New democratic governance?

Or a divide between policy and practice in urban

agriculture?

Critical Foodscapes conferenceWarwick University 7th July 2016Matt Reed & Dan Keech, CCRI, University of Gloucestershire

@CCRI_UK

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Outline• Introduction - Food networks and Bristol Green Capital 2015: grassroots

and institutional change around food.• Literature – Urban agriculture and social media create spaces for

citizenship. Does the concept of the commons help?• Methods – media analysis, social network of a twitter feed, case study

interviews, green capital documents: meso-level analysis. • Discussion of some findings – themes emerging in Bristol; the visibility

of food activism in BGC 2015; hierarchy of city projects.• Conclusions – Lack of engagement ‘out there’ with food in BGC;

grassroots food networks using UA as an expression of citizenship to augment the state, rather than as a lever for institutional change.

Bristol, European Green Capital 2015A history of contention around food and the city Gateway to the southwest of EnglandProblems of poverty and food accessCity culture of experimentation and arts

Literature

1. Interested in how local food activism, esp. within the grassroots urban food networks in Bristol, is a framework for citizenship.

2. Our work in Bristol included social media analysis (tweets and blogs). Much research on how urban agriculture shapes the fabric of the city. How does urban agriculture and the internet create hybrid spaces, where citizenship is performed (Castells 2012, Brunori and Di Iacovo 2014)?

3. Is it possible to re-think Morgan’s (2014:13) assertion that ‘While local food campaigns in the UK are a dynamic urban force, nourishing the city in more ways than one, they do not (as yet) possess the trans-local reach and organisational coherence to constitute a new social movement.’

Urban agriculture and the commons?• Urban sphere has been the space where ‘commoning’ is as important as a

reaction beyond the state and the market, not just about the stewardship of fixed assets.

• Bollier suggests:‘In order for the generativity of the commons to manifest itself, it needs the “open spaces” for bottom-up initiatives to occur in interaction with the resources at hand. In this way, citizenship and governance are blended and reconstituted. (Bollier & Helfrich (eds.) 2012)

• Tornaghi (2014): urban agriculture needs to be studied critically, from a perspective less based on advocacy, and that some questions need to be asked about the constraining role of health, environment and planning policy in developing multi-functional urban ag.

Methods

• SUPURBFOOD – 1st Jan – 31st Dec 2013. 230 blogs, 16,000 tweets from 24 accounts and interviews, Nvivo analysis.

• Social network analysis from twitter during 2015, Polinode.• Analysis of local media from 2015 (Bristol Green Capital +/– 4

months) using LexusNexis & Nvivo 10.• Documentary analysis of Green Capital grant files.• Support from Bristol Food Network.

Results: A. SUPURBfood interviews• History of ‘getting on with it’:

"I think maybe there hasn't been the political leadership (historically). Certainly it hasn't been very radical and interesting so people go and get on with it themselves”.

• But key activists have also informed municipal development thanks to having the ‘ear’ of council/last Mayor:“I think there are areas of land which are owned by the local authority which they allow for the use of growing. They tend to be pretty good at trying to help facilitate….”

• Duality of seeing most hope in the small-scale, and frustration that change is limited:“So there is an awful lot that goes on which, on one hand, is brilliant, but if you are trying to create a joint step change it's an absolute nightmare.”

B. Twitter network• Key themes: volunteering, gardening, celebration, recycling, locality.

• Frequent appearance of words such as ‘good’, ‘great’, ‘thanks’ and ‘please’ are also common: strategy of encouragement and positivity, with criticisms of ideas, or of other people, very rare.

• BUT:

‘The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self-interest, carelessness, & sheer mistake’

• Trying to attract media attention – but largely ignored

• Network – tight, personal ties and largely local

• But limited interactions between networks (see below)

• Loose network indicates opportunity for quick flow of information

Network diagram (Community Farm tweets)

C. Print media EGC• Food a small part of the press coverage. – Profile of food culture, food festivals, vs

coverage in local media– Role of the Food Policy Council not

acknowledged

• Hierarchy of environmental topics in press. – Transport – congestion, sponsors GWR– Environmental performance – waste

management– Urban wildlife – linked to EGC funding

Pic: Bristol 24/7

Competing framings in the media

• Activism:– Ecological limits framing and necessity of/pride in localisation

• Municipal:– FPC/NHS - food access and public health (Lang 2007)– Upscaling - FPC, Sustainable Food Cities– Social-democractic state – public procurement– Municipal action constrained by austerity framing

• Technocratic :Globally competitive city (LEP, business, UK govt)

Conclusions/questions

• Questions about the ability of the local food activists to lever system change (Morgan), while collective action is seen as a form of ‘commoning’ (Bollier).

• We see UA differently, via recourse to social movements; and don’t see governance of commons so much as experiments in citizenship to augment the constrained (£, plannning regs, hierarchy of causes, publicity) state.

• How effective is the Food Policy Council structure at reflecting grassroots?– Scoping and vertical integration, not scaling up (Franklin & Marsden 2015)

• Social and print media coverage are quite different. Social media analysis reveals a distinction between tight (physical), and loose (following) communication relationships; while print media offers a ‘story’.

Thanks for your attention

Matt Reed mreed@glos.ac.uk

Dan Keech dkeech@glos.ac.uk

Please come and see us at the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI).