Community gardens are fertile fields of complex political, economic and social relations, on both a local and global level. From environmentalism to urban policy and planning, racial and gender studies, transnational migration, commodity chains and food studies, the garden in the city offers an abundance of research opportunities and analytical resources. This article seeks to contribute to the efforts to understand and contest hegemonic forces in the urban environment, forces that are rooted in what Foucault identified as a set of sacred binaries which underpin a host of power relations that are “given” and form the unquestioned framework of a given set of power relations. This is therefore a project which is bent on a “theoretical desanctification of space” by a disordering of one set of several sanctified oppositions which can be found in the space of the community garden. The article de-sanctifies space by exploring the historical context of the community garden in New York and Oakland California and posits that the work of the gardener is co-opted into a value regime by a process I call “conspicuous labor”. This process is similar to Veblen's conspicuous consumption except the value generated is not in modeling consumption but rather in emulating class patterns and re-configuring the urban poor as a productive, passive and pastoral.

在地方和全球范围内，社区花园都是具有复杂的政治，经济和社会关系的沃土。从环境保护到城市政策和规划，种族和性别研究，跨国移民，商品链和食品研究，城市花园提供了大量的研究机会和分析资源。本文旨在为理解和对抗城市环境中的霸权势力做出贡献，这些霸权根源于福柯认为是一组神圣的二进制文件，这些二进制文件支持了一系列“给定”并形成了毫无疑问的权力关系给定的一组权力关系。因此，这是一个旨在通过在社区花园的空间中发现无数对成圣的对立体而引起的“对空间进行理论上的圣化”的项目。该文章通过探索纽约和加利福尼亚州奥克兰市社区花园的历史背景来将空间神圣化，并假定通过我称之为“显眼劳动”的过程将园丁的工作纳入了一种价值体系。这个过程与维布伦的显着消费相​​似，除了所产生的价值不是在模拟消费上，而是在模仿阶级模式和将城市贫困人口重新配置为生产性，被动性和牧民性的方面。该文章通过探索纽约和加利福尼亚州奥克兰市社区花园的历史背景来将空间神圣化，并假定通过我称之为“显眼劳动”的过程将园丁的工作纳入了一种价值体系。这个过程与维布伦的显着消费相​​似，除了所产生的价值不是在模拟消费上，而是在模仿阶级模式和将城市贫困人口重新配置为生产性，被动性和牧民性的方面。该文章通过探索纽约和加利福尼亚州奥克兰市社区花园的历史背景来将空间神圣化，并假定通过我称之为“显眼劳动”的过程将园丁的工作纳入了一种价值体系。这个过程与维布伦的显着消费相​​似，除了所产生的价值不是在模拟消费上，而是在模仿阶级模式和将城市贫困人口重新配置为生产性，被动性和牧民性的方面。