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Accepted Paper:
Negotiations in more-than-human conflicts in urban allotment gardens: learning to share with awkward others
Karolina Lukasik
(University of Helsinki)
Urban allotment gardens are multispecies spaces and sites of more-than-human conflicts. The following study, a multispecies ethnography of conflict negotiation and resolution, offers a way of inclusion of awkward others.
Paper long abstract:
Though designed to promote human self-sufficiency and health, urban allotment gardens are also home to a multitude of other beings, including plants, bacteria, fungi, insects, birds, and mammals. They are, by necessity, multispecies spaces where the gardeners become entangled with the nonhuman other and where more-than-human interactions and conflicts play out every day. My research focuses on the negotiations between the humans and the nonhumans regarding the use of garden space and time. These negotiations may take form of putting up barriers—and breaking them, or placing fake nests—and using them as food source. Drawing from my studies in two urban allotment gardens in the Finnish Capital Region, I propose a multispecies ethnography combining in-depth interviews with human participants and ecological observations of nonhuman participants using trail cameras. This method highlights the agency and needs of all participants in the negotiations—and in conflict resolution. Examples from my data show the active role of hares, magpies, rats and other awkward others in the allotment gardens and offer a way of including them in our research and our social worlds.