LEISURE
STUDIES
Plant a garden, help grow a community, professors'
study shows
Melissa
Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@illinois.edu
6/1/02
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —
As interest in community gardening
continues to flourish in many urban areas, researchers at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suspect participants are reaping far more than
just fresh, homegrown vegetables.
Leisure studies professors Troy Glover and Kimberly Shinew, along with graduate
student Diana Parry, are doing some digging of their own, mining data collected
in the metropolitan St. Louis area to determine whether community gardens there
are serving as bridges between the racially diverse groups that weed, hoe and
harvest side by side. The Illinois researchers recently presented their preliminary
research findings at the 10th Canadian Congress on Leisure Research.
Their study, based on 195 telephone interviews with mostly African-American
and Caucasian community gardeners, was conducted in partnership with Gateway
Greening, a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization that provides tools, training
and materials to more than 150 neighborhood associations in low- to middle-income
areas of the city. The goal of the study, according to the researchers, was
"to examine race and its relationship to perceptions and benefits of community
gardening."
"Among the things we were interested in," Shinew said, "was what
impact participation in community gardening was having on residents' sense of
community – their sense of belonging to groups, and whether or not there
was interracial interaction in leisure situations among groups that might not
otherwise experience much interracial interaction."
Community gardens, she said, have generally – and anecdotally – been
regarded as spaces that serve mixed social functions. They allow urban residents
from similar groups the opportunity to "bond," while also serving
as a bridge that links participants who might not otherwise interact socially.
"However, although the popular and academic presses proclaim community
gardens as effective sources for bringing together racially diverse groups,
no empirical work has been conducted to test this assumption," Shinew,
Glover and Parry said in their report. So that's what they set out to do.
Among their preliminary findings:
Both African Americans
and Caucasians reported a fairly high level of identification with their garden,
and were interested in what others thought of their gardens.
There was agreement
among both groups that their neighborhood was a good place to live; they felt
comfortable in their neighborhood, and expected to live there a long time.
Both groups reported
similar motivations for becoming involved in community gardening, including
to "improve my neighborhood," "enjoy nature" and "relax."
Both groups indicated
support for the statements, "Community gardening brings together people
who belong to different racial groups," and "Community gardening brings
together people who wouldn't normally socialize together."