While official rhetoric of multiculturalism claims to value cultural diversity, everyday multiculturalism focuses on how people of diverse cultural backgrounds live together in their everyday lives. Research on everyday multiculturalism has documented ways through which people negotiate senses, sensibilities, emotionality, and relationality across intercultural contact zones. While recognizing the importance of human intentionality and community in conditioning coexistence, this article also points to the constitutive power of practice-based learning that emerges through the coming together of human and nonhuman beings. Drawing on a qualitative study of the learning experiences of six Chinese immigrants in community gardens on a university campus in Canada, this article shows three ways of learning that foster knowing, connecting, and hybrid knowledge production across cultures: (a) learning through communities of conviviality; (b) learning mediated through nonhuman things such as land, waste, and free-floating seeds; and (c) learning through assemblages that fold in culture, place, and space.
AkkermanS. F.BakkerA. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81, 132-169.
2.
AngI. (2001). On not speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. London, England: Routledge.
3.
EngeströmY. (1991). Developmental work research: Reconstructing expertise through expansive learning. In NurminenM.WeirG. (Eds.), Human jobs and computer interfaces (pp. 265-290). New York, NY: North-Holland.
4.
EngeströmY. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In EngeströmY.MiettinenR.PunamäkiR. (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 19-38). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
5.
FenwickT.EdwardsR.SawchukP. (2011). Emerging approaches to educational research: Tracing the socio-material. London, England: Routledge.
6.
FenwickT.JensenK.NerlandM. (2012). Sociomaterial approaches to reconceptualising professional learning and practice. Journal of Education and Work, 25(1), 1-13.
7.
GrahamS.ConnellJ. (2006). Nurturing relationships: The gardens of Greek and Vietnamese migrants in Marrickville, Sydney. Australian Geographer, 37, 375-393.
8.
HagerP.LeeA.ReichA. (Eds.). (2012). Practice, learning and change: Practice-theory perspectives on professional learning. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
9.
HallS. (2000). Conclusion: The multi-cultural question. In BarnorH. (Ed.), Un/settled multiculturalisms: Diasporas, entanglements, “transcriptions” (pp. 209-241). London, England: Zed Books.
10.
HarrisA. (2009). Shifting the boundaries of cultural spaces: Young people and everyday multiculturalism. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 15, 187-205.
11.
HeadL.MuirP.HampelE. (2004). Australian backyard gardens and the journey of migration. Geographical Review, 94, 326-347.
12.
JohnssonM. C.BoudD. (2010). Towards an emergent view of learning work. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 29, 359-372.
13.
KlindienstP. (2006). The earth knows my name: Food, culture, and sustainability in the gardens of ethnic Americans. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
LeopoldA. (1949). A sand county almanac. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
16.
Leont’evA. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
17.
LevkoeC. Z. (2006). Learning democracy through food justice movements. Agriculture and Human Values, 23(1), 89-98.
18.
MarkerM. (2006). After the Makah whale hunt: Indigenous knowledge and limits to multicultural discourse. Urban Education, 41, 482-505.
19.
McGregorD. (2005). Coming full circle: Indigenous knowledge, environment, and our future. American Indian Quarterly, 28, 385-410.
20.
MerriamS. B. (2002). Qualitative research in practice: Examples for discussion and analysis. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
21.
MorganG.RochaC.PoyntingS. (2005). Grafting cultures: Longing and belonging in immigrants’ gardens and backyards in Fairfield. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 26, 93-105.
22.
MundelE.ChapmanG. E. (2010). A decolonizing approach to health promotion in Canada: The case of the urban aboriginal community kitchen garden project. Health Promotion International, 25, 166-173.
23.
NealS.BennettK.CochraneA.MohanG. (2013). Living multiculture: Understanding the new spatial and social relations of ethnicity and multiculture in England. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 31, 308-323.
24.
NowickaM.VertovecS. (2013). Comparing convivialities: Dreams and realities of living-with-difference. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 17, 341-356.
25.
PittH. (2014, May). Therapeutic experiences of community gardens: Putting flow in its place. Health & Place, 27, 84-91.
26.
ShinewK. J.GloverT. D.ParryD. (2004). Leisure spaces as potential sites for interracial interaction: Community gardens in a segregated urban area. Journal of Leisure Research, 36, 336-355.
27.
SteinbergS. R.KincheloeJ. L. (2001). Setting the context for critical multi/interculturalism: The power blocs of class elitism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. In SteinbergS. R. (Ed.), Multi/intercultural conversations: A reader (pp. 3-30). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
28.
TamboukouM. (2010). Charting cartographies of resistance: Lines of flight in women artists’ narratives. Gender and Education, 22, 679-696.
29.
Von HassellM. (2002). The struggle for Eden: Community gardens in New York City. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
30.
VygotskyL. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
WalterP. (2012). Educational alternatives in food production, knowledge and consumption: The public pedagogies of Growing Power and Tsyunhehkw^. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 52, 573-594.
33.
WalterP. (2013). Theorising community gardens as pedagogical sites in the food movement. Environmental Education Research, 19, 521-539.
34.
WatsonS.SahaA. (2012). Suburban drifts: Mundane multiculturalism in outer London. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36, 2016-2034.
35.
WengerE. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
36.
WilsonK. (2003). Therapeutic landscapes and first nations peoples: An exploration of culture, health and place. Health and Place, 9, 83-93.
37.
WiseA. (2007, July). Multiculturalism from below: Transversal crossings and working class cosmopolitans. Paper presented at COMPAS Annual Conference, Oxford, England.
38.
WiseA. (2009). Everyday multiculturalism: Transversal crossings and working class cosmopolitans. In WiseA.ValayuthamS. (Eds.), Everyday multiculturalism (pp. 21-45). London: Palgrave.
39.
WiseA. (2010). Sensuous multiculturalism: Emotional landscapes of inter-ethnic living in Australian suburbia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36, 917-937.
