In modern day urban living, relationships with food production is quite limited, so limited in fact that it can sometimes be hard to figure out what one is consuming. This lack of relationship between food and people is not only prevalent when looking at production aspects, but also seen in cultural aspects as well. Industrialisation and global food liberalisation are affecting our relationship with food and food culture, as people now can consume food from anywhere and nowhere, eating food that has little resemblance to what its actually made of, while simultaneously having little to no knowledge about what the food might actually be. We are in other words alienated from food in modern urban living and suffering from what Claude Fischler coins gastro-anomie. This is theoretically caused by the distance from the food production in urban living, but newer forces in urban agriculture seems to be an antithesis to these conditions. This masters-thesis inquiries into these forces by looking at the potential de-alienating factors in urban gardening and urban foraging.
By using a theoretical framework consisting of Claude Fischlers term of gastro-anomie, Marxist understandings of human-nature relationship and alienation theory, this masters-thesis explores urban agriculture and urban foraging through the lens of mental foodscapes. This is done by looking at the case of Aalborg as ground for urban agricultural practices through hermeneutical interpretation. The methodology used to do this is the qualitative interview with urban gardeners and foragers found through associations in the city of Aalborg.
The study finds that urban agriculture and urban foraging has a lot of potential for de-alienating its practitioners, by granting them a closer relationship with food, nature and production even though they themselves have a hard time seeing their practice as part of the local foodscape. It also finds that looking through the lens of a mental foodscape can help in creating a better understanding of people’s relation with food, while a foodscape consisting of a more geographically constructed nature fails to do so.