Paper short abstract:

This paper is an ethnographic account of resistance found in a public housing community garden. The garden is state-funded and managed by a not-for-profit. I explore the contradictions of and resistance to this formal government initiative, particularly when it is carried out in the third sector.

Paper long abstract:

Community gardens, particularly those targeted at individuals and communities suffering from the effects of poverty, are often advocated as a means to address urban food insecurity. The gardeners that are the informants for this paper are all residents of the public housing estate and live on low incomes. Additionally, they are predominantly elderly, first-generation migrants.

In this paper, I explore the attempt to control space, which is founded in the physical limitations established by those who have authority over the community garden. How does the control over this space represent a model that replicates neoliberal governmentality? And, moreover, what are the gardeners' responses to this governance model?

I examine the everyday behaviours and interpersonal relationships of the gardeners. I argue that the gardeners' seemingly mundane values and actions actually constitute a form of resistance to the not-for-profit organisation and thus, the state. I highlight the system of control that exists within this space and the tensions this system cultivates between the community gardeners and the state. What does this attempt at creating a food system tell us about the relationship between the state and its marginalised citizens?