Figure 1. Kumara Root
‘When we have access to spaces that connect us back to the sources of food, the spaces that frame food as whanaunga (kin) and that disrupt the alienation from the land, moana (sea) and ultimately, ourselves, we can restore community connections, with both humans and more-than-humans. Reconceiving our place within the foodscape, our being as natural as the produce we consume. Humans as nature, not humans and nature.’ – Fieldnotes
Introduction
This research examines food related practices through ethnographic fieldwork with two community gardens, while also including the wider foodscape of Wellington (various food organisations, the council and policies regarding sustainable kai), the study shows what role a mara kai (food garden / community garden) can play in the foodscape, and discusses the complexities of the interconnected issues through a relational approach, demonstrating how the foodscape can be, and is, transformed through connection and care.
Visual methods are used to explore the interplay between systemic and socio-cultural factors that shape the foodscape of Poneke (Wellington), Aotearoa New Zealand. Through a series of images, taken at the two mara kai’s, this series reflect a multispecies perspective, showcasing how the mara kai becomes a site where humans and more-than-humans collaboratively contribute to the care for each other. The whole series is printed on handmade paper, made from fruits and vegetables collected from compost bins with volunteers at the mara kai that participate in the research project. The research aims to challenge anthropocentric approaches to food sustainability and promote a more inclusive understanding of community that includes the more-than-human. The photo series engages with contemporary anthropological and ecological discourse to contribute to broader conversations about sustainability, ecological resilience, and community empowerment in the face of climate change.
Figure 2. Radishes Radishes.
The Mara Kai
Within a New Zealand context, community gardens are seen as a culturally relevant response to food issues, due to strong cultural and spiritual connections with the whenua (land) (Bowers et al., 2009). Indeed, the mara kai provides an opportunity to promote social cohesion, skill development, and environmental stewardship, reconnecting people with kai and whenua. By incorporating Māori principles of Manaakitanga (hospitality and care) and Kaitiakitanga (stewardship/guardianship) in their practice, community gardens can address issues such as the legacy of agricultural colonialism and rework normative ideas around food.
Through visual ethnographic work, the mara kai is investigated as a space that challenges our fragmented food systems by fostering deeper connections to the origins of kai and strengthening community bonds through kai. The research takes a relational approach, incorporating Māori principles of Manaakitanga and Kaitiakitanga in the conceptualisation of kai practices, acknowledging “the fundamental connection and interdependencies between whakapapa, tangata, whenua and awa” (184. Hutchings et.al., 2020). This approach helps conceptualize kai practices as more than just ‘a way of doing’, enabling these practices to embody the spiritual, emotional, and sensory connection that people have with kai.
Figure 3. Onion Kiwi
Relationality
Within sustainability research, the dominant discourse is built on the assumption that acts of consumption are what produces sustainable citizens. In this reasoning, food as seen as a commodity, and citizens as disembodied consumers (DeLind, 2006). This leaves little room for embodied, affectual and socio-cultural experiences of food, let alone the space to view humans as inherent part of the natural world. Using instead a relational approach, the images and their materiality reconceive what is often thought of as enduring, boundaried things – ‘the field’, food, the mara - as events within the flows of dynamic relationships which already encompass what dominant (often positivist) research paradigms tend to see as ‘human’ and ‘natural’ aspects (DeLanda, 2006). The images help the viewer see the embodied engagement and responsiveness between all things as the core of existence (Mesle, 2008).
Relational approaches are heavily indebted to Indigenous frameworks as they work to counter substantialist dichotomies (e.g. human-nature, mind-matter, structure-agency) and emphasize the role of materiality (Ingold 2011; DeLanda, 2006; Debaise 2017), as indigenous knowledge frameworks have long recognized the interconnectedness of all life forms and the importance of maintaining balanced relationships (Smith, 2012). The images depict that dynamic interplay between human and more-than-human actors within the foodscape, fostering an ‘ecology of trust’ with all beings involved in the growing of kai. As a product of collaborative making with human and more-than-human participants, the work emphasizes the importance of healthy relationships with all beings in generating sustainable foodscapes.
To reflect the interconnections of the foodscape and tangata whenua (human-nature/ people of the land) relations (Harmsworth, 2013), this project takes a “Ki uta ki tai” approach (from the mountains to the sea) (Hutchings et.al., 2020) to its relational framework. Using the pictures from the mara of practices performed and shaped by human- more-than-human relations, such as growing in a greenhouse to enhance the warmth of the sun, the series conceptualizes food practices as deeply interdependent, emphasizing healthy relationships with all beings to view the kai community as ‘a quality of relations, a principle of cooperation and responsibility: to each other, the earth, the forests, the seas, the animals’ (Federici, 2012, 145. In Engel-Di Mauro, 2018)
Figure 4. Greenhouse Pears
Materiality
The research pushes for tangible engagement with the materiality of waste and growth, hand printing the images in way that allows them to decompose and return to the earth. This deliberate impermanence highlights the cyclical nature of ecological systems and underscores the temporal dimension of sustainable food practices. It invites a critical reflection on the life cycle of materials and the environmental impact of food as well as artistic practices, promoting a deeper understanding of and engagement with principles that foster an ethics of care, Manaakitanga, as well as stewardship for the earth, Kaitiakitanga.
Critiqueqing the current foodscape that is contingent upon ‘supermarketization’, the reprinting on produce draws attention to the pervasive influence of corporate entities on our experience of food. While turning the composting piles at the community gardens, brand stickers from fruit skins were frequently found. The fruit stickers embody the commodification of food and often signify brand identity, origin, and quality in ways that simplify and sanitize the complex processes of food production. These labels can obscure the ecological and social realities behind our food, reducing it to a product on a supermarket shelf. By printing images back onto paper made from these fruits, the images reclaim and repurpose the medium used for corporate objectives.
The work invites viewers to reconsider understandings of relationality and agency, encouraging a shift from seeing nature as a mere backdrop for human activity to recognizing the foodscape as a vibrant, co-constituted space of which human are in inherent part, and where multiple forms of life and matter interact. Hereby the images aim to disrupt the narrative of the disembodied citizen-consumer (deLind, 2014), challenging the commodification of food in both research and policy that gives way to large conglomerates undermine their control over the environmental and social implications of food production.
Figure 5. Greenhouse Cucumber
Conclusion
This artistic intervention critiques the current food system and its effects of environmental degradation and social disconnect but also celebrate the interdependent and regenerative relationships that shape food practices, honoring the labor, care, and ecological interactions that contribute to a sustainable foodscape. By recontextualizing discarded produce into a medium for depicting alternative practices, the research emphasizes the value of reconnecting with the sources of food and suggests a move towards more community-oriented approaches that foster ecologies of trust. In this way, the series not only documents but also enacts a form of resistance against the commodification of food. The research challenges traditional boundaries and methods within food sustainability research, and underscores the importance of hands-on, creative engagement in generating new forms of (anthropological) knowledge.
References
Bowers, S., Carter, K., Gorton, D., Heta, C., Lanumata, T., Maddison, R., ... & Walton, M. (2009). Enhancing food security and physical activity for Māori, Pacific and low-income peoples. August 2009. Wellington: Clinical Trials Research Unit, University of Auckland; GeoHealth Laboratory, University of Canterbury. Health Promotion and Policy Research Unit, University of Otago.
Debaise, Didier, und Isabelle Stengers. „An Ecology of Trust? Consenting to a Pluralist
DeLanda, M. (2006). A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. Continuum.
DeLind , L. (2006). Of bodies, place, and culture: re-situating local food . Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics , 19 ( 2 ) : 121 – 146
Engel-Di Mauro, S. (2018). Urban community gardens, commons, and social reproduction: revisiting Silvia Federici’s Revolution at Point Zero. Gender, Place & Culture, 25(9), 1379-1390.
Harmsworth, G. (2023). Soil security: An indigenous Māori perspective from Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Hutchings, J., Smith, J., Taura, Y., Harmsworth, G., & Awatere, S. (2020). STORYING KAITIAKITANGA.
Ingold, T. (2011). Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. Routledge.
Smith, J., & Hutchings, J. (2024). Feeding Indigenous Aotearoa better. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1-19.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books.
Universe“. The Sociological Review 70, Nr. 2 (1. March 2022): 402–15.
Figure 1. Kumara Root
‘When we have access to spaces that connect us back to the sources of food, the spaces that frame food as whanaunga (kin) and that disrupt the alienation from the land, moana (sea) and ultimately, ourselves, we can restore community connections, with both humans and more-than-humans. Reconceiving our place within the foodscape, our being as natural as the produce we consume. Humans as nature, not humans and nature.’ – Fieldnotes
Introduction
This research examines food related practices through ethnographic fieldwork with two community gardens, while also including the wider foodscape of Wellington (various food organisations, the council and policies regarding sustainable kai), the study shows what role a mara kai (food garden / community garden) can play in the foodscape, and discusses the complexities of the interconnected issues through a relational approach, demonstrating how the foodscape can be, and is, transformed through connection and care.
Visual methods are used to explore the interplay between systemic and socio-cultural factors that shape the foodscape of Poneke (Wellington), Aotearoa New Zealand. Through a series of images, taken at the two mara kai’s, this series reflect a multispecies perspective, showcasing how the mara kai becomes a site where humans and more-than-humans collaboratively contribute to the care for each other. The whole series is printed on handmade paper, made from fruits and vegetables collected from compost bins with volunteers at the mara kai that participate in the research project. The research aims to challenge anthropocentric approaches to food sustainability and promote a more inclusive understanding of community that includes the more-than-human. The photo series engages with contemporary anthropological and ecological discourse to contribute to broader conversations about sustainability, ecological resilience, and community empowerment in the face of climate change.
Figure 2. Radishes Radishes.
The Mara Kai
Within a New Zealand context, community gardens are seen as a culturally relevant response to food issues, due to strong cultural and spiritual connections with the whenua (land) (Bowers et al., 2009). Indeed, the mara kai provides an opportunity to promote social cohesion, skill development, and environmental stewardship, reconnecting people with kai and whenua. By incorporating Māori principles of Manaakitanga (hospitality and care) and Kaitiakitanga (stewardship/guardianship) in their practice, community gardens can address issues such as the legacy of agricultural colonialism and rework normative ideas around food.
Through visual ethnographic work, the mara kai is investigated as a space that challenges our fragmented food systems by fostering deeper connections to the origins of kai and strengthening community bonds through kai. The research takes a relational approach, incorporating Māori principles of Manaakitanga and Kaitiakitanga in the conceptualisation of kai practices, acknowledging “the fundamental connection and interdependencies between whakapapa, tangata, whenua and awa” (184. Hutchings et.al., 2020). This approach helps conceptualize kai practices as more than just ‘a way of doing’, enabling these practices to embody the spiritual, emotional, and sensory connection that people have with kai.
Figure 3. Onion Kiwi
Relationality
Within sustainability research, the dominant discourse is built on the assumption that acts of consumption are what produces sustainable citizens. In this reasoning, food as seen as a commodity, and citizens as disembodied consumers (DeLind, 2006). This leaves little room for embodied, affectual and socio-cultural experiences of food, let alone the space to view humans as inherent part of the natural world. Using instead a relational approach, the images and their materiality reconceive what is often thought of as enduring, boundaried things – ‘the field’, food, the mara - as events within the flows of dynamic relationships which already encompass what dominant (often positivist) research paradigms tend to see as ‘human’ and ‘natural’ aspects (DeLanda, 2006). The images help the viewer see the embodied engagement and responsiveness between all things as the core of existence (Mesle, 2008).
Relational approaches are heavily indebted to Indigenous frameworks as they work to counter substantialist dichotomies (e.g. human-nature, mind-matter, structure-agency) and emphasize the role of materiality (Ingold 2011; DeLanda, 2006; Debaise 2017), as indigenous knowledge frameworks have long recognized the interconnectedness of all life forms and the importance of maintaining balanced relationships (Smith, 2012). The images depict that dynamic interplay between human and more-than-human actors within the foodscape, fostering an ‘ecology of trust’ with all beings involved in the growing of kai. As a product of collaborative making with human and more-than-human participants, the work emphasizes the importance of healthy relationships with all beings in generating sustainable foodscapes.
To reflect the interconnections of the foodscape and tangata whenua (human-nature/ people of the land) relations (Harmsworth, 2013), this project takes a “Ki uta ki tai” approach (from the mountains to the sea) (Hutchings et.al., 2020) to its relational framework. Using the pictures from the mara of practices performed and shaped by human- more-than-human relations, such as growing in a greenhouse to enhance the warmth of the sun, the series conceptualizes food practices as deeply interdependent, emphasizing healthy relationships with all beings to view the kai community as ‘a quality of relations, a principle of cooperation and responsibility: to each other, the earth, the forests, the seas, the animals’ (Federici, 2012, 145. In Engel-Di Mauro, 2018)
Figure 4. Greenhouse Pears
Materiality
The research pushes for tangible engagement with the materiality of waste and growth, hand printing the images in way that allows them to decompose and return to the earth. This deliberate impermanence highlights the cyclical nature of ecological systems and underscores the temporal dimension of sustainable food practices. It invites a critical reflection on the life cycle of materials and the environmental impact of food as well as artistic practices, promoting a deeper understanding of and engagement with principles that foster an ethics of care, Manaakitanga, as well as stewardship for the earth, Kaitiakitanga.
Critiqueqing the current foodscape that is contingent upon ‘supermarketization’, the reprinting on produce draws attention to the pervasive influence of corporate entities on our experience of food. While turning the composting piles at the community gardens, brand stickers from fruit skins were frequently found. The fruit stickers embody the commodification of food and often signify brand identity, origin, and quality in ways that simplify and sanitize the complex processes of food production. These labels can obscure the ecological and social realities behind our food, reducing it to a product on a supermarket shelf. By printing images back onto paper made from these fruits, the images reclaim and repurpose the medium used for corporate objectives.
The work invites viewers to reconsider understandings of relationality and agency, encouraging a shift from seeing nature as a mere backdrop for human activity to recognizing the foodscape as a vibrant, co-constituted space of which human are in inherent part, and where multiple forms of life and matter interact. Hereby the images aim to disrupt the narrative of the disembodied citizen-consumer (deLind, 2014), challenging the commodification of food in both research and policy that gives way to large conglomerates undermine their control over the environmental and social implications of food production.
Figure 5. Greenhouse Cucumber
Conclusion
This artistic intervention critiques the current food system and its effects of environmental degradation and social disconnect but also celebrate the interdependent and regenerative relationships that shape food practices, honoring the labor, care, and ecological interactions that contribute to a sustainable foodscape. By recontextualizing discarded produce into a medium for depicting alternative practices, the research emphasizes the value of reconnecting with the sources of food and suggests a move towards more community-oriented approaches that foster ecologies of trust. In this way, the series not only documents but also enacts a form of resistance against the commodification of food. The research challenges traditional boundaries and methods within food sustainability research, and underscores the importance of hands-on, creative engagement in generating new forms of (anthropological) knowledge.
References
Bowers, S., Carter, K., Gorton, D., Heta, C., Lanumata, T., Maddison, R., ... & Walton, M. (2009). Enhancing food security and physical activity for Māori, Pacific and low-income peoples. August 2009. Wellington: Clinical Trials Research Unit, University of Auckland; GeoHealth Laboratory, University of Canterbury. Health Promotion and Policy Research Unit, University of Otago.
Debaise, Didier, und Isabelle Stengers. „An Ecology of Trust? Consenting to a Pluralist
DeLanda, M. (2006). A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. Continuum.
DeLind , L. (2006). Of bodies, place, and culture: re-situating local food . Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics , 19 ( 2 ) : 121 – 146
Engel-Di Mauro, S. (2018). Urban community gardens, commons, and social reproduction: revisiting Silvia Federici’s Revolution at Point Zero. Gender, Place & Culture, 25(9), 1379-1390.
Harmsworth, G. (2023). Soil security: An indigenous Māori perspective from Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Hutchings, J., Smith, J., Taura, Y., Harmsworth, G., & Awatere, S. (2020). STORYING KAITIAKITANGA.
Ingold, T. (2011). Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. Routledge.
Smith, J., & Hutchings, J. (2024). Feeding Indigenous Aotearoa better. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1-19.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books.
Universe“. The Sociological Review 70, Nr. 2 (1. March 2022): 402–15.