Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

In the Global North forms of Urban Agriculture (UA) are thought to be less motivated by emergency food subsistence and supply, and more about defending urban green spaces, the creation and strengthening of urban communities, the construction of recreational spaces and the proposal of an alternative model to a hitherto hegemonic neoliberal capitalist urban development paradigms. This paper explores how a particular Korean sensibility towards food traditions in everyday life extends from practices of consumption to practices of urban food cultivation. Vegetables are omnipresent in Korean culture, not just on the table but also in its urban landscape, where edible plants are being grown in any available place, and often in public view, by people alongside their everyday practices. Whilst Seoul Metropolitan Council also has a formal and extensive support program for increasing urban agriculture (both commercial and non-commercial) following a declaration of “year of urban agriculture”, what is striking about the city landscape is the retention of informal food cultivation practices in and above the streets of Seoul. Walking the streets of Seoul (as undertaken for the research underpinning this paper) thus reveals multiple informal forms of growing edible plants, as well as district support formal urban farming. The paper will offer an analysis that situates these multitude of practices against intersecting ideas of tradition, sustainability and resistance to neo-liberal capitalism.