Doctoral Dissertation Research: Urban Homesteading: Changing Social and Economic Relations and the Practice of Self-Provisioning in the City.

这个博士论文项目考察了围绕城市自给自足实践发展的社会和经济关系。近年来，自给自足的做法，如以家庭为基础的小规模农业，在美国城市中呈现出明显的增长。作为鼓励城市可持续发展的一种手段，全国各地的地方政府都在相应地重新制定土地利用、分区和食品安全政策。自给自足在城市自耕农中尤其普遍，他们正在重新利用家庭农业技能，如以食品为导向的园艺、食品保存和饲养家禽，以增强家庭和社区的复原力。尽管目前美国自给自足的做法越来越多，城市住宅也越来越受欢迎，但很少有研究试图充分解释为什么这些做法越来越多，谁在实践这些做法，以及它们如何影响城市环境（包括家庭和家庭）中社会和经济关系中的性别、种族和阶级动态。本博士论文研究项目通过参与式观察、半结构化访谈和波士顿地区城市自耕农调查相结合的方法，旨在回答以下问题：(1)波士顿地区城市自耕农的自给自足本质是什么？(2)自给自足的实践包含在什么样的社会和经济关系中，并由什么样的关系实现？(3)在不同的城市尺度上，自给自足对社会和经济关系的影响是什么？该项目与致力于城市可持续发展和食品正义的城市自建者联盟和其他社区组织合作，对发生在不同类型空间（住宅、社区花园、宗教场所）的个人和自我供应实践进行了广泛的采样，每个空间都有特定的法律、社会、经济和环境限制，包括财产价值、工业毒素、分区和食品安全法。该研究通过探究人类与自然的自给自足创造了什么样的新关系，为人类与环境地理学做出了贡献，并通过考虑这些活动如何促进当地经济的多样化，为经济地理学做出了贡献。它还通过考察城市宅基地扩展和改造家庭中工作的性别关系的方式，为关于家庭劳动和社会再生产的女权主义地理学研究做出了更具体的贡献。在决策者考虑城市农业和可持续性的生活质量、经济弹性、性别平等和社会正义维度时，这项研究的结果将引起他们的兴趣。这项研究将产生一个关于城市可持续性在实践中意味着什么的日常账户，就城市自耕农而言？生活经验、空间实践和态度。研究成果将通过公开讲座、社区论坛和互动网站与参与者和当地决策者分享。该研究还将确定土地利用、分区和食品安全法方面可能的政策变化，这些变化将有利于从事各种城市宅基地实践的城市居民。作为博士论文研究进步奖，该项目将提供支持，使有前途的研究生建立一个独立的研究生涯。

This doctoral dissertation project examines the social and economic relations that develop around urban self-provisioning practices. In recent year self-provisioning practices such as home-based small-scale agriculture have exhibited visible growth in U.S cities. Local municipal governments across the country have been refashioning land-use, zoning, and food safety policies accordingly, as a means of encouraging urban sustainability. Self-provisioning is especially prevalent among urban homesteaders who are reclaiming domestic agrarian skills such as food-oriented gardening, food preservation, and the keeping of poultry, to foster household and community resilience. Despite the current rise of self-provisioning practices in the U.S. and the popularity of urban homesteading, little research has sought to fully explain why these practices are on the rise, who is practicing them, and how they affect dynamics of gender, race, and class in social and economic relations within urban environments, including the home and household. Through an integration of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and surveys of urban homesteaders in the Boston area, this doctoral dissertation research project aims to answer the following questions: (1) What is the nature of self-provisioning among urban homesteaders in the Boston area? (2) What kinds of social and economic relations are self-provisioning practices embedded in and enabled by? (3) What are the impacts of self-provisioning on social and economic relations across various urban scales? Working with the urban homesteaders' league and other community organizations committed to urban sustainability and food justice, this project samples a wide range of individuals and self-provisioning practices occurring in different kinds of spaces (homes, community gardens, places of worship), each with particular legal, social, economic, and environmental constraints, including property values, industrial toxins, zoning, and food safety laws. The research contributes to human-environment geography by asking what new relationships with nature self-provisioning creates, and contributes to economic geography by considering how these activities contribute to the diversification of local economies. It also makes more specific contributions to feminist geographic research on domestic labor and social reproduction by examining the ways in which urban homesteading expands and reworks the gender relations of work in the home. Findings from this research will be of interest to policy makers as they consider the quality of life, economic resilience, gender equity, and social justice dimensions of urban agriculture and sustainability. The research will produce an everyday account of what urban sustainability means in practice, in terms of urban homesteaders? lived experiences, spatial practices, and attitudes. Research findings will be shared with participants and local policy makers through public talks, community forums, and an interactive website. The research will also identify possible policy changes in land use, zoning, and food safety laws that will benefit urban residents engaged in a variety of urban homesteading practices. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support that will enable a promising graduate student to establish an independent research career.