The resurgence of urban farming and gardening has taken an eminent role in cities across East and Southeast Asia over the last few years. This interdisciplinary project aims at understanding the varied urban gardening and farming practices as well as their socio-political, cultural and historical significance for well-being, community building, participatory urbanism, civil society and redevelopment of the urban environment in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul.

This is the first academic research with comparative approach in the regional context that seeks to examine the significance of urban gardening and farming for the past, today and future. The interdisciplinary framework builds on Urban sociology, Environmental aesthetics, Planning and governance, and History and legacy. The four cities are chosen for their position in shared historical trajectories: they are at the turning point where there is a significantly stronger ecological awareness, more active urban citizenship, and new forms of economic and communal experimentations. The comparative perspective also derives from their historical imperial past – which connect them with colonial British and Japanese regimes, and their geographic situation as regional hubs for the exchange of people, belief systems and scientific knowledge. At the same time, these cities share future challenges in terms of ageing populations, sustainability, and food security. In all four cities urban farming and gardening are increasingly seen as a way to combat these concerns by improving citizens’ well-being and quality of life; enhancing the aesthetic experience of city-space; providing an alternative source of sustainable, healthy food; and, moving toward an ideal future city.

This project will deliver significant insights on how high-density cities in the region, such as Singapore, can develop urban farming and gardening activities in socio-politically and ecologically sustainable ways and, how farms and gardens can be sites of community building, place belonging, and environmental citizenship. The new interest in urban cultivation necessarily requires a reframing of the urban-rural link.

PI: Ho Kong Chong
Collaborators: Cho Im Sik, Minna Valjakka & Fiona Williamson 

Funding Agency: Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund, NUS
Projection Duration: 1 October 2017 – 31 March 2019