Community gardening and wellbeing: The understandings of organisers and their implications for gardening for health

McGuire, L.; Morris, S.L.; Pollard, T.M.

Abstract

Community gardening is increasingly framed and promoted as a way to foster healthful behaviours, as a wellbeing practice, and as a public health tool. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with community gardening organisers (n = 9) in the North East of England, who were engaged in translating and transforming discourses and ideas about community gardening into places and practices that people can draw benefit from. Here, community gardening can be understood as a bricolage of ideas, resources, and skills at the nexus of several influences and movements, assembled to produce a localised, everyday sort of social change. We conclude that framing community gardening as a simple solution to be harnessed in the promotion of health and wellbeing undermines the richness that sustains it and may lead to disenchantment within health services and community gardening organisations that could threaten the future of ‘green social prescribing’.

Citation

McGuire, L., Morris, S., & Pollard, T. (2022). Community gardening and wellbeing: The understandings of organisers and their implications for gardening for health. Health & Place, 75, Article 102773. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102773

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 18, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 11, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-05
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 29, 2022
• Journal: Health & Place
• Print ISSN: 1353-8292
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 75
• Article Number: 102773
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102773
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1208434