Practices of Coexistence: Exploring Human-Nature Relations in Urban Community Gardens

Abstract

This study examines how human–nature relations are enacted, negotiated, and made meaningful within two distinct community garden settings. The research explores how humans, nonhumans, and material entities co-constitute everyday practices and how these practices form, transform, and interconnect. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted at two urban garden sites selected for their forms of community involvement and ecological engagement. Participatory observation and interviews were conducted, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis of fieldnotes and interview transcripts. The first garden is characterized by long-term continuity, strong neighborhood identity, and a diverse group of local residents who receive plots through an annual lottery. Spatial and material decisions play an important role in place-making and reinforce communal belonging. The second site is a student-led community garden guided by ecological agriculture principles. Participants co-create social spaces, build infrastructures, and collectively solve problems arising from environmental conditions. These practices reveal cycles of experimentation, learning by doing, and close observation of natural processes. Gardeners actively negotiate the boundaries of intervention by adopting low-impact techniques, biodegradable materials and regeneration methods while constructing necessary infrastructures. Field observations from both sites show how gardening practices intertwine social, ecological, and material relationships. Both sites illustrate how self-built infrastructures, material improvisation, and everyday spatial decisions contribute to place-making and to the shaping of sustainable micro-environments. By analyzing how everyday practices and multispecies relations come together in these two community garden settings, the study contributes to understanding how ecological coexistence is cultivated and how community-led spaces model responsible human–nature relations.

Keywords: Community Gardens, Human-nature Interactions, Sustainable Urban Practices, Social Practice Theory

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007954