Urban agriculture as a field: Governance, communication and collective action

Abstract

In this chapter, we argue that urban food networks (UFNs) are a format of collective action that seeks to manage social change within the ‘field’ of urban agriculture (UA). Our intention here is to argue that a field perspective is helpful when studying UA as a facet of social life in the city. This is because fields highlight the relationships between different actors, institutions, ideas and values, and they frame UA as one way of trying to influence social routines in the city. By the same token, UA can be a reflection of dynamism in social routines in the city. City food production is organisationally complex, culturally symbolic and politically contested. For some years, research on UFNs has been rich and this is linked partly to the wealth of micro case studies that exist. The field framework offers two distinct potentials for UFN scholarship. Firstly, it presents UFNs as an integral part of the varied picture of city food: cities include UFNs because networks of people join together to collectively respond to perceived opportunities or challenges associated with dominant food actors. Secondly, the field concept connects micro-networks with forces of influence at the macro-level, suggesting that, in complex social systems such as cities, food activism is one way in which social life is re-created. Such arguments indicate the adaptability of field theory to UA in general, while an examination of UFN social media communications reveals the empirical potentials of the concept, strengthening the potential for analytical connections between UA in ‘south’ and ‘north’.