Recognising the edible urban commons: Cultivating latent capacities for transformative governance in Singapore. (May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ng, Huiying
• Other Names: Miller Michelle Ann guest-editor.; Douglass Mike guest-editor.; Rigg Jonathan guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Urban studies. Volume 57:Number 7(2020:May)
• Page Start: 1417
• Page End: 1433
• Publication Date: 2020-05
• Subjects: agrarian citizenship -- ecological identity -- learning -- transformative governance -- urban commons -- food; 农业公民身份 -- 生态认同 -- 学习 -- 转型治理 -- 城市公共空间 -- 食品; Cities and towns -- Periodicals; City planning -- Periodicals; 307.1216
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098019834248
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0042-0980

Abstract

Across urbanising Asia, edible commons surprise, contradict or challenge social norms of being in public. Their presence provokes new adjudications of approaching, governing and managing shared and living property, prompting thought on how public and private realms of life may converge into informal modes of co-governance for green place-making and flourishing. Starting with an anecdote of stealing in a short-lived urban farm in Singapore, I conceptualise edible urban commons as 'active moments'. Specifically, they are active moments where a generative form of friction and fiction emerges, and as such, are allegorical packages that transmit latent capacities. I suggest that closer attention to forms of regulatory slippage in these spaces generates insight about latent capacities for transformation. Finally, I propose a preliminary set of latent capacities for transformative governance towards an ecological identity that supports edible commoning in cities.