Presentation short abstract

Urban gardening is a practice already acknowledged to support degrowth. In my paper I explore how selected gardens in the city of Turin practice everyday degrowth, intentionally or not, and how their practices can be construed as postfigurative.

Presentation long abstract

The research proposes to understand the role of selected urban gardens in the city of Turin in supporting degrowth, intentionally or not. As the city has a long tradition of urban gardening, I propose that this could be understood as a postfigurative practice (Muñoz-Sueiro and Kallis, 2024). Beyond exploring this category through urban gardening, I look at how the gardens align with degrowth values, and with the principles of sharing, reuse, and sufficiency (Krähmer & Cristiano, 2022) which support the right to the ecological city (Krähmer, 2024). I propose that beyond actually enacting degrowth through their activities, the urban gardens also support it through incremental changes in habitus in the areas they are active, through active citizenship, community building, and educational activities for citizens of all ages. Due to high variety in garden typologies, from types of administration, to types of cultivation, there is also variation in the way each garden embodies or not these principles, and how they might contribute or not to degrowth through their practices. In a city deemed as one of the most polluted in Italy, degrowth and ecology become highly relevant, as do the policies and practices supporting them.

The research is part of a masters’ degree and is ongoing.