1 00:00:14,860 --> 00:00:23,260 Welcome to Big Ten Big Ideas, the life online event series from the University of Oxford was part of the humanities cultural programme. 2 00:00:23,260 --> 00:00:28,030 My name is Vicki McGinnis and I'm head of cultural programming and Partnerships. 3 00:00:28,030 --> 00:00:32,830 Big tent, big ideas brings together researchers and students from across different disciplines. 4 00:00:32,830 --> 00:00:39,610 We will explore some of humanity's important subjects and ask questions about areas such as environment, medical, 5 00:00:39,610 --> 00:00:48,400 humanities, alien technology, history of disease, as well as celebrating storytelling, music, song and identity. 6 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:55,700 We will have a live event every week until the end of June. Sign up to the torch newsletter to stay up to date. 7 00:00:55,700 --> 00:00:57,870 We are bringing you this event programme online. 8 00:00:57,870 --> 00:01:05,100 While we're all keeping safe and keeping our distance at home, we hope that you will all safe and well during this difficult time. 9 00:01:05,100 --> 00:01:15,580 We look forward to seeing you all again soon in person. Everyone is welcome in our big tent and we welcome you as we explore big ideas together. 10 00:01:15,580 --> 00:01:21,910 We can call viewers for their ongoing support and for all of the participants as part of this series. 11 00:01:21,910 --> 00:01:27,130 They have given their time, words and their big ideas as we come together online. 12 00:01:27,130 --> 00:01:32,930 This series would not be possible without the support from so many people, including the torch team. 13 00:01:32,930 --> 00:01:39,240 So thank you all very much. And now I turn on to our excellent speakers tonight. 14 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:47,220 It is an honour to host and welcome two very accomplished and generous people from the inverse city of Oxford. 15 00:01:47,220 --> 00:01:57,390 Jaycee Niala is a doctoral researcher with an interest in how people's imaginations of nature affects the environment with a focus on urban practise. 16 00:01:57,390 --> 00:02:00,870 She has worked on food sovereignty projects in Kenya. 17 00:02:00,870 --> 00:02:09,690 Jaycee has used the Basin Theatre as a tool for community engagement, for both adaptation and mitigation strategies for dealing with climate change. 18 00:02:09,690 --> 00:02:16,170 Jaycee's current ecological project plant, an orchestra, brings together her love for music. 19 00:02:16,170 --> 00:02:23,670 Andres. Elizabeth, you it is associate professor in the anthropology of lowland South America, 20 00:02:23,670 --> 00:02:29,700 research with indigenous peoples in central Brazil where she has lived and worked with the Panaro people. 21 00:02:29,700 --> 00:02:37,470 She is interested in the material and visual aspects of the Amerindian lived worlds, including body adornment, beadwork, 22 00:02:37,470 --> 00:02:46,590 garden design and village layout, and is also interested in the anthropology of everyday practises such as child rearing and gardening. 23 00:02:46,590 --> 00:02:51,120 More recently, she has been developing research in southwestern Ethiopia. 24 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:56,470 Together with Dr. Walter Tadesse, say, on local agriculture and food production. 25 00:02:56,470 --> 00:03:03,450 Jaycee and Elizabeth, welcome to the Big Tent. For joining us. 26 00:03:03,450 --> 00:03:08,510 Welcome. Thank you. So this evening for a live event, 27 00:03:08,510 --> 00:03:15,420 we are actually going to begin with a reading and this will lead into an on in conversation between Jaycee and Elizabeth. 28 00:03:15,420 --> 00:03:22,430 But for now, I will hand over to Jaycee with her reading on guerrilla gardening. 29 00:03:22,430 --> 00:03:26,310 Thank you very much, Vicky and Cedric, you for being here, everybody. 30 00:03:26,310 --> 00:03:31,210 I hope that wherever you are, you are safe and well. 31 00:03:31,210 --> 00:03:40,960 So guerrilla gardening is a type of urban gardening that takes place in spaces that we tend to think of as public. 32 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:48,860 But it doesn't have the same legal status as, for example, community gardens or allotment plots. 33 00:03:48,860 --> 00:03:55,680 Imagine for a moment that there's a crack in the pavement that's outside your home. 34 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:02,340 Following adverse weather conditions, the crack widens to reveal soil underneath. 35 00:04:02,340 --> 00:04:04,800 Eventually, there's a pothole. 36 00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:13,290 And even though there's potholes and irritation, it doesn't warrant enough attention for you to call the council to complain about it. 37 00:04:13,290 --> 00:04:21,200 One of your neighbours, however, also notices this crack and decides to plant some flowers in it. 38 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:29,570 You don't notice the seeds going in. But you do notice the seedlings as they begin to sprout out of the ground. 39 00:04:29,570 --> 00:04:34,820 Time passes, eventually the flowers bloom. 40 00:04:34,820 --> 00:04:43,130 One day you're walking past the flowers with your young child and she reaches to pick one up and you stop her. 41 00:04:43,130 --> 00:04:49,360 You find yourself saying, leave the flowers. They look beautiful. They're. Shortly after this. 42 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,270 Local elections are being held. 43 00:04:52,270 --> 00:05:00,960 One of the people standing to be a counsellor says part of their campaign, they will endeavour to make the council more responsive. 44 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:06,920 The flowers now call attention to the pothole that they were growing in. 45 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:13,700 The candidates, once these potholes fixed their health and safety hazard. 46 00:05:13,700 --> 00:05:19,770 But when it becomes clear that those flowers were actually planted there by somebody. 47 00:05:19,770 --> 00:05:28,870 Another issue arises. Whoever planted the flowers did not have permission to do so. 48 00:05:28,870 --> 00:05:36,070 Suddenly, all the people who live near the flowers are made aware of the fact that the pavement 49 00:05:36,070 --> 00:05:43,230 and the road that they thought of as theirs does not actually belong to them. 50 00:05:43,230 --> 00:05:50,610 This is not an unusual feeling. I'm sure you've felt a bit of a sense of annoyance when you're driving home and outside your house. 51 00:05:50,610 --> 00:05:56,760 There's somebody parked in what you think of as your spot. But actually, it's not your spot. 52 00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:02,190 It's a public road. It's available for anybody to use. 53 00:06:02,190 --> 00:06:09,000 It's in moments like these that the question of what public actually means to us in our day to day 54 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:18,600 lives can come into conflict with what public means in terms of the structures that govern our lives. 55 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:22,290 Like the flowers bursting through the pavement. 56 00:06:22,290 --> 00:06:32,450 These moments of rupture show what was previously hidden, but also allow us to question what we thought we knew. 57 00:06:32,450 --> 00:06:37,360 Let's think about this flowers a little bit more for a moment. 58 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:44,360 The plants that are growing in the crack affect people in the neighbourhood that they are growing in. 59 00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:47,770 For some people, they'll see them as beautiful. 60 00:06:47,770 --> 00:06:55,740 Other people may find them an inconvenience and find that they affect their accessibility to the pavement. 61 00:06:55,740 --> 00:07:06,640 And the example I just gave, the seeds that were planted, but this is not true for all of the plants that grow in cracks in pavements. 62 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:18,850 There were also just examples where plants have seated themselves and these plants can also have very big effects on human behaviour. 63 00:07:18,850 --> 00:07:27,130 There's a firm in San Francisco called CMG Landscape Architecture, and they've won an award for their cracked gardens. 64 00:07:27,130 --> 00:07:36,710 These are gardens that they say are inspired by the tenacious plants that pioneer the tiny cracks of the urban landscape. 65 00:07:36,710 --> 00:07:43,000 To have one of those gardens installed will also set you back several thousand dollars. 66 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:53,280 Here in the U.K., The Guardian newspaper gardening column, also taking its cue from nature, gives advice on crack planting. 67 00:07:53,280 --> 00:08:04,020 This is an interesting reversal. It's in these cases, it's the plant agency, it's power to make a place for itself in a human crafted landscape. 68 00:08:04,020 --> 00:08:07,060 That is the trigger for human action. 69 00:08:07,060 --> 00:08:17,870 This agency parallels the behaviour that human beings show when they are making a place for themselves in an urban context. 70 00:08:17,870 --> 00:08:27,410 The street I was talking about, where the plants and the pavements lie in tension with each other is actually a human invention. 71 00:08:27,410 --> 00:08:32,780 Up until the mid eighteen hundreds. Streets as we know them, did not exist. 72 00:08:32,780 --> 00:08:45,620 It wasn't until then that streets were widened, regularised, cleaned and local improvement acts concerned themselves with paving lighting. 73 00:08:45,620 --> 00:08:50,040 But also the policing of the streets, as we know now. 74 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:59,910 And especially with that very important demarcation of the line between what is private and what is public. 75 00:08:59,910 --> 00:09:09,120 Now, no one told plants in cities. That the whole way in which we live and the landscape was going to change. 76 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:14,550 And just as the plants were ignorant of this, actually, so were we as human beings. 77 00:09:14,550 --> 00:09:19,070 We're quite ignorant of the laws that govern these domains. 78 00:09:19,070 --> 00:09:30,120 Under English law, unless privately owned, all land belongs to the crown and is granted free use by the public via a local authority. 79 00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:36,130 This use, whether it's the pavement's we walk on, the roads we drive our cars on, 80 00:09:36,130 --> 00:09:49,010 is so commonplace that it escapes our attention that we do not actually have any ownership over the public land on which we conduct our daily lives. 81 00:09:49,010 --> 00:09:59,520 It's only when this used becomes contested, for example, when guerilla gardeners take into their own hands actions to change the shape of the city. 82 00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:10,720 But we start to question the uses that land has been demarcated by the city authorities who are responsible for its management. 83 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:14,920 Especially if we think about the environmental times in which we're living now. 84 00:10:14,920 --> 00:10:22,980 And climate change. It seems counterintuitive that the action of planting flowers, 85 00:10:22,980 --> 00:10:32,680 which are usually seen as beautiful and good for the environment, could see a citizen fall foul of the law. 86 00:10:32,680 --> 00:10:42,350 And I think generally we tend to agree with this because so far there have been no reported arrests of guerilla gardeners in the UK, 87 00:10:42,350 --> 00:10:50,330 but still guerrilla gardeners remain in a precarious situation while they're doing it. 88 00:10:50,330 --> 00:10:56,540 Richard Reynolds, who's a London based guerrilla gardener, described incidents involving the police. 89 00:10:56,540 --> 00:11:02,970 And he said normally that just confused. But ultimately, they let me get on with it. 90 00:11:02,970 --> 00:11:09,300 However, this time he says, we had no plants or seedlings to back up our story. 91 00:11:09,300 --> 00:11:16,040 It led to the police uttering the immortal line. Put down your tools or we're taking you in. 92 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:20,820 And I didn't want to get arrested. So I went back to my flat, drank a bottle of wine. 93 00:11:20,820 --> 00:11:30,780 Came back later and finished up. But the fact that Reynolds could relatively easily evade arrest demonstrates the North's 94 00:11:30,780 --> 00:11:39,300 reluctance to apprehend what they know the public are likely to see as legitimate behaviour. 95 00:11:39,300 --> 00:11:44,800 And guerrilla gardening practises are even more likely to be legitimised if 96 00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:50,860 they're carried out on the types of land usually targeted by really gardeners. 97 00:11:50,860 --> 00:11:56,700 This is land that shows signs of neglect or decay. 98 00:11:56,700 --> 00:12:02,550 And these types of land become very visible in cities because cities within their 99 00:12:02,550 --> 00:12:10,340 histories often have an underlying blueprint of the way things are supposed to be. 100 00:12:10,340 --> 00:12:21,520 This blueprint, this authority, implicitly or explicitly states the ways in which this is should be arranged so that they can run smoothly. 101 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:28,020 But it also allows for human behaviour to be regulated. 102 00:12:28,020 --> 00:12:38,590 Guerrilla gardening at the same time draws attention to the fact that this land has been abandoned and therefore is unregulated. 103 00:12:38,590 --> 00:12:49,350 While bringing to the fore a kind of natural order that allows those who practise guerrilla gardening to align themselves with nature. 104 00:12:49,350 --> 00:12:58,910 A nature, as we know and as we're seeing right now, regularly demonstrates how difficult it is to regulate. 105 00:12:58,910 --> 00:13:08,080 This circularity echoes the gardening cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. 106 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:14,380 So in these moments of tension, of course, it would be confusing for a policeman. 107 00:13:14,380 --> 00:13:22,090 Because by arresting Reynolds, the policeman would be rightly enforcing a human made law. 108 00:13:22,090 --> 00:13:31,170 But at the same time, he would feel the tension of violating what sometimes gets called a national. 109 00:13:31,170 --> 00:13:37,260 Natural law allows for different species to inhabit the same planet. 110 00:13:37,260 --> 00:13:45,180 And that, we know, is in effect beneficial to us all as human beings. 111 00:13:45,180 --> 00:13:52,590 So I'd like to invite Elizabeth now to come and join me in conversation so we can reflect on some of the practises of 112 00:13:52,590 --> 00:14:01,870 guerilla gardeners and what it means for all of us in urban contexts and our relationship with nature and culture. 113 00:14:01,870 --> 00:14:08,870 Well, thank you, J.C., for sharing your thoughts and reflections on gardening in unexpected places. 114 00:14:08,870 --> 00:14:13,470 And thank you, of course, to all our audience who's joined us today. 115 00:14:13,470 --> 00:14:21,750 Now, one of the things that our current situation seems to highlight, the situation of being confined in our homes, 116 00:14:21,750 --> 00:14:28,200 staying safe in our homes is for me, a heightened sense of noticing, 117 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:33,750 a heightened sense of noticing exactly the sorts of things that you've been describing, 118 00:14:33,750 --> 00:14:45,330 the awareness that allows us to notice flowers in little spaces where perhaps they're not supposed to be on the pavement in the crack of the wall. 119 00:14:45,330 --> 00:14:55,470 Thinking then, as a social anthropologist, what about these small things, about these noticing of things that many people might go unnoticed? 120 00:14:55,470 --> 00:15:00,980 It's something that, of course, you'll do as part of your project. 121 00:15:00,980 --> 00:15:12,950 Now. Maybe this then allows us to rethink a little bit what kind of a space we live in, what kind of a city it is that we want to live in. 122 00:15:12,950 --> 00:15:21,470 And this that makes me think about city spaces and who and what these spaces are for. 123 00:15:21,470 --> 00:15:25,470 Why should gardening need a garden? 124 00:15:25,470 --> 00:15:35,190 What if we were to think the other way around and in many ways, your reflections are just about that all day, not any space is a garden, perhaps. 125 00:15:35,190 --> 00:15:38,880 All it needs is things to grow in it. 126 00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:50,380 And of course, many plants grow themselves if they're left to find their own potholes, their own cracks in walls and their own crevices. 127 00:15:50,380 --> 00:15:56,920 Now, that thing gets me thinking about the kind of language that we've been using around ideas of 128 00:15:56,920 --> 00:16:06,080 growing and particularly in relation to the guerrilla gardening that you've been discussing now. 129 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:11,900 Because in many ways, warfare and extermination do seem to feature quite a lot. 130 00:16:11,900 --> 00:16:16,670 Not least when it comes to public spaces, guerrilla gardeners. 131 00:16:16,670 --> 00:16:22,060 On the one hand, council workers exterminating weeds on the other. 132 00:16:22,060 --> 00:16:32,960 You can, of course, famously buy seed bombs. Not all urban spaces are the same, of course. 133 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:45,580 Public parks are different. These are maintained just as private gardens are cared for and permitted plants on the should and sometimes protected. 134 00:16:45,580 --> 00:16:55,630 So for me, guerilla gardeners then enable us to notice our spaces and to create gardens where perhaps we wouldn't have expected them to be, 135 00:16:55,630 --> 00:17:06,160 allows us to think of a pothole, not as a pothole, but as a plant pot, a place for something to grow. 136 00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:14,940 No. These plants that find their spaces, these plants that find that cracks, that find that portholes. 137 00:17:14,940 --> 00:17:23,010 They do that in very quiet ways. And guerrilla gardeners do that gardening in rather unnoticed ways, 138 00:17:23,010 --> 00:17:31,110 not by brand powerful gestures of planning and rezoning, but just rather one pothole, one crack at a time. 139 00:17:31,110 --> 00:17:40,620 And one seedling at a time that are places that reconfigures the spaces that we live in and come to feel at home. 140 00:17:40,620 --> 00:17:51,610 To me, that's a very powerful thing. Which then makes me wonder a little bit about the very idea of power that you've talked about in your reflection. 141 00:17:51,610 --> 00:18:01,660 Now, how does power then fit into gardens? How does power fit into public and private spaces and into cities more generally? 142 00:18:01,660 --> 00:18:13,870 Who or what has the power in guerrilla gardening? The potholes, the gardeners, the passers by the council, the plants themselves? 143 00:18:13,870 --> 00:18:20,880 I was wondering if perhaps you might want to offer some thoughts on that. 144 00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:32,330 Thank you. I really I love the idea of our city spaces being given different colours by the garden, by gardening and I think. 145 00:18:32,330 --> 00:18:35,440 In many ways, I think capacitors. 146 00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:46,550 Almost a nexus, so a whole web of power which travels around between different actors as a particular points in time. 147 00:18:46,550 --> 00:18:53,270 One of the things that really struck me when I started my project is I set out to 148 00:18:53,270 --> 00:18:59,270 research urban gardeners in Oxford and I was very much thinking about human beings. 149 00:18:59,270 --> 00:19:07,170 So I imagined I was locate myself. And on an allotment site and tend my plots and talk to my fellow gardeners. 150 00:19:07,170 --> 00:19:15,620 But I very quickly realised that actually plants were also gardeners and insects were also gardeners. 151 00:19:15,620 --> 00:19:20,780 And speaking to one of the my fellow gardeners, human gardeners on a site, 152 00:19:20,780 --> 00:19:29,210 he talked about how many plants do better in cities because they get warmer, initiated by buildings. 153 00:19:29,210 --> 00:19:38,120 So the city itself is also a gardener and holds in its own way a particular kind of power. 154 00:19:38,120 --> 00:19:46,410 So it feels to me like we have moments when the power becomes a bit more visible through particular actions. 155 00:19:46,410 --> 00:19:52,340 But I would find it very hard to say that there was one more than another. 156 00:19:52,340 --> 00:19:56,240 At any given time. Yeah. 157 00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:04,670 And so then I suppose that then brings me on to thinking a little bit about this kind of question of tenacity and clinging on, 158 00:20:04,670 --> 00:20:14,570 because we've we've talked very much in terms of, you know, finding a space to grow that we know, of course, that these plants find a crack. 159 00:20:14,570 --> 00:20:21,710 And then, lo and behold, somebody pulls up the plant and you have you know, the plant has another plant, has to find its crack. 160 00:20:21,710 --> 00:20:32,090 It has to start again to cling on. If you walk along walls and know brick walls and you see these cracks with little flowers just hanging on in there, 161 00:20:32,090 --> 00:20:38,450 hanging on in that and just that tenaciousness and that the mom to find a space for themselves, 162 00:20:38,450 --> 00:20:47,090 which makes me think a little bit more about the idea of home and belonging and how plants and people find find themselves at home, 163 00:20:47,090 --> 00:20:52,720 find themselves a space to belong in in cities which comes with ease for some. 164 00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:56,830 And it is incredibly difficult for others. 165 00:20:56,830 --> 00:21:02,040 And I just wondered if you wanted to expand a little bit on on that question of of belonging. 166 00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:06,830 What is it to belong? Who belongs where? And again, who gets to decide? 167 00:21:06,830 --> 00:21:10,850 Who gets to decide? The plant decides. This is my home. 168 00:21:10,850 --> 00:21:19,610 It's my my my my part, my space. The council decides this is the pothole that needs to be filled. 169 00:21:19,610 --> 00:21:24,920 A passer by might decide this is the hole that tripped me up. 170 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:39,170 So those questions of who belongs where and how do we find a way of agreeing that that both plants and humans can can can live alongside each other? 171 00:21:39,170 --> 00:21:47,210 I mean, I think it's I find it really fascinating that question of belonging, 172 00:21:47,210 --> 00:21:59,470 because I feel like there's an interesting dance that goes on, particularly between plants and human beings around that belonging. 173 00:21:59,470 --> 00:22:02,010 As much as. Let me think. 174 00:22:02,010 --> 00:22:14,320 I'll think about specifically apples, because in Oxford, there is a very intimate relationship of belonging between human beings and apples. 175 00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:24,760 So one way of looking at Oxford would be to look at a map of the city with its buildings and the colleges that are a very big feature. 176 00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:30,280 But another way of looking at the city could also be the old orchard lines. 177 00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:34,060 And it always strikes me in the autumn and around harvest time. 178 00:22:34,060 --> 00:22:40,450 How many houses have baskets outside with the apples in them windfall? 179 00:22:40,450 --> 00:22:49,810 There's too many for that particular family to eat. And I think the apple tree and Oxford in many ways show that dance of belonging apples 180 00:22:49,810 --> 00:22:57,760 originated from Kazakhstan and travelled inside humans and animals all through Europe. 181 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:02,800 And yet they found themselves in the U.K. in a place where they are now very 182 00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:09,400 much considered to belong to with human beings and so intimately connected. 183 00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:15,220 They are the apple trees in the city of Oxford are doing better than in the surrounding 184 00:23:15,220 --> 00:23:21,700 countryside because as humans make their place and try and make beautiful places in the city, 185 00:23:21,700 --> 00:23:30,580 they plant and choose to plant lots of flowers, which increases the number of pollinators, which makes it easier for the apple trees to thrive. 186 00:23:30,580 --> 00:23:39,550 So I see it in terms of who gets to decide for every apple tree that might get cut down to make way for a road. 187 00:23:39,550 --> 00:23:46,420 Another apple tree may be pollinated by its neighbour in a garden and therefore make a place for itself. 188 00:23:46,420 --> 00:23:55,690 So I see it as a dance of belonging somehow. Yeah, and it is interesting, isn't it, to think also about, well, what sorts of plants belong in spaces? 189 00:23:55,690 --> 00:24:03,670 So if we think of public parks and in in your reflection talked about the idea in flowers are colourful and they're beautiful. 190 00:24:03,670 --> 00:24:07,520 And, you know, it's it's nice to have them around. 191 00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:15,160 But of course, public parks could also be amazing spaces for more than just flowers or indeed flowers, 192 00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:22,570 which are blossom that exactly then turn into lovely, lovely apples at the end of the summer. 193 00:24:22,570 --> 00:24:32,290 So that's something that I often wonder as I walk through the parks is why not more of the parks related by lettuces and courgettes? 194 00:24:32,290 --> 00:24:37,450 Beautiful as the daffodils are and beautiful as you know the daisies are. 195 00:24:37,450 --> 00:24:48,520 What is it about public parks which are full for for for our enjoyment, but apparently not necessarily to go and eat from them? 196 00:24:48,520 --> 00:25:01,040 That's a good point. I do think it's interesting what uses we we see of space and the idea of productivity as well. 197 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:13,180 The allotments, the full title for the Allotment Society is that the national allotments of the National Society for Allotments and Leisure Gardens. 198 00:25:13,180 --> 00:25:18,760 And the reason I mentioned that in relation to parks is it is actually a point of tension. 199 00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,930 Some people feel that allotments should be just for growing food. 200 00:25:22,930 --> 00:25:31,570 And if leisure gardens should therefore be like parks and and they see that as a split and that for other people, 201 00:25:31,570 --> 00:25:40,300 if you're growing, whether it's food or whether it's for more static's, there shouldn't necessarily be that split. 202 00:25:40,300 --> 00:25:50,080 But I do feel that it's it's it's interesting choices that get made, because if we're saying that something is beautiful, the flowers are beautiful. 203 00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:58,530 Well, what about a row of, as you mentioned, vegetables, or is that not the type of beauty as well? 204 00:25:58,530 --> 00:26:06,060 I suppose then the question of property inevitably starts to sneak in and I can hear in the back of my head voice saying, 205 00:26:06,060 --> 00:26:17,910 but the person who put the work in is, you know, is rightfully entitled to the row of carrots, not the leisurely passer by who pulls one up. 206 00:26:17,910 --> 00:26:25,580 So, as you know, I suppose we can't really think about these things without then also starting to think about regimes of property and, 207 00:26:25,580 --> 00:26:29,620 you know, who owns what. And one of the very. 208 00:26:29,620 --> 00:26:38,100 Citing things to me about guerrilla gardening, is that these sort of boy evade that question of property. 209 00:26:38,100 --> 00:26:45,900 Flowers grow, things grow. But there's no there's not a clear sense of, well, whose is this? 210 00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:54,480 And I think that's a powerful thing. And it's probably something that all of us need to think more about is that the processes of 211 00:26:54,480 --> 00:27:01,020 growing things and producing things without tying them to I grow my vegetables on my plot. 212 00:27:01,020 --> 00:27:06,300 These are mine and nobody else's, because lo and behold, as you describe at the end of the summer, 213 00:27:06,300 --> 00:27:12,960 we've got too many apples and we put them out for a for our neighbours. 214 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:18,430 But, yeah, certainly that that question of property, I think rears its its head for. 215 00:27:18,430 --> 00:27:29,100 For better or worse. But I think it's very it's so it is so strongly held the idea of property and particularly to come back to English law. 216 00:27:29,100 --> 00:27:37,020 Your home is not your home because you own it. The rights that you have is the right to exclude people from your property. 217 00:27:37,020 --> 00:27:47,370 I mean, what I like that's where my research I found that quite profound, that actually it's about who you keep out more than actually who is met him. 218 00:27:47,370 --> 00:27:50,010 And I see this when I put in the course of my research, 219 00:27:50,010 --> 00:27:58,610 I've spoken to several people who actively grow fruit in their front garden to invite people to take from it. 220 00:27:58,610 --> 00:28:02,340 But people find it very hard to do that, even if there is no fence. 221 00:28:02,340 --> 00:28:07,700 And even if there's a sign saying, I am growing this fruit for you, do help yourself. 222 00:28:07,700 --> 00:28:12,980 They report that passers by find that, you know, there's something that actually stops people. 223 00:28:12,980 --> 00:28:20,720 And you're right. What guerrilla gardening reminds us is, is of that idea that you can do it for others to enjoy. 224 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:26,950 And it's not about even this invisible line that people don't cross over. 225 00:28:26,950 --> 00:28:32,180 And I it faces questions of boundaries and walls and fences. 226 00:28:32,180 --> 00:28:36,090 Then on the question of the public and the private. 227 00:28:36,090 --> 00:28:42,770 That you were talking about and again, one of the beauties of guerrilla gardening seems to me to be that, you know, 228 00:28:42,770 --> 00:28:51,950 that these boundaries get transgressed and get broken down both by the act of sprinkling seeds where they were not expected, 229 00:28:51,950 --> 00:28:53,750 but also by the plants themselves, 230 00:28:53,750 --> 00:29:02,450 just find their way through these fences to find that little crack in the wall to grow in and just break down a little bit. 231 00:29:02,450 --> 00:29:09,140 Some of the boundaries between what's mine and what's yours. 232 00:29:09,140 --> 00:29:12,260 Well, I think plants are always really good at doing that. 233 00:29:12,260 --> 00:29:20,060 Anybody who has a garden will invariably know that they have some parts of their neighbours plants within their own garden. 234 00:29:20,060 --> 00:29:25,250 Because I love the way that they you know, they just ignore our fences. 235 00:29:25,250 --> 00:29:33,780 That's right. And of course, for better and worse. Right. So this marvellously, you know, my neighbours, Jasmine, spilling over into my plot. 236 00:29:33,780 --> 00:29:39,950 But, you know, what about the knotweed, for example, spilling through under the fence. 237 00:29:39,950 --> 00:29:44,120 And of course, that, you know, for better or worse, I say, because, of course, 238 00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:49,730 if nothing else, it certainly makes us strike up conversations with our neighbours, 239 00:29:49,730 --> 00:29:56,320 hopefully to celebrate the jasmine, but perhaps also to complain, to complain about, 240 00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:05,220 you know, the weeds that keep coming through the fence that's leaning over and so on. 241 00:30:05,220 --> 00:30:12,610 But I think it's it's also interesting when a boundary is brought to an attention, what else it can do. 242 00:30:12,610 --> 00:30:20,650 There was a wonderful situation on an allotment site where there was a plot that was divided into two and on 243 00:30:20,650 --> 00:30:27,340 one half the person hadn't been tending it very well and there were all sorts of brambles growing very high. 244 00:30:27,340 --> 00:30:33,250 And the person on the other half had been complaining and complaining. And eventually the person hadn't been tending. 245 00:30:33,250 --> 00:30:40,240 That plot moved on. And the new allotment team arrived and cleared everything away. 246 00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:44,110 And the person who had been complaining suddenly realised that their plants were worse 247 00:30:44,110 --> 00:30:49,060 off because they hadn't been sheltered by all of these brambles that were growing. 248 00:30:49,060 --> 00:30:54,610 And so this what subprime trees don't always do what we think that they do. 249 00:30:54,610 --> 00:31:01,600 And sometimes by having that brought to our attention, we get to see other ways of being. 250 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:11,110 And so exactly there's that opportunity. Isn't that to just we we think or perhaps see afresh that the world that you're living in? 251 00:31:11,110 --> 00:31:17,170 So the thing that looks like a fence or a wall turns out to actually be a shelter. 252 00:31:17,170 --> 00:31:24,340 The porthole that looks like a trip has it turns out to be a plant pot. 253 00:31:24,340 --> 00:31:26,510 And so there there's an opportunity there isn't there, 254 00:31:26,510 --> 00:31:36,700 to look at the world through eyes that are shaped by another set of categories, if you like, another way of looking at the world. 255 00:31:36,700 --> 00:31:42,250 And that, again, seems to me to be a rather powerful thing. Very much so. 256 00:31:42,250 --> 00:31:47,570 And and something that can actually change the way that we do things. 257 00:31:47,570 --> 00:31:47,740 You know, 258 00:31:47,740 --> 00:31:59,800 I was I was talking to somebody today who shared with me daffodils that she planted as a guerrilla gardener that were avoided by a Virge Cutter. 259 00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:09,970 And the fact that to think that actually a daffodil has the power essentially to make somebody decide that they will not cut them down, 260 00:32:09,970 --> 00:32:15,900 what they recognised in that moment is really quite powerful. 261 00:32:15,900 --> 00:32:22,340 Yeah, that's a that's an interesting example, isn't it? And I suppose it then makes you come back to this question. 262 00:32:22,340 --> 00:32:32,870 Well, a daffodil which wasn't meant to be there by virtue of its presence, has established a space for itself, which, 263 00:32:32,870 --> 00:32:40,190 you know, I think we see that with plants that cut across parks where you shouldn't have a path and people just walk. 264 00:32:40,190 --> 00:32:45,860 It's maybe it's a shortcut. And you walk across the park on this path that's not meant to be a path. 265 00:32:45,860 --> 00:32:57,740 And over a certain amount of time, lo and behold, it becomes a path and and it becomes a legitimate space in which to walk, if you like. 266 00:32:57,740 --> 00:33:07,940 I think it gives me a lot of hope that we can actually shape our cities and we can be co creators with different species to do that. 267 00:33:07,940 --> 00:33:17,420 I think cities I mean, I'm biased. I'm an urbanist. But cities, I think gets a lot of flack for being quite hostile or unyielding places. 268 00:33:17,420 --> 00:33:24,590 But actually, I think what guerilla gardeners remind us is that we do have the possibility to procreate our cities. 269 00:33:24,590 --> 00:33:33,960 We don't have to feel that the structures that we find ourselves in a fix to a point that we have no form of entry or conversation with them. 270 00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:39,330 Yeah, that's right. Now, let me just play devil's advocate just for a moment on that, 271 00:33:39,330 --> 00:33:49,110 because I absolutely agree with you that there is a sort of a message there of co creation and coexistence, which which is very beautiful. 272 00:33:49,110 --> 00:33:55,340 I want that. Is there a risk of becoming almost too starry eyed about that? 273 00:33:55,340 --> 00:34:04,500 And in co creating these spaces are we've been asking locking some people out of some species, some particular kinds of plants. 274 00:34:04,500 --> 00:34:10,620 Do we have to be careful to keep that conversation very open so not to fall from, you know, 275 00:34:10,620 --> 00:34:21,330 the power of the planners to some other kind of power, which also excludes excludes one or other constituency? 276 00:34:21,330 --> 00:34:29,250 Well, I mean, it comes down to weeds, doesn't it? And the whole idea of a weed being a plant out of place and, you know, 277 00:34:29,250 --> 00:34:35,490 the decisions that are made around what is a weed, what do redecide is beautiful and what is acceptable. 278 00:34:35,490 --> 00:34:40,130 And I think, you know, you briefly mentioned Japanese knotweed. 279 00:34:40,130 --> 00:34:46,920 And I find it really fascinating how in Victorian times it was given as a gift. 280 00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:51,150 Ended up in Kew Gardens. One prises was seen as this amazing, 281 00:34:51,150 --> 00:34:59,880 beautiful plant has now become a plant that can completely devastate a neighbourhood socially, economically, if it's found. 282 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:04,170 It's been declared an invasive species. 283 00:35:04,170 --> 00:35:09,390 If it's found in your house, it can destroy the value of your home. 284 00:35:09,390 --> 00:35:14,170 And this is the same plot that we're talking about that has now been categorised differently. 285 00:35:14,170 --> 00:35:21,240 But then most recently, again, there's been a chemical within it that has has medicinal potential. 286 00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:25,730 And so all of a sudden, the same plant is taken into a different category. 287 00:35:25,730 --> 00:35:31,470 Well, so long as it's very strictly controlled and guarded in labs, it's now applied to the kids. 288 00:35:31,470 --> 00:35:36,240 We seem to have a use and therefore shouldn't be completely eradicated. 289 00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:40,110 And what I find interesting in this very same plants, 290 00:35:40,110 --> 00:35:47,100 having very different life cycles is it shows us also how we can do that with human beings and 291 00:35:47,100 --> 00:35:53,430 how we can have certain human beings that could be initially exercised in a particular country, 292 00:35:53,430 --> 00:36:00,760 go through a period where they are seen as taking over and therefore not to be seen as being wanted. 293 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:06,870 But if they seem to have a special case gift or special skill, they can benefit their country. 294 00:36:06,870 --> 00:36:14,770 They can then be regulated. So I think that plants can also teach us about how we treat each other. 295 00:36:14,770 --> 00:36:21,320 Yes, that seems a pretty important point to to to make. 296 00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:34,690 And, of course, the history of inclusions and exclusions, both of people and of plants, is one that we do well to pay attention to, 297 00:36:34,690 --> 00:36:45,420 both for the sake of living together as human human social groups, but surely also for the sake of the maintenance of biodiversity. 298 00:36:45,420 --> 00:36:50,440 So it's not just one kind of them plant that we that we'd like to have in our gardens. 299 00:36:50,440 --> 00:37:03,130 And as you mentioned, because cities have now become places of heightened biodiversity, more biodiverse in many cases when then the countryside. 300 00:37:03,130 --> 00:37:05,440 So that too makes me then think, well, you know, 301 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:16,130 cities clearly do a very important role to play as sites of biodiversity in the future, but also, I suppose aside. 302 00:37:16,130 --> 00:37:29,110 So food production in the future, through allotments, through back gardens, perhaps through public parks out there. 303 00:37:29,110 --> 00:37:37,060 I mean, wouldn't it be amazing to have, you know, public orchards in places where it was just, you know, people could just go and they can eat? 304 00:37:37,060 --> 00:37:41,640 I mean, they existed. You know, you get a lot of work in low land South America. 305 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:48,760 Essentially, it would be great to have an example from your work of how that works. 306 00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:55,870 Well, so that's right. So that did make me think a little bit about that and about the value of collective work as opposed to individual work, 307 00:37:55,870 --> 00:37:58,510 and I think it's really important to emphasise that. 308 00:37:58,510 --> 00:38:09,100 You know, in the case where I work in an in lowland South America with indigenous people who are very keen horticulturalists who grow, 309 00:38:09,100 --> 00:38:17,740 grow their own food, and to do that in part through collective labour, through working together. 310 00:38:17,740 --> 00:38:22,660 Nevertheless, the idea of who owns the food is very strongly entrenched. 311 00:38:22,660 --> 00:38:28,750 So it's not really a matter of people being able to walk into each other's gardens and help themselves. 312 00:38:28,750 --> 00:38:33,520 Quite, quite the opposite. It's quite the opposite. It has to be said so collectively. 313 00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:43,300 Working together, on the other hand, is very, very highly valued. And that's something that perhaps we also could learn from and and think through. 314 00:38:43,300 --> 00:38:47,950 And I know that happens in neighbourhoods that, you know, people help one another out and so on. 315 00:38:47,950 --> 00:38:49,690 It's perhaps not quite on this of, you know, 316 00:38:49,690 --> 00:38:56,980 formalised level and and widespread spread level that you see certainly in the context of a fun out of people, 317 00:38:56,980 --> 00:39:08,140 indigenous people in central Brazil, working together collectively as part of what it is to be a good person to do, lead a good life. 318 00:39:08,140 --> 00:39:14,300 Yeah. So suddenly, um, I'm sure things there that we could we could learn. 319 00:39:14,300 --> 00:39:22,190 I mean, I think that are just as you said, there are examples in the U.K. certainly on different allotment sites. 320 00:39:22,190 --> 00:39:27,920 One of the really lovely things I'm seeing happening at the moment is that there are people who are 321 00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:34,910 looking after other people's plots if they can't get to the site because of the current restrictions. 322 00:39:34,910 --> 00:39:41,780 And that has really emerged quite spontaneously as a way to ensure the continuity of that plot. 323 00:39:41,780 --> 00:39:51,320 So I what I love about researching allotments is they tend to bring out the best of people during points in crisis. 324 00:39:51,320 --> 00:40:00,090 They tend to really demonstrate that possibility of what can happen in points of crisis, of how people can support and work with each other. 325 00:40:00,090 --> 00:40:04,230 Yeah. It is a very beautiful thing to see, isn't it? And then perhaps now more than ever. 326 00:40:04,230 --> 00:40:12,840 I think we're seeing some of those those qualities of people reaching out to one another and and being there to support one another, 327 00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:23,910 really coming to the fore. So perhaps it would be nice on that positive and hopeful to move to a question and answer session. 328 00:40:23,910 --> 00:40:29,070 Yes, that would be great. That's where I come back in SEC. 329 00:40:29,070 --> 00:40:36,990 Thank you so much, both of you, J.C., for your reading. And Elizabeth and J.C., both of you, for that really interesting conversation. 330 00:40:36,990 --> 00:40:45,060 I know I certainly have learnt a lot from you know, I had an idea as to what urban gardening and guerrilla gardening was. 331 00:40:45,060 --> 00:40:48,660 I now have a better idea. I also have some questions of my own. 332 00:40:48,660 --> 00:40:55,650 And as I am here in person, I would love to ask those questions of you both. 333 00:40:55,650 --> 00:41:00,420 We also have a number of questions that have come through on social media. So I will ask those as well. 334 00:41:00,420 --> 00:41:03,030 And thank you to those who have sent those questions. 335 00:41:03,030 --> 00:41:12,080 If you still have questions, feel free to put those to us on the YouTube chat and we will pick those up and hopefully make time for those, too. 336 00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:21,210 So thank you very much. What we heard today was really interesting outline of how urban gardening and guerrilla gardening 337 00:41:21,210 --> 00:41:27,780 as part of that can touch on so many areas that you've spoken about inclusion and exclusion. 338 00:41:27,780 --> 00:41:32,670 You talked about identity. A really important question I think everyone seems to have. 339 00:41:32,670 --> 00:41:38,570 And this thread is about ownership. That's really interesting to see if you put so much time into this. 340 00:41:38,570 --> 00:41:42,950 Who's who who then can take the daffodils or all the will? 341 00:41:42,950 --> 00:41:47,220 The lettuces, as you say, Elizabeth, in those public parks. 342 00:41:47,220 --> 00:41:55,020 Something I'd like to say is that food versus Flora seems to be a quite interesting point that you both made. 343 00:41:55,020 --> 00:41:59,060 Of course, what is. And again, it goes back to that point. 344 00:41:59,060 --> 00:42:10,110 You have also made about value. So coming over to one of our first questions is related to that, the idea of ownership and public space. 345 00:42:10,110 --> 00:42:18,360 One of the points that was made on social media was about people planting things on Vergis and the balance between accessibility, 346 00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:19,950 of course, and maintenance. 347 00:42:19,950 --> 00:42:30,470 You mentioned potholes quite often visions of my own street, by the way, which I suppose I'll have to drive round daffodils and so footholds. 348 00:42:30,470 --> 00:42:34,980 But am I perhaps if we can if we can come to you, Elizabeth. 349 00:42:34,980 --> 00:42:40,330 First of all, what are your thoughts, particularly on that balance of public and accessibility? 350 00:42:40,330 --> 00:42:47,910 And of course, maintenance. Yeah. And of course, the question of accessibility is a huge one. 351 00:42:47,910 --> 00:42:59,550 When you mention, though, having to drive round the daffodils, I am immediately thinking, well, traffic calming measures could work. 352 00:42:59,550 --> 00:43:07,320 The sleeping policeman and I slowed down the traffic. 353 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:12,330 So I think I still think about accessibility and break that down into. 354 00:43:12,330 --> 00:43:20,100 Well, you know this. Streets, pavements are for people to occupy. 355 00:43:20,100 --> 00:43:26,640 There always are these debates, are there not, about, you know, is it the cause of the cyclists or the pedestrians and so on? 356 00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:31,650 You know, I'm not. Or we've got enough time. 357 00:43:31,650 --> 00:43:38,280 And one us another show, Elisabeth, on the question of accessibility. 358 00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:39,740 Well, there is clearly, you know, 359 00:43:39,740 --> 00:43:48,450 a difference between planting an entire pavement full of daffodils and then you can walk through because let's face it, 360 00:43:48,450 --> 00:43:54,570 when the daffodils aren't there, it's wintertime in the U.K. It's going to be very, very muddy. 361 00:43:54,570 --> 00:44:00,570 To to to make the space less liveable rather than more liveable. 362 00:44:00,570 --> 00:44:12,510 On the other hand, if we thought about ways of farming the traffic with plantings of the daffodils, that might be that might be more viable. 363 00:44:12,510 --> 00:44:16,440 Mm hmm. Interesting. Jason, what are your thoughts? 364 00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:22,800 Well, it was it was interesting. I was thinking actually more when you're talking about food and flora, 365 00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:29,760 because also I think a lot of what we're talking about today are categories and plants move between them. 366 00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:38,370 So what we think of is the wonderful English. Dahlia started off as a food in South America with a Cuba that was eaten there. 367 00:44:38,370 --> 00:44:41,550 But when it came here, it turned into Flora. 368 00:44:41,550 --> 00:44:48,210 So I think, again, to kind of come back to what I think guerrilla gardening does so well is it shakes up all these categories. 369 00:44:48,210 --> 00:44:58,500 It reminds us that what we think about as one particular category, actually, it can move, it can change shape and it might not be what we think it is. 370 00:44:58,500 --> 00:45:04,230 I mean, on that also, I mean, we have to remember that these are not mutually exclusive things. 371 00:45:04,230 --> 00:45:11,460 So the apple tree that, you know, blossoms beautifully turns into food later on. 372 00:45:11,460 --> 00:45:17,980 Of course, we can have things that both flower and feed us all at the same time. 373 00:45:17,980 --> 00:45:26,370 So this tree. And if if we could stay on the food aspect, you can tell Maya, Maya, a keen area here. 374 00:45:26,370 --> 00:45:31,470 I think it's also it's interesting what you pointed out about the social aspects, because, 375 00:45:31,470 --> 00:45:37,410 of course, we talk about urban gardening and both spoke about what makes the garden. 376 00:45:37,410 --> 00:45:44,520 Not everyone has a garden. And I'm just conscious where in this particular period where we're told to stay at home. 377 00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:48,220 And that question about outside space, we don't have it. 378 00:45:48,220 --> 00:45:53,130 And that is quite often a social social thing. 379 00:45:53,130 --> 00:45:58,560 And also thinking about the different foods that quite often make the humble crumble is what I was thinking. 380 00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:06,780 You're apples, you rhubarb and your blackberries. My family quite often and friends, you know, we we find those in public spaces. 381 00:46:06,780 --> 00:46:10,460 I don't think anyone does anyone consciously through Blackberries, I'm not sure. 382 00:46:10,460 --> 00:46:14,710 But it's quite interesting how food is so interwoven into that social aspect. 383 00:46:14,710 --> 00:46:21,060 You touched on the earlier I to Jaycee. If you have any more thoughts on the sociability of food. 384 00:46:21,060 --> 00:46:25,530 I mean, I, I, you know, I have an obsession with the apple tree, 385 00:46:25,530 --> 00:46:32,880 but what I love about trees is that they remind us that they had never met four individuals or even individual families. 386 00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:36,540 You know, you can't. That's why the baskets are outside of the doors. 387 00:46:36,540 --> 00:46:45,120 They remind us that actually, regardless of who planted or tended it, there are people who are going to benefit who did nothing towards that. 388 00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:50,940 And I really I kind of like that because I think it also reminds us to look after each other. 389 00:46:50,940 --> 00:46:57,310 One of my favourite apples is from a tree that is on the edge of a car park. 390 00:46:57,310 --> 00:47:04,740 And I have no idea what she says, but it's just I mean, the apples are just divine love and I don't know who planted it. 391 00:47:04,740 --> 00:47:13,260 I been there, you know, and it's just I. But I think in terms of to think about the people who don't have access to the outside. 392 00:47:13,260 --> 00:47:17,670 Let's remember that we also do live with a lot more clouds and we forget about it. 393 00:47:17,670 --> 00:47:20,520 We forget about all the clouds that are in our homes. 394 00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:28,450 Very often we don't think about the fact that they also are breaking a particular boundary there, plants. 395 00:47:28,450 --> 00:47:33,960 But they're inside our homes. And, you know, whenever you speak to keen gardeners, 396 00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:41,670 they will tell you that the gardening season is also in their house because they will propagate, you know, germinate seeds in their home. 397 00:47:41,670 --> 00:47:47,720 They will tend them. And only when it's actually safe for the plants to go outside will they move outside. 398 00:47:47,720 --> 00:47:54,030 True, true. We have another interesting question come through on the chat. 399 00:47:54,030 --> 00:47:59,490 Somebody has asked, what is the cultural history and origin of the term guerrilla gardening? 400 00:47:59,490 --> 00:48:07,070 I know this is this is a question I need to ask as well. So, yeah. Which one of you would like to start on that one? 401 00:48:07,070 --> 00:48:11,090 Like, with all of these things, it's very contentious. 402 00:48:11,090 --> 00:48:19,650 So there's some who say it came out of a women's movement in the 70s and 80s that it was very much about. 403 00:48:19,650 --> 00:48:26,340 This would have been most America. And it was it was purposely coopting the language of war. 404 00:48:26,340 --> 00:48:35,070 Yeah. Look, about something which is otherwise seen as nurturing and being carryback carried out by agenda that is often associated with nurturing. 405 00:48:35,070 --> 00:48:41,040 More recently, as I said, there's people like Reynolds, who I mentioned in London. 406 00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:46,890 There's also the prominent guerilla gardeners in Canada who have said that it was them that came up with that term. 407 00:48:46,890 --> 00:48:51,300 But for me, the one that I do lean towards is in the 70s and 80s, you know, 408 00:48:51,300 --> 00:48:57,330 women who took over abandoned bits of urban land because I can really see how 409 00:48:57,330 --> 00:49:03,910 they would have used that for the fact that it was such a strong juxtaposition. 410 00:49:03,910 --> 00:49:09,230 Pinterest. OK, great. We have another question that's come through. 411 00:49:09,230 --> 00:49:16,020 And I think this is this is very apt, particularly for you, your research areas, particularly you, Elizabeth, as well. 412 00:49:16,020 --> 00:49:19,990 Amongst some communities in Ethiopia, Gamow, for example, 413 00:49:19,990 --> 00:49:28,680 PASSERS-BY along Fildes are about to take a bunch of unharvested gridding peas or broad beans from Plotts if they needed to eat. 414 00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:33,000 I think that's a really interesting concept to touch with what you were saying, actually, Jayce, 415 00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:47,550 with the idea of boundaries and feeling allowed to go into particular spaces and your it seems to be campaign, Elizabeth, for public food blogs. 416 00:49:47,550 --> 00:49:51,280 I wondered if you had any comments to add to that. Yeah. 417 00:49:51,280 --> 00:50:03,590 And, you know, I think the reason it will get more it's okay to take a bunch of peas as you pass by is because people know that, 418 00:50:03,590 --> 00:50:12,190 you know, that's as much as they're going to take. So this also speaks to this morality of sharing and that sense. 419 00:50:12,190 --> 00:50:17,250 You know, we don't live in a world of scarcity unless we make it so right. 420 00:50:17,250 --> 00:50:24,490 The world becomes scarce when we hold on to all the things we have and hold onto them for ourselves. 421 00:50:24,490 --> 00:50:31,110 So questions of the distribution of food globally and so would be a great example in another 422 00:50:31,110 --> 00:50:36,790 space and time to think about that question of the generosity that's built into that. 423 00:50:36,790 --> 00:50:47,040 And that might sound like a very romantic idea, but it does seem to me that there is nothing to stop us from sharing with each other generously, 424 00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:53,490 as long as people understand that what they take is a small bit what they need, as it were. 425 00:50:53,490 --> 00:50:57,180 We've just had the whole debate about hoarding in supermarkets, 426 00:50:57,180 --> 00:51:04,440 which would be a real example of where that is absolutely not manifest itself like that. 427 00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:09,900 There are certain parts of the world where taking something because you know that you're not 428 00:51:09,900 --> 00:51:17,100 going to take everything form for real weevils of social life is what holds people together. 429 00:51:17,100 --> 00:51:27,110 It's what gives people confidence, part of a community. And that's something that I think we've got everything to learn from. 430 00:51:27,110 --> 00:51:32,350 Yeah, that's that's great. Thank you. J.C., any thoughts? 431 00:51:32,350 --> 00:51:39,940 No, I think it's you know, I think Elizabeth described it really well, and I think it it for me, 432 00:51:39,940 --> 00:51:46,700 what it speaks to are the things that kind of hold the glue of a society together. 433 00:51:46,700 --> 00:51:54,910 You know, in the same way that there are some things here around what what we know in the UK that we would not transgress. 434 00:51:54,910 --> 00:51:57,550 There might be a different example of that. 435 00:51:57,550 --> 00:52:04,840 And so I think these are where sometimes it is useful to learn from other societies, but also be aware that it's as Elizabeth said, 436 00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:13,660 it is woven into their way of being, which can sometimes, if you're looking from the outside, make it quite difficult to understand. 437 00:52:13,660 --> 00:52:22,900 Mm hmm. Definitely. I think, Lisa, nicely to another point that was made, which was about defining what we mean as urban, you know, 438 00:52:22,900 --> 00:52:30,370 and in the context of neighbourhood first and somebodies message about, you know, some neighbours don't talk to each other very much or at all. 439 00:52:30,370 --> 00:52:32,920 So, of course, then, you know what? What can this do? 440 00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:40,550 Sounds like, you know, from what you're saying already, sometimes it very happily breaks boundaries. 441 00:52:40,550 --> 00:52:46,640 I mean, the question of what is open is a bit like the definition of guerrilla gardening, it's hotly debated. 442 00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:52,210 But you get it often tends to come down to the density of people in a particular place. 443 00:52:52,210 --> 00:53:02,000 Right. And, you know, within the city context. So it then becomes various amounts of densities as to how urban a place is considered to be. 444 00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:07,400 But I think in terms of talking to neighbours, when I did some ethnographic work in Summertown, 445 00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:13,190 I'll never forget speaking to a resident who said that they had been living in a village in Oxfordshire 446 00:53:13,190 --> 00:53:19,700 and felt more isolated and knew less neighbours and when they moved into a street in Summertown. 447 00:53:19,700 --> 00:53:26,910 And because you leave your front doors at the same time and have certain rhythms that are more in time with each other. 448 00:53:26,910 --> 00:53:30,320 She got to know a lot more people and found it much more friendly. 449 00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:40,460 So I think sometimes the I you know, the preconceptions we may have of interactions in cities are not always played out in reality. 450 00:53:40,460 --> 00:53:45,930 That's pretty interesting. Elizabeth, do you have any more thoughts to add to that? 451 00:53:45,930 --> 00:53:52,220 So speaking about what the definition of urban I mean, I'm not going to get to how one might define the urban, 452 00:53:52,220 --> 00:53:57,620 but certainly one thing that I think is worth thinking about is that the boundaries of the urban 453 00:53:57,620 --> 00:54:02,580 and thinking about people who live in urban settings versus people who live in rural settings, 454 00:54:02,580 --> 00:54:11,690 it's not necessarily the most helpful way of of thinking through how many people in the world live who might spend some time in urban settings, 455 00:54:11,690 --> 00:54:18,330 but, you know, move back to the two to the rural areas and go between them or, you know, families, for example, 456 00:54:18,330 --> 00:54:26,990 in southern Ethiopia, where I'm working with with will they tend this if we work in a rural setting. 457 00:54:26,990 --> 00:54:36,320 But every farmer's household pretty much has one or two sons who've gone to the capital, to Addis Ababa to do work there. 458 00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:41,420 And they will at some point come back. They've migrated to the city. They'll at some point migrate back. 459 00:54:41,420 --> 00:54:50,210 Somebody else from the family will go. So there's a social sense in which has a perma ability between the rural and the urban embers movement between 460 00:54:50,210 --> 00:54:57,440 them and some of the practises that people learn in in rural settings they may bring with them and in fact, 461 00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:04,620 grow some some food in tiny little plots in where they're living in Addis Ababa. 462 00:55:04,620 --> 00:55:11,540 Besso has so many of these these categories, they kind of defy their boundaries the moment you focussing and you think, 463 00:55:11,540 --> 00:55:19,910 well, there's much more permeability there. And just like those, you know, urban dwellers who we imagine never speaking to their neighbours, well, 464 00:55:19,910 --> 00:55:23,660 one day maybe you bump into each other in the lift and you do strike up the 465 00:55:23,660 --> 00:55:28,750 conversation and you do realise that perhaps there's things to talk about or, 466 00:55:28,750 --> 00:55:36,960 you know. So, you know, I think we so think about these categories very much in terms of permeability and flexibility. 467 00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:42,950 Yeah. That's a really good point. We've had another comment through rather than a question. 468 00:55:42,950 --> 00:55:48,890 I think it's a really important point. Going back to one of our earlier questions about accessibility, 469 00:55:48,890 --> 00:55:56,960 and actually we should ensure that we include the needs of those with disabilities when they're navigating the streets and discussing accessibility. 470 00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:01,400 I think that chimes with what you were saying and in your response there. 471 00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:10,040 It is great to be able to do whatever we can. But of course, you know, there's always the issues we find as well. 472 00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:14,990 You talk about pavements of for people. I often find a lot of cars parked up on. 473 00:56:14,990 --> 00:56:21,760 So, you know, it is a real issue with you have a buggy or you have access needs a birth burse, different kinds. 474 00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:28,760 So thank you for that point. And then we have, I think, time for one more question, if that's okay. 475 00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:33,650 Given that many people feel a natural unwillingness to pick what they have implanted, 476 00:56:33,650 --> 00:56:43,010 how Mike Precedent's or wheel of traditional contemporary gardening be, you know, given us a guide to create access for community projects. 477 00:56:43,010 --> 00:56:49,250 I think what we're talking about there is your your points, jayce about people, you know, offering. 478 00:56:49,250 --> 00:56:54,600 But still there's a there's a cultural barrier almost. There isn't the. 479 00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:58,460 I mean, I think some of it is know possibly through the media, too. 480 00:56:58,460 --> 00:57:11,100 To be quite honest, it's gardening has been hugely affected and impacted by things that people have seen on TV, on YouTube, increasingly and online. 481 00:57:11,100 --> 00:57:16,000 So I think if people begin to see examples of it, if they see it demonstrated, 482 00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:21,180 you know, for example, no dig gardening at the moment is increasingly popular. 483 00:57:21,180 --> 00:57:25,890 And that has been largely through a lot of the media, 484 00:57:25,890 --> 00:57:32,070 a lot of YouTube videos and big personalities showing their practise because especially to see no 485 00:57:32,070 --> 00:57:37,350 dig gardening on traditional allotment sites where double digging was just par for the course, 486 00:57:37,350 --> 00:57:40,550 shows that there can be big cultural shifts that can happen. 487 00:57:40,550 --> 00:57:48,570 And even the most, quote unquote, traditional settings, if I may ask, and shows my ignorance of what is no dig gardening. 488 00:57:48,570 --> 00:57:53,040 How does this work exactly what it says you've got and without digging? 489 00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:54,290 Oh, yes. 490 00:57:54,290 --> 00:58:04,540 So the idea is you have your piece of land that you you put mulch down and compost and you build up the soil without actually turning it over. 491 00:58:04,540 --> 00:58:10,710 And so it is. And it's it is becoming increasingly popular, which is that is a big cultural shift because, you know, 492 00:58:10,710 --> 00:58:15,680 when we think of gardening, everybody thinks, you know, you get your shovel out and that's the point. 493 00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:21,000 But this starts from a completely different place. So I do think it's possible for that to be cultural shifts. 494 00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,280 Mm hmm. Interesting. Any further thoughts on that? 495 00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:28,110 Elizabeth? Well, just thinking about no gardening. 496 00:58:28,110 --> 00:58:34,080 I mean, of course, it's not very good news for people for whom that kind of heavy duty labour is a bit of a therapy. 497 00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:37,680 So, you know, there's nothing greater than spending your day at the desk, 498 00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:42,480 at the computer and then going out in the garden and digging over a good old clock. 499 00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:48,600 And feeling finally achieved something in the day. 500 00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:54,950 You know, I think like all these things, that the space for all kinds of gardening, all kinds of gardens, all kinds of plants. 501 00:58:54,950 --> 00:58:58,700 And just the very last thing I was thinking about in relation to your question 502 00:58:58,700 --> 00:59:03,380 was how do we get these cultural shifts that make it okay to take a little bit? 503 00:59:03,380 --> 00:59:11,460 Well, it's just it's a little bit like, you know, back in the day, museums were there for us to look at things, but never to touch anything. 504 00:59:11,460 --> 00:59:16,320 And, of course, you know, over the space of perhaps a generation now, I'm thinking, well, 505 00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:20,730 if I take my children to the museum now, it's very different with lots of interactive things. 506 00:59:20,730 --> 00:59:30,920 There's lots of things where you're actively encouraged to touch it. So if we can do it for museums, I think we can do it for gardens to. 507 00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:33,590 That's a great point for us to finish on that. 508 00:59:33,590 --> 00:59:42,620 I think that the please touch and the please take signs are probably what we're advocating for, aren't we? 509 00:59:42,620 --> 00:59:46,310 Well, that leads me to do now is to say thank you both so, 510 00:59:46,310 --> 00:59:53,150 so much for being so generous with your time and your your thoughts and your words here today. 511 00:59:53,150 --> 00:59:58,520 I've certainly learnt a lot. Judging from the questions, we've had a really interesting audience, too, so. 512 00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:08,630 Thank you both very much. J.C. and Elizabeth also leads me on to do is say that this series will be live every week. 513 01:00:08,630 --> 01:00:16,880 We will have one live event up until the end of June. Our next event is next week, on Thursday at five o'clock. 514 01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:20,660 We would welcome you to come along and see us again then. 515 01:00:20,660 --> 01:00:28,310 Thank you so much. This has been the Big Ideas series of the Big Ten as part of the humanities cultural programme. 516 01:00:28,310 --> 01:01:05,371 Thank you all very much.