Today we presented at the Asian Studies Conference of Australia. Our paper abstract:

Plants and the City in Singapore

As food security becomes an increasingly prioritized political issue in Southeast Asia, governments across the region are considering alternatives to rural agriculture. This paper considers a number of urban farming initiatives in Singapore as sites of social innovation that are both top-down and bottom up (Manzini 2013). We draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Singapore in 2017 that explores a range of permaculture initiatives (Carboninq; Centre for Nature Literacy; Artground; Edible Garden City; Citizen Farm) which focus on the relationships between plants and people. We contrast these with larger scale projects, such as those initiated by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, which focus on strategy rather than tactics (de Certeau 1984). We argue that the importance of these initiatives goes beyond the production of local food, and that instead it lays in the provision of public pedagogy to inhabit more resilient cities.