Urban food economies - rethinking value for 'More-Than-Capitalist' futures

Researchers: Professor Katherine Gibson (ICS), Associate Professor Karin Bradley (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Funding: Seed funding for the Environmental Humanities, A Mistra-Formas Environmental Humanities Collaboratory
Period: 2017–2018

At present, no model of urban development recognizes the value (both non-monetised and monetarised) circulating in and around urban food production sites that have been created by community action. Citizens thus have few means to push back against mainstream ‘growth as good’ visions of urban futures. The project aimed to organise a workshop in June 2017, bringing together a trans-disciplinary group of community and scholar-activists to:

rethink values associated with community-based food production
devise alternative indicators of value
model diverse value flows in ‘more than capitalist’ urban food economies
develop a larger collaborative research grant proposal to a major funding body.

Work is continuing to develop the Community Economies Return on Investment Tool as a way of capturing the value (broadly defined) created in a variety of urban food production sites. A research submission to the UK ESRC is under development.

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The Institute for Culture and Society is located in Parramatta, “the place where the eel sets down” in Dharug language,
along the north bank of the Parramatta River. It sits on the traditional lands and waters of the Burramattagal people of the Dharug Nation,
who have been stewards and caretakers of these territories since time immemorial, in what today is referred to as Greater Western Sydney,
one of the most diverse cultural communities in the world and home to the largest number of Indigenous Australians in the country.
The Institute for Culture and Society acknowledges the Dharug, Eora, Dharawal (also referred to as Tharawal)
and Wiradjuri peoples as traditional custodians and Indigenous knowledge-holders, whose storytelling serve
as historical record, a form of teaching and learning, a way to care for Country,
and an expression of Indigenous culture and identity.