| Popis: |
On the outskirts of the city of Diyarbakir, the Hevsel Gardens host a small vegetable gardening activity intended for the local market. Most studies on modern cities acknowledge the benefits of urban agriculture in terms of landscaping, social, economic and environmental aspects. Yet, Diyarbakir’s growth questions the sustainability of the gardens and puts into relief the asymmetric relationship that binds them to a city that dominates them on all perspectives. This article highlights these unbalanced relationships between the Gardens and the city assuming the potential empowering role of Hevsel Gardens on both social and territorial levels. To this end, three different socio-political projects that could redefine the interdependence between Diyarbakir and the Gardens are exposed. These projects stem from the regulation of the use of water resources which are lacking both in quality and quantity: a technical-commercial project within the centralized official political networks; a project of pragmatic adaptation and resilience specific to the farmers; and a project inspired by Murray Bookchin’s anarchist theories based on social ecology and libertarian city management. The coexistence of these three projects and their competition calls for the re-examination of the relationship between the city and the gardens, and for an alternative to the processes of concentration of powers in the metropolis for the conservation of these gardens and their specificities. |
