Agricultural knowledge in urban and resettled communities: applications to social–ecological resilience and environmental education

Abstract

In light of globalising trends toward urbanisation and resettlement, we explore how agricultural knowledges may be adapted and applied among relocated people. Although indigenous and related forms of practice‐based knowledge may be temporarily lost as people adopt commercial agricultural practices and switch to non‐agricultural livelihoods, they are capable of resurfacing when contingent opportunities arise. This contribution to the collection draws upon case studies of recollection and application of agricultural knowledge as revealed in narratives from immigrant gardeners in New York, USA, and relocated farmers in Sebakwe, Zimbabwe. In these narratives, the communities draw upon their reserves of knowledge to respond to changes within their local environments. Such knowledge can serve as a source of community resilience through enabling people to sustain their livelihoods and community well‐being, and thus adapt to environmental changes and displacement. We also explore possibilities for applications of such knowledge in environmental education.

Keywords:

• resilience
• local knowledge
• indigenous knowledge
• migration
• gardening
• agriculture
• environmental education

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible through funding from the Borlaug – Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Programme (LEAP) through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The authors extend acknowledgements to the gardening communities in NYC and farming communities in Sebakwe, in particular the gardeners and farmers who participated in this study.

Notes

1. The authors recognise that the resettlement policy in Zimbabwe was very political and has implication that goes beyond the scope of this research and this paper. While conducting the interviews in Zimbabwe, the field researchers chose not to ask questions about the history of resettlement in the interest of their own security and that of others.

2. In fact, we lack a terminology for talking about what was traditional knowledge in resettled people’s homelands once it was adapted and applied in a new urban setting or resettlement camp. We use the somewhat inelegant term ‘retained agricultural knowledge’ here; our intent is not to develop a new classification system but rather to open the discussion about how different knowledges change and adapt in settings not well covered in the indigenous, traditional ecological, and local knowledge literatures.