Chinese home and guerrilla gardening: The importance of preventing the loss of already existing sustainability

Abstract

Drawing on the exploratory study of urban gardening in China, this paper argues that sustainability scholarship and policy will accelerate both insight and action by embracing a greater diversity of the notions of sustainability. This will open the door to less formalised approaches that require greater attention to actually existing sustainability rather than privileging innovation. Among other things, this reduces the policy-share burden placed upon promises and plans sketched out in an idealised future, and pays credit to everyday behaviours and routines at present. These latter sustainable practices are vulnerable to devaluation (Mincyte 2011) or oversight, and this paper’s novel findings regarding the situation in China point to the risk of their disappearance. Thus in this paper, we wish to highlight the sustainability gains that are motivated not by learned intentionality but rather associated with already existing, informal practices and everyday behaviours that happen to bring sustainability benefits. More importantly, we also wish to redirect attention to the implications of possible sustainability losses caused by the diminishing or disappearance of these sustainability-compliant existing behaviours. This risk is vividly documented by the authorities’ efforts to make informal food self-provisioning practices in Chinese urban environments difficult. It is important to recognise that the losses in terms of sustainability outcomes due to the disappearance of these behaviours may significantly outweigh the gains brought about by sustainability innovations favoured by the authorities.