Urban gardening initiative "Landhof"

Riehenstrasse 92, 4058, Basel

By Pina Haas

Gemeinschaftsgarten Landhof: the potential of urban gardening initiatives in overcoming the Plantationocene

Figure 1 Sign of Landhof. Photo L. Bonvin 4.2.2022.

The Gemeinschaftsgarten Landhof is located in the middle of the densely populated and built urban landscape of Kleinbasel. It is a community space dedicated to support sustainable and solidary agriculture within the city while also providing a socio-cultural meeting point and participatory space for people to actively contribute to shaping the landscape of the city of Basel to become greener and more community and justice oriented. This way the Landhof contributes to undoing what Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and others have come to term “the Plantationocene” (Mitman 2019).

Figure 2 Welcome sign with opening hours. Photo L. Bonvin 4.2.2022.

As an alternative to the Anthropocene, the Plantationocene does not suggest that the entire human species (anthropos) is responsible for the current epoch of planetary instability and crisis, but rather that a specific way of inhabiting the planet, which has its roots in European colonization, is at the heart of these crises. The plantation is a material institution in which humans and non-humans have been subordinated and disciplined according to Western ideals. Plantations are monocultural spaces that racially simplify ecologies by eradicating biodiversity, and which simultaneously deeply depend on the labor of enslaved black and indigenous people. Calling the current era Plantationocene suggests that the logics of “racialized violence, land alienation, and species loss” (Sapp Moore et al. 2019) have extended beyond the material confines of the physical plantation into the very way we inhabit the earth today. Or as Aikens et al. fittingly write: “Ideologies of the plantation fundamentally shape history, economics, and ecologies on a planetary scale, and they also fundamentally shape how human beings relate to each other and to the natural world” (Aikens et al. 2019). The Plantationocene is a useful concept for looking at landscape through a de-colonial perspective. Firstly, it demands to de-centre the Eurocentric narrative about the ecological crisis.

Figure 3 Caddie at Landhof. Photo L. Bonvin 4.2.2022.

The plantation is clearly a colonial product and helps to draw attention to how colonialism, white supremacy and racial capitalism have shaped the global present. Secondly, it is a framework of analysis which speaks to how the exploitation of the human and the non-human are interrelated and reinforce processes of colonial expansion. Mastnak et. al for example “see colonialism as the literal planting and displanting of peoples, animals, and plants—as inscribing a domination into blood and soil founded in the fantasy of molding ecosystems with godlike arrogance” (Mastnak, Elyachar, and Boellstorff 2014, p. 367). This process has been argued to have begun with the establishment of the first Portuguese colonial plantations in Madeira in the late 15^th century, a moment which not only marks the beginning of a colonial logic of racial labor exploitation but also contributed to the creation of a logic of domination by which the human was constituted as a separate and rightful dominator of the non-human and of the land (Yusoff 2018).

De-colonizing the urban landscape thus might entail undoing the logics of the plantationocene and constructing different ways of being in relations with others including the non-human.

Figure 4 Greenhouse at Landhof. Photo by Leah Bonvin 4.2.2022

Urban community gardening initiatives like the Landhof in Basel might be doing exactly that. They provide spaces for envisioning and implementing ways to farm that are not based on the exploitation and disciplining of peoples and non-humans, but on principles of soil regeneration, biodiversity protection and social and economic solidarity. Furthermore, planting edible food within the city allows people to become less dependent on the globalized food system which is based on injustice and ecological destruction (Figueroa-Helland, Thomas, and Aguilera 2018). Lastly, the location of the Landhof area in a densely populated part of the city provides a rare and well received space which is used by the community for recreation, learning, and making kin with others, humans and non-humans alike.

References

Aikens, N., Clukey, A., King, A., Wagner, I. (2019). South to The Plantationocene. ASAP/J (blog). https://asapjournal.com/south-to-the-plantationocene-natalie-aikens-amy-clukey-amy-k-king-and-isadora-wagner/.

Figueroa-Helland, L., Cassidy, T., Pérez Aguilera, A. (2018). Decolonizing Food Systems: Food Sovereignty, Indigenous Revitalization, and Agroecology as Counter-Hegemonic Movements. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 17 (1–2), 173–201. https://doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341473.

Landhof Basel. (n.d). Gemeinschaftsgarten Landhof. https://www.landhof.ch/die-leute/gemeinschaftsgarten.

Mastnak, T., Elyachar, J. , Boellstorff, T. ( 2014). Botanical Decolonization: Rethinking Native Plants. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32 (2), 363–80. https://doi.org/10.1068/d13006p.

Mitman,G. (2019). Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing Reflect on the Plantationocene. Edge Effects. https://edgeeffects.net/haraway-tsing-plantationocene/.

Sapp Moore, S., Allewaert, M., Gomez,P-F., Mitman, G. (2019). The Plantationocene and Plantation Legacies Today. Edge Effects. https://edgeeffects.net/plantation-legacies-plantationocene/.

Yusoff, K. (2018). A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.