Paper short abstract:

The ever-expanding and idealised local food movement has cultivated an opportunity to explore the role of moral economy in such a movement. This paper addresses the existence of moral economy in a public housing, urban food garden through ethnographic observations, focussing on the element of reciprocity.

Paper long abstract:

The rise of urban agriculture in Australia and the ever-increasing discourse around the moral attributes of the local food movement present an opportunity to delve into a discussion on the intersection between elements of moral economy and community gardens. This paper discusses the existence of moral economy in an urban, public housing community garden as observed through ethnographic work. The hybrid, complex moral economy that exists in the garden brings gardeners' diverse cultural understandings of reciprocity into direct contact with a social welfare program in place to facilitate community gardens all within the confines of the modern Australian, capitalist system. The not-for-profit organisation facilitates community gardens throughout inner-city Melbourne's public housing estates and operates with the explicit mission to "work with diverse communities to create fair, secure and resilient food systems." This paper looks specifically at the role of reciprocity in one particular garden, how gardeners use reciprocity to create their own small-scale food system and the contradictions that exists between the moral code found in the garden rules set by the facilitating organisation and the observed social practices and actions of gardeners. Finally this paper examines the structural forces that shape this particular hybrid moral economy within a polyethnic migrant community.