Belonging through growing
Andy Harrod
University of Edinburgh, andy.harrod@ed.ac.uk
Metadata
Urban Eidos Volume 7 (2026), pages 25-38
| Journal-ISSN: | 2942-5131 |
| DOI (PDF): | https://doi.org/10.62582/UE7004p |
| DOI (online): | https://doi.org/10.62582/UE7004o |
Abstract – A sense of belonging is declining within Western cities. This is occurring due to a hyper individualism produced through neoliberalism, which is isolating people, not only from one another, but also from the other-than- and more-than-human nature, of which we are a part of. This isolation can impact both individuals and communities through thwarting meaningful connections and increasing experiences of loneliness, which are detrimental to people’s being and belonging. Through and with this creative-relational inquiry and commentary I explore how we can stay with the trouble of loneliness and respond to it through encounters with community gardens. Community gardens are a growing third place within Western societies that offer affective environments, which support participants’ wellbeing, belonging and interconnectivity, as well as transformational encounters, which support social action and justice. Through my focus on community gardens, I argue our attention needs to be drawn to the co-creation of free, accessible, and available affective environments in order to respond to loneliness and the trouble of its affects. To support my inquiry into the shifting sense of belonging with cities I offer extracts of reflective writing focused on my befriending of Edinburgh to highlight the more-than-human process and assemblages involved in (en)countering loneliness.
“[P]art of the trouble seemed to be that where I was wasn’t anywhere at all.”
(Olivia Laing[1])
Beginnings
Where am I?-I walk, alone but haunted, pass closed gardens, open shops, and streams of distant people-I recognise the castle cast in sodium yellow-memories creep and crawl in me, alongside me-I walk with new beginnings and tendrils searching, desiring futures-a flow of lights cut the darkness-where am I?
With Edinburgh I write into my experiences of the Western city. My I is not singular or fixed, but a dynamic configuration of selves, which is navigating personal life events and professional changes. As I write into my experiences I write with the liminality of my current situations. Through this commentary, by undertaking a creative-relational inquiry, I attend to my encounters, seeking a way through the unfolding processes of (dis)connection, of place making, of hauntings, and desires, leaning into co-becoming with the city, and illuminating the multiple dialogues involved in staying with and responding to loneliness. Creative-relational inquiry is an approach that encounters the unfolding and unpredictability of opening-up with events, and animates the relational dynamics, processes and influences that take shape through the inquiry[2]. The I that has undertaken this creative-relational inquiry offers a particular perspective shaped by my situated embodied encounters.
Through exploring and then writing with Edinburgh, I stumbled upon a community garden, which co-created an opening for responding with to the call for this issue of Urban Eidos[3]. An opening not only influenced by my research interests into the role of belonging in individual, community and ecological wellbeing, but my own search for belonging and accompanying feelings of loneliness in a new city. A response which begins with exploring the shifting shape of belonging in cities, before exploring the (in)visible hand of neoliberal capitalism on upsetting places of belonging. I follow with a brief discussion on wellbeing and then consider the role of community gardens as an affective place where being well and a sense of belonging unfolds. I conclude by proposing rewilding our inner and outer worlds is an act of social action and justice, which improves our sense of belonging as individuals with the city.
Zoon Politikon
The animal is me, it is you, it is us. The animal is the ‘nature’[4] we so often forget we are. The animal is a pack animal, social. Rewilding is called for as the animal has become bounded by capitalism, a resource to be squeezed in pursuit of accumulation, and tethered to production and consumerism[5]. The animal has become displaced and disembodied, surviving in non-places, in a digital ether, seeking a voice, answers, belonging[6]. With implies the implicit relationality that has (re)made our cities and is co-creating the onsetting voids neoliberalism brings to our cities, estranging us animals from one another, as places become once again space, plagued by an absence of meaning[7]. With compels us to rewild the animal (and the city) through the multiple and dynamic relational assemblages we are part of and their affects. Rewilding requires folding us animals back with all nature and unfolding co-created places of more-than-human belonging.
I walk-searching to understand this city-single tweets alarm calling-an extinct volcano dominates the horizon-a large park-empty but full-circled by walkers, runners and cyclists-I look out beyond the cityscape to find my bearings-I continue to walk alone-circling-my eyes linger on a small community garden within the park-I slow down and smile-a little place of manicured wildness.
Donna Haraway[8] famously called for us to ‘stay with the trouble’ in order to be present in our dynamic and unfolding more-than-human assemblages. But what is ‘the trouble’ that we are required to stay with? The trouble may look a lot like the ‘emptying of the city’ and what that means for active citizenship, as this issue calls attention to. This emptying of the city, is this really true? For, the city is still home to residents, businesses, shops and third places[9] to meet and be in. Or is it more a shifting of these third places? A movement away from in-person happenstances and happenings to (curated) digital meet ups. For, where do our everyday connections take place? What is happening to the social fabric of our lives? And perhaps that is the emptying, the loss of in-person connection. An absence of companionship whilst being surrounded. So, the trouble may be isolation and its shadow, loneliness[10]. The trouble is the affect of this shadow[11].
A weight hangs to me-cloaks me in a familiar absence-where are they?-people-I seek comfort-I turn to sugar and fermented plants-but I remain inside-singular-disembodied-disconnected-alone in this city.
Olivia Laing[12] through their exploration of loneliness in the city stayed with their trouble, co-creating through their encounters with specific artists and art an awareness of what it is to be lonely and a sense of belonging, not only with New York City, but as importantly with their self. Edinburgh, is the city I am trying to befriend. As a transient resident I come and go, with each trip for work I open myself up to (dis)connection as I explore with the city. These trips are coloured by my sense that I am alone here, despite being a frequent visitor and with an eye on building a possible home here. This is reflected in my exploring with the city as I stay in different areas. However, my stays are in hotels and my exploration by foot is an individual endeavour. I’m aware the social connections I desire will take time to build. I reach out through work, but opportunities are limited elsewhere due to my pattern of work and my trepidation in making connections (e.g., through a running group), which I fear may remain fleeting and leave me feeling more alone amongst people. As such, I enter into my encounters with Edinburgh not only alone, but already carrying a sense of loneliness.
In the dark I turn towards animals-a well-loved dog first-I face my hauntings-the castle-I step away from the main thoroughfares-I find The Black Cat-but I do not enter, alone-I hold it for a special anniversary-I start to join the dots-the next day a walk along the canal and through parks-I orientate myself in the new.
My sense of loneliness affects how I perceive and experience Edinburgh, specifically where and how I reach out for connection. Early on that connection began with a statue of a dog, Greyfriars Bobby, a rubbed nose – golden, known for his loyalty to his human companion. On my second day in Edinburgh, I sought him out, ever since he has become part of my commute. With Bobby I became entangled: drawn to my memories of two cats, who saved two lives; with the people who stand, smile and take photos of Bobby; with the cars I dodge as I give space to the smiling strangers. We remain unknown to one another, but connected. An anchor formed and there was a shift, I was not alone here. My first line of flight[13] in my developing constellation with Edinburgh.
The green spaces called-I planned my route-locked gate after locked gate-I circled the metal spiked fences-this privatisation of space-nine in total over three ks-I’m left questioning could this city be home?
Meanwhile, there are also multiple economic, political and social power dynamics which can thwart our belonging, these include the ongoing privatisation of public space[14]. This privatisation of space can control who belongs, what behaviours are tolerated and thus the accessibility and availability of public third spaces for all citizens[15]. This social and self judgement regarding who belongs and is tolerated can limit the ways in which people express themselves and supress particular identities[16]. The threat of self-surveillance from unseen power dynamics requires resisting, if there are to be third places for all. Such resistance necessitates a willingness to learn, to question, and to act, as well as a movement towards a view of kinship that is multi-species[17]. Through recognising the other-than- and more-than-human natures and our relations with them, which co-creates our lives, our communities, and our cities we can move towards a co-becoming that places care and response-ability at the heart of our communities; as well as challenge the multiple economic, political and social power dynamics which are the persuasive forces involved in the increasing estrangement within our cities[18].
Coffee, music, and smiles-Blackford hill and a rainbow framing Arthur’s Seat-a rush of memories-a remembering smile-a record store and snippets of human connection-we walk and talk about nature therapy, circling former meadows-waterways and lone figures-bird calls and a search for a robin-solidarity, walking the talk and floating tears-opening myself up and becoming visible-a pint with Bobby-and a continuing search for city cats.
Through my ongoing exploration with Edinburgh, I’m co-becoming with my human, other-than- and more-than-human assemblages as I seek a balm to the oppressive affects of loneliness on my sense of self and wellbeing. I stay with the trouble. Staying with the trouble involves recognising how my personal and professional circumstances influence my experiences with Edinburgh, but also how I am part of multiple assemblages which are influenced by other people’s choices too, as well as by multiple economic, political and social power dynamics. Through staying, I am slowly co-creating a sense of community and belonging. A co-created belonging which began with the more-than-human as I tentatively reached out through an entanglement of emotions, memories, and desires, to a statue of a well-loved dog; co-creating a sense of safety, to support further opening up and sharing of stories with colleagues. It is through opening myself with Edinburgh that my sense of loneliness has decreased, which is further affecting how I perceive Edinburgh and myself with Edinburgh. This process involves a bringing together in relation a collection of gossamer threads, with which I am weaving myself into. I hold loosely the fragility of it, whilst recognising it also grounds me. Consequently, I am becoming less a stranger and estranged from the city and more an entangled and active citizen.
My thoughts return to the manicured wildness and I am reminded of the role of community gardens, where I have found participants are supported to stay with and explore their trouble(s) in a more-than-human third place[19]. Here, reciprocal relationships with nature can be developed, which supports a rewilding of people’s inner and outer worlds through, in part, a recognition of, and living, an interconnected, complex, and dynamic life with all species[20]. Before considering how the Zoon Politikon[21] is rewilded with these places, I first turn to our evolving Western urban landscapes.
(In)sane Environments
The cities which we inhabit are human-made spaces, which through their design affords practices that support people’s sense of belonging, preventing loneliness[22]. However, the economic and political dynamics informing how cities are designed may also reduce the opportunities for sociality. Meanwhile, our sense of belonging is also influenced by this wider economic, political and social environment which we inhabit, an environment dominated by capitalism and its hyperindividualising offspring, neoliberalism[23]. Here, neoliberal capitalism encompasses an economic system, a political ideology and a societal order, which produces specific cultural norms and practices[24]. These norms and practices are influenced by firstly, the violent separation of humans from the other-than-human nature and secondly, the role of ‘free markets’ in determining how people choose to live[25].
Neoliberal capitalism relates to nature[26] as a (free and self-replenishing) resource, providing the material for production and a (self-repairing) sink for the waste produced[27]. This exploitation of nature was enabled through the Western separation of humans from nature. Through this cultural and social construct, other-than- and more-than-human nature is positioned as external to and separate from human culture and society, and imagined in its purest form as wilderness, an un-peopled nature[28]. Yet, it is through cultural practices and understandings that other-than- and more-than-human nature are modified to produce various natures, which are also considered landscapes, including those considered natural (e.g., mountains, forests and rivers) and built (e.g., cities, farmland)[29]. This separation of humans from other-than- and more-than-human nature has also been established as being detrimental to human wellbeing[30].
Human wellbeing is also negatively impacted through how society’s surplus is not democratically distributed, but instead left to the free market[31]. Society’s surplus is the social capacities and energies that are available beyond what is required to live, and concerns how people balance their labour with their leisure time, for themselves, their family (including future generations), and community. However, neoliberalism views individuals as self-interested and being in competition with each other. This valuing of competition and self-interest underpins an emphasis on individual freedom and self-determination in living ‘a good life’, which can reduce social participation and solidarity through promoting hyperindividualism[32]. Meanwhile, neoliberalism also premises that free markets and trade guarantee individual freedoms. However, individual freedoms have instead been eroded through expanding corporate entities levying their positions to influence economic and political decisions to further deregulate the markets in order to protect and grow their interests[33]. The continuing replacement of state interventions with state apparatuses which facilitate neoliberalism, alongside hyperindividualism, leaves individuals and communities at the whim of free markets and at risk of abandonment. As such, is it surprising that society’s surplus, instead of being allocated via collective processes to benefit all[34], is being devoured by institutions and individuals (blindly) following the doctrine of free markets towards a promised freedom?
Neoliberalism’s hyperindividualism unravels the social fabric by disconnecting people from each other and increasing social isolation and loneliness[35]. In other words, loneliness is a sane response to the insane environment produced by neoliberal capitalism. Loneliness as a response to an alienating environment is not new, but is thought to have emerged during the nineteenth century due to the rapid societal transformation that occurred through Western industrialisation[36]. A societal transformation that was accompanied by increasing urbanisation, reorganised ways of living at home and work, opened up mobilities and communications, as well as instilled values of individualism and self-reliance. As such, loneliness is a lived experience affected by the prevailing socio-environmental context, and shifts in these socio-environments can counter loneliness.
Third places such as libraries, cafes, parks, community centres, and public squares can offer ameliorating experiences and act as an antidote to the alienation that accompanies hyperindividualism. Third places focus on non-demanding sociability, providing opportunities for people to form connections, participate in activities, develop friendships, receive and give emotional and personal support, and provide space for emotional refuge and personal reflection[37]. The relationships formed through third places are valued as they are typically non-hierarchical and caring, providing empathic, non-judgemental, and authentic interactions, which value each other’s lived experiences, enhancing people’s quality of life. As such, through third places people can feel included in their community and develop a sense of belonging. However, governmental policies, such as austerity, which seek to reduce public spending, as well prioritise the free market, supports private interests (e.g., property developers) over public good[38]. These neoliberal actions can lead to cuts to public services and the privatisation of public space[39], eroding the provision of freely accessible third spaces.
Finally, neoliberal capitalism, alongside alienating us from one another, also constrains people’s actions and expressions. This occurs in public spheres, through the privatisation and control of public spaces, where people’s actions are controlled either via specific regulations or social rules, reducing spontaneity and enforcing consumption[40]. Neoliberal capitalism’s stranglehold on how we live is also detrimental to people’s intra- and interpersonal relationships, including with other-than- and more-than-human nature. Nick Totton[41] proposes we have become disembodied from ourselves and disconnected from our internal locus of evaluation, through losing trust in our own sensations, feelings, and experiences as a guide for living well. A disembodiment that is founded on the separation of humans from other-than- and more-than-human nature. This othering of other-than- and more-than-human nature involves defining other-than- and more-than-human nature as wild, savage and something to be mastered, and humans as domesticated and civilised, which constrains human expression and set patterns of (ab)normal behaviour[42]. Due to being asked to control ourselves through social norms and practices (which creates external loci of evaluation) we can fear spontaneity, creativity and self-trust because they are perceived as forms of loss of control. Thus, maintaining control over our expressions supports us to belong and not to be rejected. However, the hyperindividualism present in our societies suggest this belonging is not authentic, but instead leads us (blindly) to the trouble. Due to becoming dissociated from our experiences, producing a detached and avoidant society, which is expressed through loneliness, and is detrimental to our sense of being well and belonging[43].
Totton[44] proposes to counter this isolating dissociation we need to rewild our inner and outer worlds, (re)connecting to ourselves as relational beings in complex more-than-human assemblages. Rewilding involves embodying our unique selves as spontaneous, creative and trustworthy and (re)connecting to our internal locus of evaluation, whilst relinquishing external loci of evaluation. Rewilding is supported by (re)connecting to and seeking to live in harmony with other-than- and more-than-human nature. Through these (re)connections we recognise our interdependence. Totton proposes this de-centring of ourselves whilst it can be both frightening and liberating, moves us towards belonging and collective actions in support of social and ecological justice. However, rewilding is centred on the individual to move individually and collectively towards interdependency, it does not tackle neoliberal capitalism directly. Instead, rewilding proposes a process to reconfigure how we relate and respond to the oppression and violence of neoliberal capitalism person by person, community by community, in order to co-create interdependent, equitable and flourishing more-than-human societies. I now turn to how the defining and situating of a good life can support or thwart rewilding.
Detoxifying Wellbeing
To stay with the trouble[45], we need to understand what it means to be well in order to respond to the ongoing affects present among the animals who live with the city. Being well often invokes a sense of living a good life, which begets the question, what does a good life look like?
Flourishing wellbeing is often equated to a person[46] being able to attain a high satisfaction in a range of components, including financial, educational, health and personal[47]. Here wellbeing is promoted as being an obtainable, fixed and having an endpoint. This approach endorses an individualised and managed self that through continuing self-improvements, achievements and accumulation, ‘a good life’ will be attained and a state of happiness reached[48]. Encountering unavoidable distress, disappointments, and loss is written out of this managed self, specifically the significance of meaning making from these events[49]. The individualised self is manipulated by neoliberalism, through centring behavioural change on individuals and by promoting a competitive and comparative drive that further fragments communities and increases inequality[50]. As such, this individualisation of wellbeing is toxic to the person and to society, as the responsibility for being well is isolated in the individual with the negative impact of structural inequalities experienced by a person constructed as personal failings rather than due to economic, political, societal and cultural dynamics[51].
To detoxify wellbeing requires firstly, framing wellbeing as an emergent, dynamic and relational process affected by the spatial context of a person’s situation and their affective responses to the place and the actants involved in co-creating that place[52]. Hence, wellbeing is not just an individualised endeavour, rather a co-created process, which is an entanglement of human and other-than-human relationships, more-than-human places, a person’s values and meanings, societal expectations, cultural meanings, and governmental policies. The interplay of all these factors can influence a person’s wellbeing through affecting their capabilities, choices, and actions. As such, a person’s wellbeing can flux depending on a person’s situation and the shifting values and meanings attributed within that context[53]. Therefore, wellbeing does not necessarily stay stable overtime. Subsequently, recognising wellbeing as being formed through complex and dynamic assemblages shifts responsibility away from individual acquisition of resources to focusing on how economic, political, social and spatial aspects affect people’s wellbeing[54]. By understanding wellbeing as an emergent, dynamic and relational process, a person’s difficulties are not viewed as personal failures, but as the actions of a person surviving difficult circumstances, including social conditioning and societal inequalities[55].
Secondly, a good life involves a process of co-becoming, which is a movement towards living authentically, encompassing meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling actions with and within community relations[56]. Focusing on co-becoming shifts the focus away from an attainment of ‘goods’ towards the development of a way of being. A way of being which involves an improving self-awareness, an increasing self-trust, and an openness to experience and living each moment fully can support a person to be adaptable, creative, and constructive in their responses to situations[57]. This supports people to flourish as an authentic unique individual and socially – “meeting the needs and challenges of these relationships in interdependence and solidarity”[58]. As such, within a good life a person moves towards autonomy and belonging as an authentic person with and within active and fluid more-than-human assemblages. A good life is a (re)wild(ed) life. Consequently, in order to not just stay, but to respond to the trouble involves exploring the affects of these more-than-human-assemblages and the factors involved in co-creating beneficial lines of flight, which supports a rewilded good life.
Growing Communities
I now turn to consider how being well unfolds through encounters with (un)bounded nature(s) in more-than-human third places. The role of other-than- and more-than-human nature in people’s health is well established[59] and is becoming increasingly recognised within public health initiatives and through the prescribing of nature-based activities[60]. Across Europe, social prescribing is a growing movement to connect people with community support in support of their health, which includes the prescribing of gardening[61]. Social prescribing could be considered to be part of neoliberalism, which shifts social responsibility from the state to the community. Yet, perhaps more importantly, community gardens are also places of collective social action which simultaneously challenge the tenets of neoliberalism[62]. Community gardens can facilitate people’s co-becoming and sense of belonging through the co-creation of rewilded lines of flight. These lines of flight can trouble the estrangement caused from surveilled and privatised spaces through the formation of community, reconnection with other-than- and more-than-human nature, improvements in wellbeing, identity development, and practices of activism[63].
Community gardens are joint-endeavours where a group of people come together to tend to plants, their selves and others[64]. The popularity of and demand for community gardens is increasing throughout Western Societies[65]. There are often multiple focuses, including growing food, supporting health and wellbeing, improving the environment (aesthetically and ‘sustainably’), and taking social action. Through a focus on health and wellbeing community gardens can be considered as a nature-based intervention, which aim to improve participants’ wellbeing by incorporating nature[66] through regular, structured, and facilitated activities[67]. Three affective characteristics have been identified as characterising nature-based interventions: nature, which is the setting or basis of activities; meaningful activities that develop skills, improve health and develop helpful practices; and social interaction, which support development of social skills and a sense of belonging. These affective characteristics are brought together firstly, through the facilitator’s facilitation of the space and the participants involvement; and secondly, by the participants’ motivation and agency to become involved and develop their way of being[68].
Community gardens are third places, which offer participants[69] an informal, caring and accepting environment. The acceptance in particular acts as an anchor, which facilitates participants’ autonomy and self-expression, supports participants to try new things and open up to new experiences, and share their lived experience through the offering of peer support[70]. Through the co-creation of shared experiences, participants develop an affective attachment to the community garden, which sustains the community. For example, the cultivation of food involves several steps, some of the participants may have planted the seeds, whilst others may then plant out the seedlings, and together they all enjoy the vegetables when they are harvested. During this process some of the participants may not see each other regularly, but remain connected through their engagements with the plants. It is by being part of this more-than-human assemblage that the participants recognise they are part of something bigger than themselves and therefore co-create a sense of belonging.
Participants’ encounters with community gardens can be transformational, with participants developing long-term shifts to their sense of self through the development of wellbeing practices which include more-than-human communities (e.g., mindful encounters with other-than- and more-than-human nature, litter picking, environmental conservation), and moving into meaningful and purposeful occupations, which focus on communities and the environment[71]. These transformations do not only highlight the tonic of belonging, but also challenge the hyperindividualism produced by neoliberalism through activism. This activism begins at the community garden through an accepting, inclusive, and alternative community, which facilitates people’s learning, sharing and growth, and values and works in harmony with other-than- and more-than-human-nature[72]. Activism is an expression of being rewilded. Through the co-creation of lines of flights this everyday social action and justice moves beyond the garden edges via participants planting seeds with the wider community through their new practices and occupations. This not only maintains and enhances the participant’s rewilding, but facilitates the rewilding of communities through the promotion of values of interconnection, warmth, spontaneity and care.
Radical Relationships
I have proposed a core issue for the animal who lives with the city is the affects of loneliness, due to becoming estranged from one another and the city itself. Community gardens offer amelioration and transformation from this trouble through offering warmth, time and space in which to be. This occurs due to the formation of a safe psychosocial space, which is underpinned by relational dynamics. Within psychotherapy a therapeutic relationship which is authentic, empathic and non-judgemental is deemed a common factor in enabling successful therapy and considered necessary for therapeutic change[73]. Meanwhile, Arthur Bohart and Karen Tallman[74] propose that the client is the most important factor in therapeutic change, as it is the client’s perception and experience of the above relational qualities, as well as their interpretations of the therapeutic encounter, which influences their process of becoming. As such, the relational dynamics present influence how a person understands themselves, their choices, and way of being. When a person’s perception of themselves and the world is met with support, then this facilitates a person to trust their own thoughts and feelings as a guide to their actions, maintaining and enhancing their process of becoming[75]. As such, a person rewilds their inner world and reconnects to the internal locus of evaluation. Meanwhile, if a person’s experiences are rejected by others, then a person denies and distorts their own judgement and instead seeks validation from others as a guide to living well, which leads to psychological distress. Psychological distress decreases when a person experiences safe spaces, where they are accepted for who they are[76].
At community gardens, facilitators offer affective spaces through being authentic, empathic and non-judgemental, which participants experience as safe, inclusive and accepting[77]. These relational dynamics at community gardens help participants with their process of becoming not only through being accepted and developing greater trust in their self, but also due to the time and space offered to participants to be and not produce[78]. Neoliberal capitalism, through the constant acceleration of economic activities and reduction in distances within and between our cities, compresses time and space[79]. This causes places to lose their distinctiveness, ruptures communities, and speeds up our experience of daily life through increased production and consumption. This impacts our sense of self, as self-worth becomes tied to productivity, status and hyperindividualism, which severs our sense of belonging[80]. Consequently, encountering a ‘slowing down’ of time provides participants with an affective space to rewild themselves by exploring their self, their interactions, their expressions, and location of their judgements[81].
The practice of community gardening includes a gentle confronting of participants’ interdependency and interconnectedness with one another, as well as other-than- and more-than-human nature[82]. The latter is often framed by facilitators as a connection with nature (other-than- and more-than-human) and offered as providing participants a reciprocal relationship, from which participants can develop a sense of belonging and support for their wellbeing and other-than- and more-than-human nature is nurtured in return[83]. Whilst many participants have discussed the benefits of embracing other-than- and more-than-human nature as part of their way of being, this confrontation may also prove to be uncomfortable for some participants as it brings into participants’ awareness that humans are a part of nature and dependent on nature to be well. The affective spaces community gardens co-create provide the opportunity for safe and patient encounters with the trouble, and for a supported reconnection with and rewilding of ourselves as interconnected and interdependent beings.
Towards Rewilding
The sun always makes it better-the bright light-the richness of the green grass-the blue sky and fluffy clouds-suddenly the stone of the buildings don’t look so dark-the oppressive grey weight of short days is removed-the neon city at night is lost too-but spaces to sit, stare, and wonder open up-people no longer just circle the meadows, instead the meadows have turned into a joyous cacophony.
When I asked myself ‘where are they?’ I stood alone on a busy pavement, separate and full of desire to be accepted. An acceptance I craved in order to maintain my sense of being well. I was caught up with ‘self-making’ rather than making with[84]. By risking rewilding myself through turning my attention away from my self towards the more-than-human I started to co-become and co-create a sense of belonging with Edinburgh. My loneliness was no longer so all encompassing, instead I spied tendrils reaching out, forming connections, and entangling me in more-than-human assemblages. These entanglements shifted my perceptions and experiences with Edinburgh, opening up further possibilities for meaningful social and emotional relationships. My process looks very similar to the encounters which unfold with community gardens, as it required me to gently confront my loneliness with empathy, acceptance and to be genuine in my encounters, as well as give myself time and space to roam with spontaneity with Edinburgh.
I proposed that the trouble is the affect of a shadow. A shadow of loneliness which is cast upon cities through neoliberalism producing hyperindividualism and eroding the provision of free, accessible and available third places. A third place that is increasing in popularity is the community garden, which offers participants not only an affective sanctuary from the fast-paced demands and isolation of everyday life, but also transformative experiences. The lines of flight co-created through encounters with community gardens facilitates improvements in participants’ wellbeing, belonging, and interconnectivity. This occurs through the relational dynamics present in community gardens, which support people to reconnect to their inner guides for living a good life. A good life, which supports autonomy and belonging as a (re)wild(ed) interconnected being.
Rewilding not only asks each of us to reintegrate other-than- and more-than-human nature into our complex assemblages, but also to reject the oppressive violence of neoliberalism on our ways of being and belonging. Rewilding supports social actions and justice, which can move us towards collective processes, which (en)counters loneliness; supports the fair, equitable and inclusive distribution of society’s surplus, and co-creates more-than-human belonging, which supports individual, community and ecological wellbeing. Consequently, community gardens’ affective environments highlight where our attention needs to be drawn to in order to respond to the trouble. For, it is not just the animal who lives with the city that requires rewilding, but the city environment itself that needs rewilding, through shifting away from surveilled and exclusive spaces to open, warm and expressive places.
It’s not just warmth and light that is opening up Edinburgh-more so I have opened up-I’m meeting Edinburgh with a curiosity not shaded by fear, but met with spontaneity-I’m excited to share my Edinburgh hand in hand-can it become a home?-that may depend on my continuing search for city cats.
“It’s a dream that is carried in the heart: a fertile garden, time and space enough for all of us.”
(Olivia Laing[85])
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the facilitators and participants of the community gardens whose generous sharing of their experiences has helped informed my thinking and passion for community gardens as a balm for our multiple disconnections. Thank you to Sophie Standen for your thoughtful engagement and discussion with my experiences and writing. Finally, thank you to the three anonymous reviewers for their considered and insightful comments, which has strengthened the theoretical and analytical frame underpinning the arguments presented.
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Footnotes
Laing, 2016, p.14 ↑
Wyatt, 2019; Gillott, 2026 ↑
See: https://urban-eidos.com/call-for-contributions/ ↑
I consider nature as encompassing human and other-than-human species (e.g., animals, plants), whilst recognising nature represents individual entities, as well as the environments which are co-created through the dynamic interactions between different entities, co-creating multiple natures (Castree, 2005; Whatmore, 2002). When I use nature in the text, I include human nature. ↑
Moore, 2016 ↑
Paul, 2025 ↑
Bogue & Ouillon, 2023; Finlay, 2019; Haraway, 2016 ↑
Haraway, 2016 ↑
Third places are informal and inclusive (public or commercial) spaces which offer people opportunities to socialise and develop community. They offer an alternative place to home (first place) or work (second place) (Oldenburg, 1999). ↑
I consider loneliness as an absence of meaningful social relations that provide emotional and social connections (Morrison and Smith, 2018). ↑
These include a wide range of mental and physical health impacts, increased mortality, and decreased social participation and connection (Becker et al., 2021; Bower et al., 2023; Corcoran and Marshall, 2018). ↑
Laing, 2016 ↑
Lines of flight are formed from the relations between actants, which can enhance an assemblage through new understandings, meanings and movement or deplete an assemblage through oppressing it (Deleuze and Guattari, 2016). ↑
Atkinson, 2013; Garrett, 2015 ↑
Carmona, 2021 ↑
Parr, 1997 ↑
Haraway, 2016 ↑
Bawaka Country et al., 2016; Goldman, 2026 ↑
Harrod, 2024 ↑
Totton, 2021 ↑
Social animal or the animal who lives in the city ↑
Bower et al., 2023 ↑
Fraser, 2023; Matthews, 2019 ↑
Fraser, 2023; Harvey, 2020a; Adams et al., 2019 ↑
Fraser, 2023; Harvey 2020a; 2020b; Moore, 2016 ↑
Including human nature (Moore, 2016) ↑
Fraser, 2023 ↑
Castree, 2001; Cronon, 1996 ↑
Castree, 2011; Mason and Riding, 2023 ↑
Richardson, 2023; Totton, 2021 ↑
Fraser, 2023 ↑
- Adams et al., 2019; Bettache, 2026 ↑
Harvey 2020a ↑
Fraser, 2023 ↑
- Adams et al., 2019; Becker et al., 2021; Bettache, 2026; Harvey, 2020a; 2020b; Matthews, 2019 ↑
Popp, 2023 ↑
Biglin, 2021; Finlay et al., 2019; Glover and Parry, 2009 ↑
Bogue and Ouillon, 2023 ↑
Bogue and Ouillon, 2023; Imrie, 2018 ↑
Carmona, 2021; Imrie, 2018 ↑
Totton, 2021 ↑
Totton, 2021 ↑
Rogers, 1961; Totton, 2021 ↑
Totton, 2021 ↑
The affects of loneliness ↑
An individual is often equated to a family unit comprising of two adults and children ↑
Atkinson, 2013 ↑
White, 2017 ↑
Craib, 1994 ↑
Atkinson, 2021; Becker et al., 2021 ↑
Atkinson, 2021 ↑
Atkinson, 2013 ↑
Smith and Reid, 2018; White, 2017 ↑
Atkinson, 2013 ↑
Proctor, 2017 ↑
Bawaka Country et al., 2016; Rogers, 1961 ↑
Rogers, 1961; 1963 ↑
Schmid, 2018, p. 75 ↑
Brymer et al., 2019 ↑
Harrod and von Benzon, 2024 ↑
National Academy for Social Prescribing 2026; Social Prescribing EU, 2026 ↑
Nettle, 2020 ↑
Harrod, 2024; Nettle, 2020 ↑
Nettle, 2020 ↑
Bieri et al., 2024 ↑
Within the literature and in practice, nature is considered to be the other-than- and more-than-human nature and the setting or basis of activities. ↑
Bragg and Atkins, 2016 ↑
Harrod, 2024 ↑
Participants may be referred to a community garden for a particular health reason or self-refer because of a health concern, an interest in gardening or a desire to meet and connect with other people. ↑
Bishop & Purcell, 2013; Harris, 2017; Harrod, 2024; Sachs et al., 2022 ↑
Harrod, 2024 ↑
Harrod, 2024; Nettle, 2020 ↑
- Duncan et al., 2010 ↑
Bohart and Tallman, 2010 ↑
Rogers, 1961 ↑
Mearns and Cooper, 2018 ↑
Harrod et al., 2024 ↑
Harrod, 2024; 2025 ↑
Harvey, 1990 ↑
Bettache, 2026 ↑
Harrod, 2024; 2025 ↑
Harrod, 2024 ↑
Richardson, 2023 ↑
Haraway, 2016 ↑
Laing, 2025, p.289 ↑