Franklin Ginn
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Gardening in suburbia: nature, culture, memory
Supervisors: David Demeritt and Mike Goodman
This thesis explores the different ways in which memory – as body, narrative and place memory – pervades the present and shapes how people dwell in suburban gardens. The domestic garden is a key site of British home-making, and a crucial material and symbolic resource for biographical identity of many suburban dwellers. Although the twentieth century has seen a major shift in the nature of gardening from necessary leisure to a lifestyle and consumption practice, gardening remains one of the most popular everyday practices involving nature/human interaction, with consequent implications for biodiversity and environmental sustainability. Rather than chart this historical geography, however, the thesis builds on the conceptual proposition that memory enacts a present rather than merely representing the past.
Empirically, the thesis draws on forty-three biographically-themed interviews with older residents of outer and inner London suburbs, supplemented by various archival sources. This empirical material is analysed through six arguments, organised in three parts. Part one explores the ‘birth’ of the suburban garden through inter-war suburban spatial and social boundaries, and the circulation of myths about wartime vegetable growing. Part two tackles the organisation and performance of the patterns of human and non-human ‘life’ in the garden: on one hand emphasising the instrumental social functions of gardens; and on the other considering how senses and memory modulate more-than-human garden enchantments. The third part, ‘death’, considers whether regimes of killing non-human pests have changed and now embody post-natual ethics, as well as cultures of memorialisation and the importance of mourning to the garden. Through these chapters I argue for a shift in historical sensibility within geography away from history as a rigid chains of events, of a past that is always passed, by demonstrating the complex presences and absences of history and memory in the more-than-human landscapes and politics of suburban gardens and gardening.
Supervisors: David Demeritt and Mike Goodman
This thesis explores the different ways in which memory – as body, narrative and place memory – pervades the present and shapes how people dwell in suburban gardens. The domestic garden is a key site of British home-making, and a crucial material and symbolic resource for biographical identity of many suburban dwellers. Although the twentieth century has seen a major shift in the nature of gardening from necessary leisure to a lifestyle and consumption practice, gardening remains one of the most popular everyday practices involving nature/human interaction, with consequent implications for biodiversity and environmental sustainability. Rather than chart this historical geography, however, the thesis builds on the conceptual proposition that memory enacts a present rather than merely representing the past.
Empirically, the thesis draws on forty-three biographically-themed interviews with older residents of outer and inner London suburbs, supplemented by various archival sources. This empirical material is analysed through six arguments, organised in three parts. Part one explores the ‘birth’ of the suburban garden through inter-war suburban spatial and social boundaries, and the circulation of myths about wartime vegetable growing. Part two tackles the organisation and performance of the patterns of human and non-human ‘life’ in the garden: on one hand emphasising the instrumental social functions of gardens; and on the other considering how senses and memory modulate more-than-human garden enchantments. The third part, ‘death’, considers whether regimes of killing non-human pests have changed and now embody post-natual ethics, as well as cultures of memorialisation and the importance of mourning to the garden. Through these chapters I argue for a shift in historical sensibility within geography away from history as a rigid chains of events, of a past that is always passed, by demonstrating the complex presences and absences of history and memory in the more-than-human landscapes and politics of suburban gardens and gardening.
Biography
2005 Canterbury University, New Zealand
MA by thesis: ‘100% Pure? Re-imagining nature in Aotearoa/New Zealand’
2005 Christchurch City Council, New Zealand
Climate Change Protection Project Officer: researching and authoring carbon footprint report
2003-04 Global Action Plan
Policy Officer: sustainable consumption, community programme development and environmental management
2002 Forum for the Future
Scholar: working at organisations including HM Treasury, Oxfam and the Sustainable Development Commission
2001 Cambridge University
BA (Hons) Geography
MA by thesis: ‘100% Pure? Re-imagining nature in Aotearoa/New Zealand’
2005 Christchurch City Council, New Zealand
Climate Change Protection Project Officer: researching and authoring carbon footprint report
2003-04 Global Action Plan
Policy Officer: sustainable consumption, community programme development and environmental management
2002 Forum for the Future
Scholar: working at organisations including HM Treasury, Oxfam and the Sustainable Development Commission
2001 Cambridge University
BA (Hons) Geography
Publications
Ginn F (2008). Extension, subversion, containment: eco-nationalism and (post)colonial nature in Aotearoa New Zealand. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33, 335-53
Ginn F and Demeritt D (2009). Nature. In: Clifford N, Holloway S, Rice S and Valentine G eds. Key concepts in Geography. Sage, London. pp 300-11.
Ginn F (2009). Colonial transformations: nature, progress and science in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. New Zealand Geographer
Mustafa D, T A Smucker, F Ginn, R Johns, S Connely. (forthcoming 2010) Xeriscape people and the cultural politics of turf grass transformation. Environment and Planning D: Society & Space
Ginn F and Demeritt D (2009). Nature. In: Clifford N, Holloway S, Rice S and Valentine G eds. Key concepts in Geography. Sage, London. pp 300-11.
Ginn F (2009). Colonial transformations: nature, progress and science in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. New Zealand Geographer
Mustafa D, T A Smucker, F Ginn, R Johns, S Connely. (forthcoming 2010) Xeriscape people and the cultural politics of turf grass transformation. Environment and Planning D: Society & Space
Book reviews
Ginn F (forthcoming) Backyard: nature and culture in suburban Australia – by Head L and P Muir. Social & Cultural Geography
Ginn F (forthcoming) ‘Spaces for nature’ by Steve Hinchliffe. Book Review. Cultural Geographies
Ginn F (2009). Spaces of colonialism: Delhi's urban governmentalities - by Legg S. Area 41(109-110)
Ginn, F. (2007). ‘Lawn people: how grasses, weeds and chemicals make us who we are’ - by Robbins P. Book Review. Environment and Planning A 39(12):3031
Ginn F (2007). Home - by Blunt A. and R. Dowling. Book Review. Environment and Planning A (39)2288-2289
Ginn F (forthcoming) ‘Spaces for nature’ by Steve Hinchliffe. Book Review. Cultural Geographies
Ginn F (2009). Spaces of colonialism: Delhi's urban governmentalities - by Legg S. Area 41(109-110)
Ginn, F. (2007). ‘Lawn people: how grasses, weeds and chemicals make us who we are’ - by Robbins P. Book Review. Environment and Planning A 39(12):3031
Ginn F (2007). Home - by Blunt A. and R. Dowling. Book Review. Environment and Planning A (39)2288-2289
Presentations
Ginn, F. (2008) ‘The suburbs smell of privet!” Paper presentation at the RGS/IBG Annual Conference, London, August 2008.
‘Making colonial natures’. Invited lecture, Imperial College, July 2008.
Ginn F (2008) Eco-nationalism and (post)colonial nature in Aotearoa New Zealand. Paper presentation at the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) Annual Conference, Boston, April 2008.
Ginn, F. (2007) ‘“Then you shall have pampas grass!”: making London’s inter-war suburban gardens.’ Paper presentation at Nature Matters: Materiality and the More-than-Human in Cultural Studies of the Environment Conference, Toronto, October 2007.
Ginn, F. (2007) ‘700mm landscape’. Paper presentation at the RGS/IBG Annual Conference, London, August 2007.
Ginn, F. (2007). ‘They’d only want to eat them’: vernacular natures in Riccarton Bush, Aotearoa / New Zealand. Paper presentation at the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) Annual Conference, San Fransisco, April 2007.
Ginn, F. (2007) ‘Bruno Latour: muse magician, menace.’ Paper presentation at the RGS/IBG Postgraduate Forum, Edinburgh, February 2007.
Ginn, F. (2004). ‘Encouraging more sustainable consumption patterns: a UK NGO perspective’. Paper presentation at the International Sustainable Development Research Conference, Manchester, March 2004.
‘Making colonial natures’. Invited lecture, Imperial College, July 2008.
Ginn F (2008) Eco-nationalism and (post)colonial nature in Aotearoa New Zealand. Paper presentation at the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) Annual Conference, Boston, April 2008.
Ginn, F. (2007) ‘“Then you shall have pampas grass!”: making London’s inter-war suburban gardens.’ Paper presentation at Nature Matters: Materiality and the More-than-Human in Cultural Studies of the Environment Conference, Toronto, October 2007.
Ginn, F. (2007) ‘700mm landscape’. Paper presentation at the RGS/IBG Annual Conference, London, August 2007.
Ginn, F. (2007). ‘They’d only want to eat them’: vernacular natures in Riccarton Bush, Aotearoa / New Zealand. Paper presentation at the Association of American Geographer’s (AAG) Annual Conference, San Fransisco, April 2007.
Ginn, F. (2007) ‘Bruno Latour: muse magician, menace.’ Paper presentation at the RGS/IBG Postgraduate Forum, Edinburgh, February 2007.
Ginn, F. (2004). ‘Encouraging more sustainable consumption patterns: a UK NGO perspective’. Paper presentation at the International Sustainable Development Research Conference, Manchester, March 2004.
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