A Respite from the Neoliberal Society: An Ethnography of Communal Style Community Gardening

Background and Purpose

A large volume of research on community gardens have focused on the community aspect of community gardens. Despite growing interest in community gardens’ potential role in creating or strengthening the community, there has been a lack of attention to the meaning of community in community garden research. Community is often considered a homogeneous concept which is misleading and results in failing to differentiate the meanings underlying the word community (Gold, 2005). This study is an inquiry into the meaning of a community in a community garden. It particularly focuses on the communal style community garden and this working arrangement shapes the meaning of community.

Methods

This study is an ethnography of a communal style community garden experience. The researcher conducted a participant observation as a member of an individual plot-based community garden from 2016 to 2018 as well as a member of a communal style community garden from 2017 to 2019 in St. Louis, which has more than 230 gardens and has the second largest network of community gardens in the U.S. On top of field notes, data were generated from semi-structured interviews of the 13 members of the communal style garden.

Findings:

The result showed that communal style working arrangements and food distribution was a strong factor in maintaining the community aspect of the garden experience. Most were motivated by and were striking a balance between seeking a community in the local neighborhood as well as an individual or family activity for enjoyment rather than work. While the community aspect of community gardening is overly emphasized and often considered panacea for community building in previous literature, the sense of community and perception of community vary among its members. However, the communal style community garden provides a respite from a neoliberal societal order for its participants. Furthermore, unlike many communal style gardens that often fails, the dedication and the expertise of the garden leader was critical in sustaining the garden.

Discussion

While many gardens start with a lofty goal of building a community through a community garden, most gardeners do not have the time, the strong motivation, nor the dedication in building a community through a community garden while maintaining their busy lives. The social work practice implication for this study is the importance of aligning the purpose of the community garden to its logistics when starting a community garden and the potential role of social workers as facilitators in assisting this process.