Urban Gardeners in Oslo: an Explorative Study of Their Motivations and the Perceived Effects of Gardening on Quality of Life
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Master’s Thesis 2019 30 ECTS BIOVIT Urban gardeners in Oslo: An explorative study of their motivations and the perceived effects of gardening on quality of life Carolina Hernandez Lasso & Rina Dula Shabi MSc Agroecology ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the Agroecology program and the Faculty of Biosciences for allowing us to do an interdisciplinary research between master programs of International Environmental Studies and Agroecology. Thanks to all the professors who have contributed during our development as master students, as well as to Cathrine Strømø and for always being there as a student advisor. This master thesis would not have happened without the Cultivating Public Spaces research project. A big thanks to the entire team for welcoming us and allowing us to collaborate. A special thank you to Anna Marie Nicolaysen, Vebjørn Egner Stafseng and Katinka Horgen Evensen for your insight, support and advice. To all the gardening initiatives and their organizers and project leaders, thank you for giving us the opportunity to visit the gardens, allowing us to get involved and for your generosity. We are beyond grateful for all the participants involved for their time and interest in our research. We would also like to thank our families and friends for your moral and scholar contribution and always supporting us through our ups and downs. Especially to our partners, Magnus and Esli for your patience and keeping us motivated throughout the whole process. Lastly, we must extend our appreciation to Anna Marie Nicolaysen and Erik Gomez-Baggethun for your thoughtful feedback and guidance until the very last part of this research process. Also, thank you to Line Tveiten for being there as a mentor, your encouraging conversations and useful feedback were essential for keeping a positive mindset and enjoy the journey as researchers. Carolina Hernandez Lasso & Rina Dula Shabi i ABSTRACT Urban agriculture has been associated with social, emotional, health and mental health benefits. However, literature describing the relationship between garden participation and effects on quality of life has not been fully addressed in the Norwegian setting. The city of Oslo has set important goals for the development of a more inclusive and livable city, and urban agriculture has achieved a place on the agenda to accomplish such ambition. Since then, multiple gardening initiatives have developed, along with research projects studying their process. Case studies and interview-based research have been conducted before. However, this explorative study aims to provide a different angle. A mixed method research approach was applied, using a cross sectional survey, participant observation, informal conversation notes and secondary data. To understand the perceived benefits of gardening on well-being, two groups of participants were studied, gardeners (n=102) and visitors (n=46) from seven community gardens in Oslo. Based on the Capability Approach by Nussbaum, a list of activities was built to create an overview of the most important activities for gardeners. To study their effect and motivation, three capabilities from the Capability Approach were applied. In addition, the Attention Restoration Theory by Kaplan was adopted to understand the restorative benefits. Results highlight gardening activities such as: being in contact with nature, socializing with others and contributing to the development of the area as the most important activities for gardeners. Participants reported positive health and well-being results, however, the responses could be influenced by other variables that were not included in the analysis. Additionally, gardeners’ and visitors’ responses on connection with nature and sense of belonging illustrate similar trends found in previous studies supporting social and emotional benefits. However, in order to achieve a better understanding of these results, in-depth research should be conducted in order to understand the complexity behind quality of life indicators, and thus establish clear evidence that supports or challenges the multifunctionality of urban agriculture. Keywords: urban agriculture, self-reported well-being, quality of life, connection to nature, sense of belonging, public spaces, capability approach, attention restoration theory ii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 BACKGROUND 2 1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 4 2 METHODS 4 2.1 DESIGN 4 2.2 STUDY AREA 5 2.3 SAMPLING AND RECRUITMENT 6 2.4 PARTICIPANTS AND SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE 7 2.5 SURVEY 8 2.5.1 MEASUREMENTS OF PERCEIVED QUALITY OF LIFE 9 2.5.2 MEASUREMENTS OF SENSE OF BELONGING AND CONNECTEDNESS WITH NATURE 10 2.6 PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION & INFORMAL CONVERSATION 11 2.7 DATA ANALYSIS 12 2.8 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 12 2.9 RESEARCH APPROACH 13 2.10 LIMITATIONS OF THE METHODS 15 3 RESULTS 17 3.1 PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF GARDENING ACTIVITIES 17 3.2 SELF-REPORTS ON HEALTH AND QUALITY OF LIFE 19 3.3 SELF-REPORTS ON SENSE OF BELONGING AND CONNECTION WITH NATURE 23 3.3.1 EMOTIONS 23 3.3.2 AFFILIATION 25 3.3.3 SENSES, IMAGINATION AND THOUGHT 26 4 DISCUSSION 28 4.1 INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS ON MOTIVATIONS AND WELL-BEING 28 4.2 SELF-REPORTS ON SENSE OF BELONGING AND CONNECTION WITH NATURE 32 4.3 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 34 4.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND PRACTICE 35 5 CONCLUSION 37 LIST OF REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES 47 I. GARDENING INITIATIVES AND EVENT DAYS SUMMER/AUTUMN 2019 47 II. PRELIMINARY CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF CASES 53 III. PRIMARY SURVEY 58 IV. SECONDARY/TERTIARY SURVEY 62 V. FIELD-NOTES 65 VI. CODEBOOK 68 VII. NSD 69 VIII. CAPABILITY APPROACH 72 iii List of tables and figures Table 1: Demographic profile of participants 8 Table 2: Three capabilities 14 Table 3: Gardeners response on activity importance 17 Table 4: Age groups on self-reporting general health status 21 Table 5: Sense of belonging illustrated by gender and age groups 23 Table 6: Gardeners and visitors results on sense of belonging, capacity to contribute and connection to nature 24 Table 7: Connection to nature illustrated by gender and age groups 26 Figure 1: Types of urban agriculture 8 Figure 2: Map overview of urban agriculture initiatives in Oslo 11 Figure 3: Connection with nature scale 15 Figure 4: Pictures of integration with the gardeners 23 Figure 5: Word cloud for garden descriptions by visitors 24 Figure 6: Graphic description of gardeners’ satisfaction with life 25 Figure 7: Pie chart of gardeners’ health 25 Figure 8: Influence of participation on how gardeners feel 27 Figure 9: Pictures of food at the gardens 30 Figure 10: School cultivation bench at Dr. Dedichens Greenhouse 32 iv 1 Introduction Humans have a deep bond with nature that affects mental and physical state, commonly hypothesized under the term of biophilia (Verheij et al., 2008). However, slowly but surely human lives have been separating nature. In fact, two decades ago an academic article revealed how Americans spend 93% of their time indoor, similarly a more recent study points out comparable findings in German homes (Klepeis et al.,2001; Brasche & Bischof, 2005). This is an important issue as limited access to fresh air and daylight can have negative effects on our health and well-being (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). Therefore, to nurture and value the connection humans find in nature and thus create higher levels of environmental consciousness, the United Nations has set an emphasis on increasing the amount of open public spaces in cities. Particularly with the Sustainable Development Goal #11, which stands for sustainable cities and communities (United Nations, 2019). This call has increased the interest in bringing cultivation practices into the city planning. Urban agriculture (UA) has been defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a cultivation activity that includes “anything from small vegetable gardens in the backyard to farming activities on community lands by an association or neighborhood group” (2010, p.1). Yet, UA has shown to be more than just growing food in cities, reports, among several, the scholar-led project COST Action Urban Agriculture Europe (Lohrberg, 2016). The development of urban gardens and green infrastructure has been associated with increased levels of urban aesthetic experiences and sonic environments for noise control and aversion (Litt et al., 2015; Evensen et al., 2016), age-friendly outdoor activities (Erwein, 2014; Wood et al. 2016; Teig et al. 2009), ecological benefits such as air regulation and conservation of urban biodiversity (Calvet-Mir et al., 2017), and opportunities for strengthening social integration and neighborhood attachment (Veen & Eiter, 2018; Soga et al., 2017; Evensen et al., 2016; Bogstad, 2018). Especially from a social perspective, community gardening has exhibited effects on human well-being including psychological issues such as depression, anxiety and mental fatigue; increasing levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable intake, and thus improving quality of life and life satisfaction (Alaimo et al., 2016; Litt et al., 2015; Wood et al., 2015; Capaldi et al., 2014). These effects from urban gardens, among others, have been analyzed from the Ecosystem Services approach, which is a tool to communicate the value of nature for human well-being (Camps-Calvet et al., 2016). It states that nature provides regulating and cultural services that are key for restoring and maintaining a properly functioning ecosystem that otherwise would require high restoration costs through technologies or built infrastructure (Gómez-Baggethun & Barton, 2013). 1 Although there is substantial evidence of the benefits of urban agriculture in Europe, there is scarce research on the social and emotional effects of community gardens in the Norwegian setting (Lohrberg, 2016). That is why our objective has been to find what motivates gardeners to participate in community gardens in Oslo and if the source of motivation shows reinforcement of quality of life aspects, as described by the Capability Approach by Nussbaum. By exploring the synergies between gardeners and community gardens, we hope to better understand relationships that may have an effect on sense of belonging and connection with nature, as well as how the gardens are perceived by visitors.