Which Nature is Legitimate? The Vicissitudes of Waterfront Agriculture on Xin-Dian River along Yonghe District
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Haung, Heng-Ting
Abstract
This research takes an urban political ecology approach in studying vicissitudes of waterfront agriculture on Xin-Dian River by elaborating the social and environmental powers among this area, and is aiming to reveal the mechanism and unevenness of power relationship behind the process. Agriculture, as a section of urban nature as well, however has been taken as an illegal and backward landscape under the recreational and eco-educational tendency of urban waterfront redevelopment. On the contrary, due to the advocacy of health and greenness become more and more thriving, urban farming has been gradually revival in many ways. For example, urban gardens and farmer markets have become a major symbol of sustainable city and Bourgeois recreations.
To understand the context, this research applies methods of field research, depth interview, and analysis of historical documents and maps. With the understanding of variant appropriations on the waterfront of Xing-Dian River during different regimes, we can learn the fact that the disposition of waterfront agriculture have altered according to the different policies. And these policies may be determined by governmental, economic, social, or flood control considerations.
Under the recreational trends, the original waterfront farming has been expelled repetitively. In order to survive, the waterfront farmers have to develop many strategies to adapt the unfriendly policies. The original farming activities have been identified as illegal by the municipal government who is continually setting stricter rules, thus the farmers turn into “guerrilla” mode to seek sustainment, and move their operation into more marginal or hidden places.
Therefore, we can indicate that the forms and meanings of waterfront agriculture are constructed by political and economic influences throughout different periods. And the public parks, bicycle trails, flower markets, and ecological education park all represent the modern value of urban nature which meets the imaginations of the middle class residents. This kind of appropriations for waterfront embodies the discourse of specific human-nature relationship, and itself exactly reflects the lack of awareness of the community of original waterfront farmers and their historical context. The modern environmentalist discourse may put emphasis on agricultural usage as a sustainable human-natural interaction, but its nostalgic rhetoric romanticizes the advocacy and greatly turns the urban farming into some sort of Bourgeois urbanite’s life style. More importantly, the above-mentioned process is highly exclusive, it spontaneously defines the traditional farming subjects as unrighteous and illegal for environment’s sake, and always demands for further elimination of unqualified practices. Besides recreational and preservationist purposes, the author suggests that the open space of waterfront should be opened to make-a-living agriculture as an alternative usage.
Subjects
水岸農業
都市自然
河濱公園
都市農業
SDGs
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-103-R97544026-1.pdf
Size
23.54 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):ee3e8c43014f10b19e4eb49a69cbc4ee