EAUH, Rome 2018

Call for Papers

We would like to invite papers to address the theme of ‘Urban Gardening’ for the forthcoming European Association of Urban Historians conference, to be held in Rome between August 29-1 September 2018. Deadline to submit an abstract is 31 October, 2017. To submit a paper proposal, registration is required. Paper proposals and full texts can only by submitted online, via the EAUH2018 website. If sent by post or email it will not be accepted. Notification of paper acceptance: December 1, 2017. We welcome papers from any disciplinary background and on any European areas since 1700. We particularly welcome papers with a comparative dimension. If you would like to discuss the session and/or your abstract then please contact Jill Steward, Tim Kirk or Ivaylo Nachev.

Recent interdisciplinary historical work on green spaces and food production in a number of different cities has shown that this is a rich and important area worthy of further investigation, not least because of the growing public and academic interest in urban gardening in the modern metropolis and the economically less developed societies of Europe. Today’s economically and culturally-driven urban horticulture has strong historical roots, as in the early modern kitchen gardens, 19th-century market gardens of Paris, the vineyards of Vienna and the German Schrebergarten, for example. This session will seek to compare developments in different kinds of European urban gardens and productive landscapes from the 18th century onwards in order to identify the extent to which they represent examples of the adaptation and resilience of individuals, associations, communities and municipalities to times of rapid urban expansion and population growth, social and economic change, crisis and hardship and the wartime disruption of food supplies, as well as to concerns about health and food adulteration.

To what extent was support for eommercial and local enterprises, allotments and public and private gardens, an effective strategy for increasing the resilience of urban communities to economic hardship and resource constraints, a means of guaranteeing food security and improving the health of the population? What role did gardening in its various forms play in shaping and revitalizing urban landscapes and economies and maintaining urban-rural connections? Were there transnational influences at play? To what extent were present-day concerns about physical and mental health, the growth of leisure and tourism, sustainability, urban generation and the resilience of individuals and communities in the face of social and economic change and environmental and ecological crises foreshadowed in earlier developments?