Insatiable
By: Nina Abizadeh
Tags: Gentrification, Inequality, Urban Planning, Social Media, Urban Gardening

Insatiable

The Hastings North Temporary Community Garden built in 2013 on London Dugs Ltd land featured community garden beds, a gathering space, and a site for activism. This 2016 site mural calls for action to resolve the Vancouver housing crisis impacting Indigenous and Chinese residents in the Downtown Eastside. Decommissioned in 2017, the re-developed will feature mixed-use residential housing. Urban planner Andy Yan argues against this type of temporary rezoning as it encourages land hoarding subsidized through community garden tax breaks. The picture is an example of resistance and urban erasure. — Photo by Nina Anaïs

In a climate of rising housing prices and cost of living increases, without accompanying meaningful wage increase and stagnant government assistance rates, families too often face the decision on whether to retain their housing or eat. This has put increasing pressure on activists and cities to find solutions beyond foodbanks to the growing need for food assistance.

Community gardens are a key element of Vancouver’s food strategy to address food insecurity. The United Nations recognizes the right to food and housing, yet Canada has been in violation of that responsibility. As a result local non-profits and entrepreneurs increasingly step into food activism and food production spaces to support their communities, especially during Covid- 19 (Nunes, 2017).

As food activists have advocated for sustainable, local, culturally appropriate and nutritious food options for marginalized communities, mainstream culture has adopted and co-opted this discourse in a myriad of ways (Reynolds, 2015). High-end new housing projects now feature community garden amenities and communal eating spaces while low income families still struggle to secure their basic food needs ( Horst et al., 2017; Steinberg, 2010).

This essay will explore how the Capitalist Gaze and social media drive consumption, co-opt, and reproduce problematized spaces, such as community gardens in food insecure communities. How are the gentrification aesthetic and social media technology complicit in this trend? Who is left behind in this process?

The Capitalist Gaze

Laura Mulvey (1975) argues that in film, and often life, woman is seen as the passive image while man is the active bearer of the Look — “the Male Gaze”.

The “male gaze projects its phantasy on the female figure which is styled accordingly.” — Mulvey (1975)

Women’s actions are framed within the gaze of the spectator, removing all autonomy from the woman, passively acting at the pleasure of the beholder.

If we expand this concept to the Capitalist Gaze, I argue that our day-to-day actions are framed within the “ phantasy” of capitalism.

“Although subjects within the capitalist universe experience themselves as free, the system spares them the weight to decision making” — McGowan (2013)

Actors passively follow the pre-determined scripts of capitalism, forgetting that capitalism is not neutral nor belongs to the natural order but is a system we collectively continue to opt into (McGowan, 2013). These scripts lead us to unconsciously and continuously reproduce the same capitalist system even in instances of resistance.

Counter-Culture Movements and Community Gardens

Consumer resistance is a counter-culture within the capitalist system (Desmond et al., 2000). Actions of resistance could include the rejection of fast fashion in favour of reusing and repurposing; or food justice measures such as community gardening to counteract racism, exploitation, and oppression inherent in our current food systems. (Alkon & Cadji, 2018; Hislop, 2014).

Urban agriculture provides “venues to cultivate leadership and job skills among youth and adults who may not have ready access to other such opportunities; and it can contribute to community economic development through job creation and microenterprise development.” — Reynolds (2015)

Unfortunately counter-culture movements are vulnerable to being co-opted by, and re-absorbed into mainstream culture. They are also vulnerable to replicating existing racist structures of exclusion found in current systems, especially when engaging with government and funding agencies ( Horst et al 2017; Marcuse, 2016; Reynolds, 2015).