Abstract
Due to largely opaque processes of consumption and production in urbanised spaces, the dependence of humans on food ecosystems is largely invisibilised. To counter this challenge, a growing awareness about industrial food production and consumption patterns along with a need to create alternatives has given rise to a range of small-scale food-growing initiatives in urban areas. This study focuses on urban spaces in seven Indian cities to examine how alternative, localised practices—such as urban gardening—can foster civic participation and promote relational well-being. Based on a qualitative study involving growers’ narratives, we argue that urban gardening can nurture a generative space to meaningfully engage with the local socio-ecological systems. Drawing on Soja’s concept of ‘Thirdspace’, the study explores ways in which the gardening space serves as a hybrid site embedding growers’ evolving imagination and negotiated meaning of cultivated spaces. The study characterises ways in which community gardening can be an educational, social practice to bridge personal motivations with political commitments aligned with ecological sustainability.
Introduction
The question of urban sustainability in India is a pressing challenge, with almost every city struggling for access to basic resources such as air, water, housing and food. Studies predict that 68 per cent of the world’s population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050, with the largest growth spurt being in the global South (United Nations, 2019). The urban imagination of built spaces and controlled demarcation of nature has, however, been constantly questioned within the messy entanglements of city life, with more-than-human (Bang & Marin, 2015) and human agency actively redrawing the contours of human–nature relations. Rademacher and Sivaramakrishnan (2021) emphasise that cities are best understood as interconnected points within a broader urban spectrum, which includes diverse landscape entities, social structures and ecological systems. Examining nature within urban environments requires exploring how these elements interact across spatial and social dimensions within this continuum.
In the traditional linear model of resource extraction and consumption, cities are often viewed as ‘one-way resource sinks’ where natural resources and energy extracted from distant areas are used to support urban life (Gandy, 2004). Additionally, cities produce vast amounts of waste and degraded materials, creating a ‘metabolic rift’ due to the imbalance between the inflow and outflow of resources (McClintock, 2010). The concentration of resources and population makes cities especially vulnerable to rising climate risks and associated socio-ecological challenges, such as pollution, food and water insecurity, and migration driven by environmental distress. Yet, these spaces also embody the tensions between human activities and natural processes manifested in unique biodiversity or ecosystems afforded by cities. The transdisciplinary field of urban ecology recognises the embeddedness of human society in larger socio-ecological systems and seeks to explore how people engage with the natural environment and vice versa. Given the trend of urbanisation, it is clear that the design of cities and how we live in them will play a key role in facing the challenges of sustainability. These concerns are also marked by deep spatial, ecological and socio-economic divides that define cities. Recognising and nurturing rich urban ecosystems amidst cities presents numerous challenges as well as opportunities. Thus, the nature of cities and the nature in cities matter (Nagendra, 2018). Any discussion on interventions focused on sustainability and ecological well-being thus must include a framework of urban spaces.
Despite the challenges, a growing school of thought and practice under civic environmentalism (DeLind & Bingen, 2008; Krasny & Tidball, 2012) aims at generating positive ecological and social outcomes in human-dominated landscapes through participatory environmental restoration and management initiatives, which in turn are inseparable from questions of environmental justice. This article focuses on urban gardening initiatives as a domain to explore changes in human–nature relationships mediated by the growing of edible plants. Food systems offer a tangible manifestation of the metabolic rift created due to the industrial crop production techniques and supply chains that have made possible storage, transport and consumption of food over thousands of kilometres (Kumar, 2023). Food production and consumption processes are intimately connected with urbanisation and ecological issues, but these connections are not conspicuous. Frazier (2018) highlights how food serves as a meaningful lens to examine the deep connections between bodies and urban spaces. This is because food both literally and metaphorically embodies the forces shaping social and spatial dynamics.
This study is largely focused on small-scale food-growing initiatives given that the home and surroundings serve as a space for enacting food practices, cultural rituals and personal identities. These practices do not occur in isolation—they are shaped by wider social, economic and environmental factors such as food prices, availability and evolving food cultures. In this sense, food connects both to everyday household dynamics and to larger societal shifts, illustrating its central role in shaping both local and wider changes (Shillington, 2013).
Urban Gardening as Sites of Socio-ecological Systems
Urban farming, broadly understood as the growing and processing of food-related crops and the rearing of livestock within or in the vicinity of urban areas, has emerged as a common feature of many individual and community-based initiatives (Mougeot, 2006, p. 4). The connection between environmental actions and farming activities is succinctly captured by Wendell Berry’s statement, ‘Eating is an agricultural act’ (1990, p. 216). Linking the act of consuming food to the conditions under which food is grown and brought to our plates requires a systemic way of thinking about the human–nature relationship. Dehaene et al. (2016) argue that urban farming initiatives have the potential to consider hyper-local production and consumption of food along with creative ways to challenge the commodification of food and agriculture.
Community farming requires a constant dialogue between practitioners to share the knowledge and skills involved in various tasks, which strengthens feelings of community belonging as people exchange ideas and thoughts. Scholars have referred to the active role that local communities play in restoring and managing urban green spaces for ecological, social and economic benefits as civic ecology initiatives. These initiatives often involve citizens coming together to create and maintain gardens, often in neglected or underutilised urban areas, transforming them into vibrant spaces for food production, environmental education and community engagement (Kudryavtsev, 2013; Nettle, 2016). The potential for civic activism in urban gardening stems from the idea that the activities usually have a strong social component that fosters community organisation. Establishing and maintaining urban gardens requires significant social coordination and physical effort. The process of preparing a site for cultivation helps participants engage with urban systems, for example, the circulation of essential resources such as food, water and energy. Gardeners often work on improving soil quality over time, which involves a cycle of planting, cultivating and harvesting. While conventional urban spaces have developed along the lines of socio-economic segregation and displacement of ecological systems, spaces that allow people to interact, share experiences and work together can afford generative disruptions to shape shared environments. Civic ecology initiatives can empower individuals to take collective action in shaping their urban environment, fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility towards the ecosystem in the face of urban challenges (Krasny & Tidball, 2008).
The participatory culture in these initiatives, especially from the point of view of expanding notions of sustainability, is a less-understood phenomenon. In recent years, India has also witnessed a small but noticeable trend of urban community farms, with food safety and ecological integrity being the prime motivation. Several start-ups have facilitated a nascent interest in growing food by offering a host of services and materials to develop rooftop farms. Examples include iKheti, Edible Routes, Homecrop and Squarefoot Farmers. In states like Kerala, urban home gardening has been promoted through various government interventions and people’s initiatives involving distribution of subsidised ready-to-start gardening units, each containing 25 growbags planted with vegetable saplings (Pinheiro & Govind, 2024). This trend is accompanied by a search for and revival of ecologically sound methods of farming that are embedded in traditional practices. A study by Koduganti and Patil (2024) analysed various socio-economic factors contributing to practices of urban gardening in Indian cities. They found that the scale and nature of urban gardening are shaped by several contextual factors, such as the availability of space and resources. These factors determine whether small- or large-scale spaces are cultivated and the type of farming/gardening practised—whether in rented spaces, informal settlements or areas where pots and recycled materials are used. The lease of the land (rented or owned) also plays a role, as temporary or informal spaces often limit the ability to incorporate sustainable practices like composting or water recycling. Their study also indicated that individual goals and perceptions of gardening benefits are shaped by personal experiences, while local knowledge allows practitioners to adapt and blend traditional methods with modern approaches.
India has a lot of potential to develop urban home gardening initiatives across cities and towns. With adequate planning and support systems, urban home gardens can become sites for the integrated production of fruits, vegetables, poultry and small livestock, depending on the specific context. Moreover, they can alleviate the issue of urban waste by integrating food production with household waste management (Di Fiore et al., 2024). By doing so, urban and peri-urban farming can help address the interconnected challenges of food, energy, water, health and livelihoods. Urban farming in India, especially in metropolitan cities, also encompasses technology-aided, capital-intensive entrepreneurial initiatives such as hydroponics, vertical farming and aquaponics. However, these technologies require careful scrutiny of motives and processes (Kotsila et al., 2021). The mere practice of urban farming does not ensure sustainable outcomes. Although such enterprises shorten the urban food supply chain, their promotion should be based on a holistic and nuanced understanding of their functioning in intensive production methods and external dependence on inputs. The potential of local urban food systems in promoting sociocultural and ecological sustainability needs to be researched from various perspectives (Frazier, 2018). In the Indian context, relatively few studies have focused on how the activities inform or shape growers’ perspectives towards the natural environment and the lived space around them.
Conceptual Framework
The study conceptually explores urban gardening as a process that has the potential to reconsider the material and social infrastructure of urban spaces by invoking new forms of agency. Drawing on Soja’s (2010) call to attend to spatial dynamics as constitutive of human experiences, power relations and cultural meanings, we explore the contours of urban gardens as ‘Thirdspace’ making (Soja, 1996). The concept emerges from his trialectic framework comprising ‘Firstspace’, defined as the empirically observable tangible and physical environment; ‘Secondspace’, the aspirational or imagined representations of space, shaped by cultural narratives, ideologies and perceptions; and Thirdspace, an amalgamation of the first two, representing lived experiences that are simultaneously real and imagined, objective and subjective. We use Thirdspace as an interpretive lens to highlight how urban gardens can function as both material landscapes and sites of memory and identity (Tornaghi, 2017). The interplay between food, space and identity exemplifies the hybrid nature of urban gardening, where past and present, local and transnational, coexist in everyday practices. Community-run edible gardens do not have clear identities and occupy an ambiguous position in cities, as they are resistant to binary categorisations (wild vs maintained; public vs private; subsistence vs commercial). The interstitial characteristics remain open for dynamic meaning-making by the urban growers who are simultaneously affected by and affecting the space (Pilflod Larsson & Giritli Nygren, 2024). In paying attention to the social and material aspects of urban gardening practice, we examine ways in which the production and management of urban space by inhabitants offer avenues for reconceptualising and transforming nature as imagined in cities. Instead of being merely functional green areas, community gardens can operate as experimental spaces where new urban imaginaries are co-created. This aligns with Soja’s vision of Thirdspace as a liberatory concept that enables alternative spatial futures beyond parochial urban planning models. This study attempts to explore the nascent efforts and tensions existing in various urban gardening initiatives as growers engage in Thirdspace making. Specifically, we ask, how do the gardening activities shape the lived experiences of the growers and unsettle spatial configurations of urban spaces?
Research Approach and Methodology
This project aims to contribute to ongoing discussions and policy debates around urban gardening as a source for recreation, livelihood, well-being, education and even social resistance. Our aim was to amplify the voices of practitioners and gain a deeper understanding of the scope, motivations and challenges involved in sustaining food gardens across the study sites. In the spirit of co-creating knowledge through active participant engagement, we focused on highlighting specific histories, diverse perspectives and geographical contexts.
Our methodology involved interviewing a wide range of practitioners between February and August 2022. Initially, over 30 individuals were identified through various online and social media platforms. We drew on our long-time association with diverse urban gardening and food activism networks. The first author has volunteered with community gardens in Mumbai for over 6 years and co-designed a school terrace edible garden as part of her doctoral dissertation (Dutta & Chandrasekharan, 2025). The second author has actively participated in sustainable food initiatives and co-founded the Millet Project (see
While we began the project with certain assumptions about the practices, materials and spaces involved in urban gardening, we soon found ourselves embracing the dynamic range of perspectives and identities reflected in each respondent’s work. The interviews evolved into invitations for further dialogue and explorations into the situated nature of various urban gardening activities. This sense of openness and ongoing inquiry became fertile ground for generating new questions and perspectives, rather than imposing a fixed direction on the narratives. Our project was driven by two overarching questions:
What practices and perspectives characterise urban gardening initiatives in India? How can these practices and ideas foster greater civic participation through reconfiguring the scope of urban spaces to grow food?
Our goal was to generate a resource of ‘actionable knowledge’ for those interested in contributing to the creation of sustainable food systems. To explore these questions, we conducted interviews with 15 individuals from 7 cities—Pune, Kolkata, Mumbai, Gandhinagar, Adilabad, Anand and Bengaluru (Table 1). We used the snowball sampling method (Parker et al., 2019) to highlight the diversity of practices and approaches within urban farming. We also invited expert practitioners who have been leading community-oriented gardening initiatives to author specific articles on plant care, watering, harvesting, seed-saving and composting, among other topics. Ethical protocols, including seeking consent and ensuring voluntary participation, were followed as approved by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) Research Ethics Committee.
Profiles of Individuals Interviewed (Anonymised).
As we engaged in these conversations, we recognised that rather than aiming to represent the diversity of Indian contexts, these narratives were intended to spark further inquiry and reflection in the broader field of civic ecology. For example, we reconsidered traditional ideas around labour (often associated with youth or unskilled workers), care (typically linked to female participation) and entrepreneurship (often focused on economies of scale and innovation). Through our discussions, we encountered senior citizens taking up gardening, men carefully tending to balcony spaces and social entrepreneurs integrating ecological sustainability as a core element of their business models.
Findings: Politics of Dwelling Through Gardening Practices
The interviews revealed how growers experienced agency in changing their lived environment through gardening activities. Through participating in various activities involving plant care, soil health and harvesting, among others, they experienced a ‘personal transformation’ shaped by the perspectives it offered (Hards, 2011), which were reinforced by feedback from peers and more-than-human manifestations in the form of harvest, critters, pollinators, birds, etc. This was reflected in growers’ narratives regarding their perspectives on ideas of local biodiversity, seed sovereignty, the need to consume from local sources and so on. The narratives demonstrated the complex relationships between the urban lived environment and nature as growers navigated the constraints and affordances of nurturing edible gardens in shared or individual spaces. The themes drawn from their responses (as shown in Table 2) highlighted the different ways in which the respondents engaged in Thirdspace making through the tasks associated with growing edible plants.
Themes Based on Analysis of the Interviews.
Personal Motivations
Many growers recounted their childhood memories as reasons to pursue gardening as adults. Others alluded to concerns about health or past experiences with medical conditions as their motivation to grow food locally. A few others cited their children as prime motivation to explore growing edible plants, partly as education for the children and to enable access to fresh and local food. In most cases, environmental concerns were not cited as primary motivators but instead featured as an emerging connection once the growers grew edible plants in a sustained manner and interacted with peers or related social networks. For instance, AR explained how her ill health became a turning point to explore food systems:
I discovered that all these diseases are due to pesticides, and lifestyle, plastic pollution, in the environment, and it is causing, infertility and auto immune conditions. So, I studied a lot about these companies, big farms, who are into this, as well as drug industry. Then I started to grow organic vegetables right from the start. I initially visited some farms near Shantiniketan, I understood how easily we can adapt some of the practices in the urban area. (AR, interview)
Another grower, MK, traced her interest in growing food to her mother’s stories of their village. Her mother would often lament the lack of fresh and seasonal produce in the cities, and the thought stayed with MK. She initially grew ornamental plants, and later ventured into growing edible plants, realising along the way that the latter require less maintenance too:
It is actually easier to grow and maintain a native edible and medicinal garden than an ornamental garden, as most of the latter are exotic varieties which need higher attention and care. With this transformation, my aesthetic sense too evolved and I started appreciating the beauty of an edible garden. (MK, interview)
Such forms of personal motivations can be argued to be precursors to actions aimed at bridging the perceived gaps between existing socio-ecological spaces and visions of more pro-environmental futures. The actions in turn tend to strengthen and expand motivations pertaining to urban gardening possibilities in this case.
Experiential Learning and Skilling
Growers described how their efforts to make compost, collect biomass, grow seasonal edible plants or engage in plant care helped them expand their notions of sustainability, labour, care and community engagement. They explained their shifts in attention as previously ignored features of the locality in terms of biomass, insects, organic input for soil or wild and uncultivated plants became part of their surroundings. The acts of personal care for plants took a civic and political turn in many cases, where growers found themselves discouraging neighbours to burn dry leaves, or encourage waste segregation, composting, etc. The practice-oriented approach also allowed many growers to gain expertise and innovate materials and processes suitable for their space. To illustrate, VN recounted how the trees around his house provided him with a lot of leaf litter, and he wanted to use it along with the kitchen waste to make compost. He initially bought vermicompost bins but found the maintenance of the worms a hassle. So, he drilled some holes in big, plastic drums and found aerobic composting to be the easiest method to follow. He began sourcing oil cakes and neem powder to add to the compost once it was ready and found that plants responded well to the nutrient-rich medium (see Figure 1). He explained,
I use whatever waste is generated in the house and sometimes make liquid ferments to use as a spray or add to the compost. I think whatever we are regularly using should be easily and locally available. I haven’t found good quality cow-dung, so I have developed my own recipes of nutrient mixes. Each plant responds differently, and I am always learning that way.
View of VM’s Rooftop Garden.
VN also uses the greywater generated in the kitchen and collects discarded drums, etc., to make various concoctions for the plants.
AR commented how her perspective on weeds had changed since she started growing plants and exploring mixed cropping methods:
Normally, this is the weed, and every potato field will have Betho weed (Chenopodium greens). Because whenever weed comes out, it means soil is deficient of something and weed has come as a succession crop to help the soil. All weeds are full of nutrition, whether for associate plants or for us. One must never uproot weeds. I always allow them to be there.
Similar shifts in attention and perspectives mediated by sustained involvement in gardening were narrated by many growers in different ways. Following Soja’s elucidation of Secondspace, these efforts reflect the evolution of counter-narratives to dominant urban planning logics, development paradigms and housing aesthetics.
Physical, Social and Cultural Feedback
Most growers described feeling motivated through tangible positive feedback in terms of harvest or encouragement from peers. The idea of being able to grow food in limited spaces, even in small quantities, seems to have helped participants actively seek groups and practices to help them sustain the effort. Further, the possibility of forming and strengthening social bonds through shared actions acts as a motivation to participate in similar activities. For instance, many growers remarked on getting ideas, encouragement and advice from community groups or online networks. Some of them participated in seed and seedling exchange to grow more varieties of plants through sharing resources. The experience of togetherness attached to social interaction and affiliation not only motivates individuals to seek pleasure in social interactions but also works to strengthen social bonds. These actions are scaffolded through the artefacts of practice, which act as tangible media for shared interactions. The visible health of plants or the presence of pollinators also formed a critical source of feedback for the growers. AM described the harvest from her garden as one of the most fulfilling feelings associated with the process.
When I see the produce of the plant, distributing that produce has been the most satisfying aspect. One can see the difference of buying from the market and growing your own, anything be it tomatoes or green leafy vegetables, one can eat the cucumber as it is which was grown here, the whole thing you can bite, even with the skin. It was so thin, the skin of the cucumber, I can’t tell you. (AM, interview)
In a similar vein, VM explained that her family has noticed a much higher frequency of birds visiting when they grow millets on the terrace. So, they often have small clusters of finger millet, pearl millet or sorghum dot the plant beds to invite a variety of seasonal and migratory birds for some food and water. The family has documented the bird and butterfly varieties that visit the terrace over the years, which is an impressive list including a handful of rare migratory ones. A map of her garden as drawn by VM is depicted in Figure 2.
Expanded Action Space
Growers described engaging in wider activities that were extensions of their gardening initiatives or emerged from them. These were based on larger ideas of interdependence, frugality, biodiversity and environmental justice that were influenced by their food-growing activities. In some cases, growers made professional choices anchored around ideas of a sustainable food system. MK, for instance, described how she started a social enterprise to grow millet and other local crops in a bid to support resilient crop varieties and encourage a shift in dietary patterns. She commented on how food-growing activities need to become a part of the public imagination to support more systemic shifts in agriculture:
Just how parking spaces have become a necessity, there should be spaces for edible gardens in apartments at least, as they would have larger common area. City planning should take into account not just civil engineering or architectural aspects but also social, psychological, and health aspects of a human being when charting out a plan. Big hospitals, schools and universities can also grow their own vegetables as patients and children need the most nutritious food.
Another grower, GD, explained how she began introducing fermented food in her restaurant after her experiences of sourcing sustainably grown food for the dishes served at the place. She believes that greater awareness and acceptance of fermented food takes us one step closer to appreciating symbiotic relationships between our gut and the land:
Fermentation is in that sense the antithesis of fast food culture, because the flavours are a direct result of the time taken by the bacteria to work on the food. Being aware of these processes shows the violence we do to our bodies and, by extension, the land, when we value ‘faster, bigger’ etc.
Other growers shared their efforts of teaching urban gardening, composting or seed saving to interested people. Some mentioned participating in protests against genetically modified (GM) crops and the corporatisation of agriculture. They stated that they did not have strong stances on these topics prior to growing edible plants. Many others remarked on their efforts to promote local resistance and awareness activities in the neighbourhood, which were sparked by their own realisations about the significance of water, soil, plants and other living creatures. DG, for instance, explained how her family had protested to halt the felling of a tree in their residential society, but had not been successful. She said,
I think the government or municipality corporation should have stricter norms for cutting off the trees. Now you see people cutting off a tree just because it is coming in front of their window, because it is restricting light coming to their house. But this shouldn’t be the reason to cut down a tree … Also, what I have noticed is, now you must have seen that roads are becoming concrete roads … There is no space for water percolation. I think that needs to be taken care of by the corporation. They need to make sure that there has to be some space for water percolation.
Garnering community support for food-growing activities was not straightforward and, in many cases, clashed with the conventional notion of manicured, clean rooftops, terraces or balconies. AR had to finally dismantle her garden following complaints from her neighbours about her seemingly unkempt terrace, and eventually found some land for her plants. The growers discussed that putting into practice their evolving understanding of food systems and participating in requisite initiatives often involved navigating societal expectations and working within the constraints of available infrastructure. Despite the odds, the growers persisted in maintaining the gardens and looked for ways to make meaningful connections with other environmental initiatives with varying degrees of success. Their continuing efforts to reclaim agency and create counter-narratives of cities through building alternative communities and solidarities exhibit qualities of generative spatial politics in the form of Thirdspace making.
Discussion
As cities continue to grow, spaces like urban edible gardens can provide alternate imaginations to question the urban–nature dichotomy and instead explore ways in which they are co-constituted. The narratives reflect how physical transformation of the space can create generative pathways for social activism by disrupting conventional spatial hierarchies. The Thirdspace making—entailed in growing urban gardens—manifests in the dynamic interactions, negotiations and contestations by the growers and more-than-human beings to assert their presence at the site.
The success of such initiatives is also affected by inequitable spatial distribution and the practical constraints of establishing kitchen garden spaces, especially in low-income areas. Common areas being converted into edible gardens also poses the risk of gentrifying the neighbourhood. Greater civic awareness is needed to prevent such areas and initiatives from being appropriated by real estate developers. To address these disparities, proactive urban planning and engagement with relevant policies and institutional frameworks are crucial. Arguing for a political ecology framework to understand the potential of urban gardens, Classens (2015) emphasises the need to analyse the spaces in ways they reflect social and natural processes and how socio-transformative changes can be engendered through the politics of care for local environments.
In this project, we explored urban gardening as a practice that helps individuals connect with the reciprocal relationships between the land, soil and the living beings that depend on them. The narratives shared by the growers in this study indicate how growing edible plants provides them with a deepened knowledge of ecological relationships manifested through plant care, pest–predator interactions, seed saving, composting, mulching and so on. The idea of a ‘coagulative’ practice (Dutta & Chandrasekharan, 2018) emerges from a set of actions that reveal the intricate interdependence of elements within the environment. For instance, the symbiotic relationship between pollinators, plants and soil health illustrates how biodiversity is essential for a thriving ecosystem. Over time, these seemingly separate actions begin to merge, transforming abstract ideas into concrete, actionable insights. This process of integration led growers to rethink fundamental concepts, such as the role of nutrients and the importance of healthy soils and the connection between organic waste and sustainability. As a result, waste disposal methods in local communities are also reconsidered. Growing food, in this context, links areas of urban life—production, consumption and waste—that are typically treated as isolated. By recognising these interdependencies, individuals begin to engage in acts of care, recognising the relational well-being entailed in taking care of and being cared for by the garden space. The activities helped them develop a deeper connection to the environment, which nurtured subversive engagements and rethinking spatial arrangements in cities. Urban gardening, at both personal and community levels, has the potential to promote social bonding, facilitate the free exchange of knowledge and resources, and is not resource-intensive due to its localised nature. It also offers a critical lens through which to question food technologies that often disregard communal well-being.
These literal and metaphorical homegrown initiatives, when viewed within the larger narrative of transitioning to sustainable food systems, serve as vital leverage points for shifting behaviours at the community level. The sociopolitical emphasis on care and reciprocal relationships embedded in gardening practices provides a powerful platform for transformative change. The nascent ideas and efforts of civic action shared by the growers show how the immersive, sensory experiences involved in growing plants can cultivate the moral imagination needed to act in ecologically responsible ways. In cities, where socio-ecological relationships are often fragmented and opaque, creating these ecological experiences and translating them into action forms a generative area for research and intervention.
Conclusion
As conventional educational models—often linear, reductionist and arbitrary—fail to nurture the perspectives, skills and values necessary for addressing an uncertain future, there is an increasing need to draw on local wisdom and imagination rooted in meaningful, real-world experiences. Rather than confining education to formal spaces, efforts must be made to integrate diverse learning environments and engage practitioners as sources of grounded knowledge. This is not to suggest that urban gardens cannot be co-opted into dominant narratives of greenwashing and gentrification, which can further exacerbate various forms of economic, ecological, social and cultural marginalisation occurring in cities (Egerer & Fairbairn, 2018; Milbourne, 2012). This study, while inviting critical conceptualisations of Thirdspace making, was limited in its scope of depicting socio-economic and spatial diversity. Most participants’ initiatives—particularly those involving their private spaces—were generally confined to manageable, small-scale actions that did not encounter significant systemic barriers. Although a noticeable shift emerged in how participants perceived interconnectedness and mutual dependence, it remained uncertain whether they could situate their actions within broader socio-environmental dynamics. Deeper systemic challenges need more nuanced understandings of the local civic and ecological contexts such as waste disposal systems, food pricing structures or state housing policies. Therefore, it is not yet evident whether personal, well-intentioned efforts can scale up to influence systemic change, especially in the face of institutional inertia or resistance.
As Frazier (2021) comments, while some sections of the urban middle class are increasingly committed to gardening as a solution to engage with issues of food safety and green spaces, the initiatives can remain confined to privileged groups and areas unless conscious efforts are made to include diverse communities and areas. The complex socio-economic, ecological and spatial diversity constituting Indian cities requires more empirical work to understand the specific dynamics and affordances of different contexts. While urban gardening can form potent counter-narratives to the challenges of the industrial food system and systemic inequities, realising its full potential needs more collaborations and networks in generative spaces to connect practitioners, educators and activists.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Geetanjali Gurlhosur and Sagnik Ghosh in data collection. We are thankful to Ray Atreyee Dutta for her expertise in transcribing the interviews and Sulekha Hazra for editing and proofreading the narratives. We are indebted to all the people who generously shared with us their experiences and knowledge about growing plants and sustaining communities
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Ethical Approval
The research process was approved by the Research Ethics Committee, Indian Institute for Human Settlements. Written and verbal consent was sought from all participants for audio and video interviews.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) is gratefully acknowledged by Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures grant, of which this project was a recipient (award title ‘UKRI GCRF Transforming Education Systems for Sustainable Development [TES4SD] Network Plus’).