Greenhouse imaginaries and the development of urban(izing) frontiers in the era of climate change

Keywords: greenhouses, urban agriculture, settler-colonialism, climate justice, food justice, food sovereignty, infrastructure, Arctic, gentrification
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 27

Abstract

Greenhouses are infrastructural components of the food system that allow for the temporal and spatial extension of crop production, by both lengthening the growing season and making production possible in colder climates. Greenhouse development is increasing; in Canada, greenhouse production capacity increased by 24% between 2015 and 2020. Government, agribusiness, non-profits, and researchers alike have promoted greenhouse production, pointing to recent disruptions to the food system caused by the pandemic and extreme weather events linked to climate change. In cities, greenhouses are integrated into development plans, arising from consumer demand for local produce and green urbanist plans for a more sustainable food system and a circular economy, while in the Arctic, greenhouses are erected in response to exorbitant food costs and the impact of climate change on traditional means of provisioning of "country food". In this paper, we examine the discourse underpinning the development of greenhouses as response to food insecurity in two starkly different landscapes: on vacant lots and rooftops in neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment in Montreal, Canada’s second largest city; and in remote Arctic and sub-Arctic communities across Inuit Nunangat. Drawing on news media, project websites, and policy documents, we identify the eco-modernist/eco-futurist imaginaries underpinning greenhouse development, and the aesthetic work that greenhouses do in developing these urban(izing) ‘frontiers’. Bringing geographic literature on infrastructural imaginaries and aesthetics into conversation with recent scholarship on settler-colonial urbanism, we describe how greenhouse imaginaries draw on and re-inscribe colonial and developmentalist logics in these distinct landscapes of concrete and tundra.