Nathan McClintock, Portland State University, Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning
This mixed-methods project examines urban agriculture’s integument in a “sustainability fix” – where urban agglomerations of green production/consumption drive processes of displacement of the region’s working poor. In addition to revealing the spatial and socioeconomic relationships between urban gardens and gentrification, I’m examining how a diversity of motivations undergird urban agriculture practice with often contradictory outcomes, as some productive spaces are valorized by the neoliberal logics of the Sustainable City, while others serve as sites of resistance to these same processes. Central to the project are case studies of actually existing examples of a more “just sustainability”, where low-income residents, people of color, and community activists who engage in urban agriculture are using an equity framework to subvert, appropriate, and/or rework the region’s dominant eco-centric discourse to explicitly incorporate social justice claims. My current work in Portland integrates geospatial analysis of 3,000+ urban gardens, a mail survey of ~400 gardeners, in-depth interviews, and analysis of municipal policy and discourse. I’ve begun additional fieldwork in Vancouver, BC, and will revisit my dissertation field site of Oakland, CA in the future.
Twitter: @McClintockPDX
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