Urban Gardening: How to Support Sustainable Projects through Public Policy?
Urban gardening and community agriculture are increasingly recognized as a valuable means for addressing global challenges such as food insecurity, climate change, nature deficit, and urban alienation.

To promote urban gardening in a more systematic manner, I lead two research projects that analyze why people initiate community gardens, why individuals participate in community gardening, why organizations and governments support community gardens, and how such initiatives are governed. This research is a collaboration with Dr. Gertrud Alirani at Mid-Sweden University‘s Risk & Crisis Research Centre.

Fieldwork for this project is conducted in both China and the USA, with the latter co-led with Dr. Saskia Cornes at Duke University. This research project has been supported by the DKU Summer Research Scholar Program as well as by a DKU Humanities Research Center Collaborative Research Initiatives Grant.

So far, the project has been presented at Utrecht University (September 2024) and at the DKU Summer Research Scholars Poster Session at Duke Kunshan University (November 2024). The project has also been featured in a recent video, see below (click to play).

By examining the initiation, implementation, and governance of sustainability-focused projects, the project contributes to a better understanding of agenda setting, policy design, and policy implementation in China and beyond. Click here to read about my other research projects on policy processes in China.