Urban Gardens and Environmental Injustices

Collaborating with Communities to Address Risks to Gardeners

While acting as sources of food and income along with many other environmental benefits for communities that have been marginalized, urban community gardens also often contain contaminated soils (and sometimes plants). Risks to gardeners are not adequately addressed due to inadequate, unclear, and inconsistent guidelines for risk. In the rare instances where contamination is addressed, top-down models are frequently employed and the community is informed about acceptable levels of risk, expected to conform to the scientist’s recommendations, and change behavior. This communication strategy has limited success because it excludes those most affected and fundamentally does not aim to increase environmental education or involve the community in the decisions about their risk. For example, although gardeners know how they interact with soils in gardens, have knowledge about specific practices at the sites, and have concerns about specific ways they can be exposed to contaminants, none of these factors are taken into account. Further, risk models include value judgements by risk assessors, and people are told what risk they experience rather than being listened to about the risks they experience and perceive in gardens—a phenomenon common in sites where marginalized communities are exposed to contamination. This perpetuates environmental injustices in garden spaces, and risk to gardeners is insufficiently investigated when gardeners’ concerns are not addressed. This seminar will summarize methods used to address the barriers listed above, followed by more detailed recommendations of how community researchers can collaboratively work with communities and resist oppressive systems of risk.