 Growing utopia – undoing risk through self-sufficiency and urban gardening?Elin Montelius Journal of Risk Research, 2024, vol. 27, issue 9, 1106-1118 Abstract: This paper analyses how the utopia of self-sufficiency functions as a response to risk and uncertainty. Recent decades have witnessed the proliferation of risk. Risk has become a way to understand and govern individual lives and society that reproduces existing inequalities whilst producing inequality due to its co-articulation with race, class and gender. Risk also distributes responsibility since every individual is made responsible for the management of the ever-increasing risks we face in modern society. In Sweden, the interest in gardening and cultivating vegetables has become more common, often motivated by ideals about self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency becomes a way of dealing with ecological risk and uncertainty. However, the narrative of self-sufficiency also upholds an imaginary of a different society and a different future, and thus has distinct utopian features. By looking at the growing trend of self-sufficiency through the lens of intersectional risk theory, this article analyses the doing and undoing of risk through narratives of self-sufficiency, and the ways that narratives of utopia can be a way of undoing risk. Date: 2024 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:27:y:2024:i:9:p:1106-1118 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2023.2299840 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Risk Research is currently edited by Bryan MacGregor More articles in Journal of Risk Research from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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