6.0 Introduction
In focus in this chapter are the participatory outcomes of Phases 2 and 3 of the research design, comprising my ethnographic participation within 12 Tasmanian food-producing households and three design workshops involving a wider network of participants. I reiterate first the relationship between the two phases, with the household visits taking place between February and April 2013 during the primary harvest season, and the workshops staged in July and November of the same year. The household settings are profiled with food-related practices analysed in relation to spatial-material concerns that emphasise the kitchen- garden interface. This offers finer-grained insights into the everyday
experiences of food producing as the interwoven set of social and cultural activities I characterised in the preceding chapter. The workshop outcomes are then presented, featuring participants’ speculative, ‘what might be’ design responses spanning scales from the communal through to the dwelling and kitchen. I conclude this chapter with a meta-level design brief that guides the regenerative food axis design patterns I propose in Chapter 7.
The purpose of the second phase household ethnography, detailed in Chapter 4, was to experience and identify practices associated with home-based food production from the inside, achieved by co-engaging in the practices of householders as far as possible. This enabled critical observation of
participants’ interactions with their home environment, and particularly the existing spatial, material and functional interfaces between kitchens and
gardens as the manifestation of contemporary food axes. The analysis to follow in Section 6.2 proceeds with particular sensitivity to issues of scale relative to ecological systems, the role of tenure, and the social significance of food
gardens in daily life. My involvement with each household lasted between a half and full day, preceded by and in some cases followed by email contact, with visits made according to householder availability. These visits involved me in a variety of activities: harvesting, weeding, discussing approaches and systems while exploring gardens, chasing chickens, and drinking tea while discussing participants’ kitchens, in-situ.
Reiterating the purpose of the third phase design workshops, these were
intended to generate speculative design responses to the overarching question: ‘how might dwelling and garden space be designed to best support
regenerative growing and producing practices?’ Foremost, the workshops demonstrated the experiential knowledge of participants and invited them to reflect upon what was aligning with their practices in the home environment, as well as identifying dilemmas arising from environmental, spatial, and personal and social factors that could inform the re-visioning of productive domestic space. The workshop analysis in Section 6.4 is most concerned with spatial and social speculations, with a primary goal of informing ecological design. Equally, the workshops offered participants a convivial knowledge sharing and learning opportunity, in line with my value of reciprocity.
6.1 Overview of Phase 2 and 3 methods and participation
Invitation to participate in Phases 2 and 3 of the study, as outlined in Sections 4.4 and 4.5, was made through sustainable living and alternative food networks via email and social media. I set out the range of housing types and densities I sought, and specified involvement in food production with a commitment to sustainable approaches. Offers to participate were only politely declined as a result of an excess of rural category settings. Phase 3 workshop participants were similarly invited, with some Phase 2 participants choosing to distribute my invitation via word-of-mouth. All participants who expressed interest attended163
one of the three workshops; therefore no one was excluded. The overlap in participation between Phases 2 and 3 of the research design is indicated in Table 6.1, with a subset of Phase 2 householders choosing to continue their involvement in the Phase 3 workshops. I hosted the first half-day workshop at my home with five participants and the facilitator; the second took place soon after in central Hobart with eight participants. The final workshop took place in November, when the facilitator became available once more. This workshop was hosted by a participant at her home in Launceston, the second largest city in Tasmania.
Participants generated a rich array of symbolic imagery, maps, lists, diagrams and sketches, a selection of which are featured throughout the chapter. In Table 6.1, the Phase 2 settings are named by density type and the order in which I visited that type. These density categories were derived from those commonly used in housing policy and urban studies (for example, Randolph, 2006; Steele, 2012). The first suburban setting is therefore named ‘Suburban 1’, the second ‘Suburban 2’, and so on.
Phase 2 household settings (in order of visits)
Phase 3 Workshop 1 (n = 5) Phase 3 Workshop 2 (n = 8) Phase 3 Workshop 3 (n = 6) Rural 1 Suburban 1 Suburban 2 ¢ Medium-density 1 ¢
Cooking school + residence
Suburban 3 ¢ High-density 1 Medium-density 2 ¢ Suburban 4 ¢ Rural 2 Rural 3 Suburban 5 ¢
Table 6.1: Household setting types in order of visits, with the circles indicating the Phase 2 participants who also took part in a Phase 3 workshop
It is noteworthy that the majority of participants in the study were women. In nine of the 12 household settings, women were the primary instigators of food growing and the development of productive spaces. In all households occupied by a couple however, some form of shared responsibility for food producing, provisioning and cooking was expressed, as were descriptions of how the roles were variously negotiated between partners. This connects with the increasingly nuanced picture of food work and cooking that Angela Meah (2013) and
Michael Pollan (2013) suggest in their recent writing, while acknowledging that domestic food work has persisted largely as a female role. All of the workshop participants were female, most of whom can be described as socially engaged and active users of social media. In terms of social representation, I
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including those who grow using conventional methods, without a ‘sustainable’ or ecological engagement.
The 12 household settings are profiled in Section 6.2 with the food producing practices of each identified and discussed in relation to the spatial-material home environment and interactions with broader sustainable living approaches. This focus for analysis is further backgrounded by the rich context established by the social-ecological analysis of the previous chapter. My discussion below incorporates and extends the preliminary analysis summary prepared for, and shared with participants in August 2013 (refer to Appendix B).
6.2 Phase 2 multi-‐household ethnography analysis
The households are clustered by density type rather than the chronology of my visits, beginning with rural, and scaling down through suburban and medium- density to high-density. The rationale for this sequence is the greater diversity of production methods, food types, and energy, water and nutrient cycling systems supported by the rural settings, which establishes a comparative basis for subsequent discussion of the other settings and scales.