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Handbook of Social Inclusion pp 1–19Cite as

More-Than-Human Contributions to Place-Based Social Inclusion in Community Gardens

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Abstract

Community gardens are sites capable of enhancing community belonging and social inclusion, particularly for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups such as migrants and refugees. In this chapter, the authors identify the necessity of expanding conceptions of community and social in these sites to include more-than-humans, notably ecological and climatic conditions. Doing so can support the design of spaces and programs best able to contribute to the well-being, recovery, and social inclusion of those who have suffered traumas associated with forced migration. Such outcomes are shown to be most effectively realized through the creation of safe, therapeutic landscapes which take seriously participants embodied, multisensorial experiences of disconnection from known cultural processes and familiar ecological conditions. Through access to land, communities of support, and a sense of psychological ownership of garden plots, refugees and migrants are able to productively experiment with food producing in their resettlement context. This experimentation can lead to crop failures, reinforcing the unfamiliarity of new homes and threatening the well-being of participants. However, through embodied, multisensorial attunement to new environments, participants can also develop a sense of ecological belonging that can contribute to realization of a stretched form of social inclusion that reflects the critical role of human/more-than-human entanglements in supporting positive resettlement experiences.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Bethaney Turner & Cathy Hope

  2. Independent Scholar, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Jessica Abramovic

Authors
  1. Bethaney Turner
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  2. Jessica Abramovic
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  3. Cathy Hope
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bethaney Turner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia

    Pranee Liamputtong

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Turner, B., Abramovic, J., Hope, C. (2021). More-Than-Human Contributions to Place-Based Social Inclusion in Community Gardens. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Social Inclusion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48277-0_96-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48277-0_96-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-48277-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-48277-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference MedicineReference Module Medicine

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