Ethics and Politics of the Built Environment: Gardens of the Anthropocene

Abstract

This book is a reflection on the role of gardens in our thinking about our environments, and on the role of urban gardening in our acting and for our environments. More generally, it is an exploration of the ethical and political station of individuals in the Anthropocene - this new epoch in which the Earth is being remade by human activity. The book argues that, in the new epoch, urban gardens and gardening are to become 1) conceptual models for reflecting on the human station within the wider workings of things; 2) contexts and practices of stewardship that enable the fulfillment of individual moral obligations against important global challenges - including food security, climate change, resource depletion, and biodiversity loss; 3) urban gardens and gardening are contexts and practices of virtue development and exercise, promoting behavioral and attitudinal dispositions that are particularly fit to the new circumstances of the Anthropocene; and 4) because urban gardens can be networked into city-level garden-systems, and individual urban gardening can be coordinated interpersonally to deliver collective arrangements, urban gardens and gardening are also to become contexts and practices of political participation. In this sense a networked, city-level garden system can be described as a public good, providing at least four important services: connecting citizens, promoting sustainability and justice objectives, catalyzing identification, and enabling self-determination.