and bureaucratic forms of power. Using the example of ‘F Troop’—a group of gardeners operating on a site in an English midland city—this paper focuses on the practices of urban guerrilla gardening in order to illustrate that these are perhaps not as ‘resistant’ or ‘celebratory’ as previous accounts have suggested. Rather, this paper draws on ethnographic data to focus attention on the micro politics of garden activism, arguing that the social backgrounds and motivations of those involved in guerrilla gardening and their relationship with other users of the space surrounding the dig site are also important—but largely underacknowledged—aspects of guerrilla gardening.

Citation

Adams, D., & Hardman, M. (2014). Observing guerrillas in the wild : reinterpreting practices of urban guerrilla gardening. Urban Studies, 51(6), 1103-1119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013497410

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jul 29, 2013
• Publication Date: Mar 28, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jan 20, 2015
• Journal: Urban Studies
• Print ISSN: 0042-0980
• Electronic ISSN: 1360-063X
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1103-1119
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013497410
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042098013497410
• Related Public URLs: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals/Journal201866