Case studies Finland
Allotment gardening, urban ecologies and sustainable urbanism
We study the ongoing reorganization of allotment gardening in Finnish cities. We use focused case studies on multidisciplinary basis and are interested in the following questions:
- Practices and collective nature of allotment gardening as a part of urban dynamics
- How allotment gardening is embedded in urban governance and political processes
- The creative potential of allotment gardening for the conceptual understanding of nature in cities:
- definitions of urban ecologies, human-ecologies, and cultural ecosystem services
- Capacity for local action, commons used in gardening
- Capabilities
- Political and physical possibility spaces for gardening
- Socio-technical improvisation related to gardening
- New design ideas for combining urban development and the biological potential of growth
- Research of sustainable urbanism using allotment gardening as a case
Duration:
Started in 2010, now we are in the middle of three funded projects with plans toward 2015. In our projects, allotment gardening is one theme among larger research setting of urban studies, and usually 2-4 researchers have participated in case studies.
Funding Agencies:
The Finnish Cultural Foundation 2010-12
The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES) 2010-12
The Academy of Finland 2011-15