Urban Gardens and Alternative Food Spaces in Northeastern Ohio

My Research

I am an environmental anthropologist who studies food and agriculture systems in South Asia, Eastern Europe, and North America. Food and farming are starting places to ask fundamental questions concerning how we learn about the world around us, how we come to shape the landscapes where we live, and even what impact our culture has on the microscopic worlds within us.

My research has led me to explore the human experiences behind biotechnology and organic agriculture in India, heritage foods and climate change in Bosnia’s mountain gardens, the decisions and aspirations of the next generation of Midwestern farmers, and the influence of food traditions and fermentation on the human microbiome. To study these issues and examine the changing social and ecological worlds where we live, I use a social science toolkit that includes ethnography, spatial analysis, interviews, surveys, ethnobotany, and photography.

Environmental knowledge, and the relationships and affects that continually shape it, grow within a larger political context that includes everything from biotechnology to microbial legislation to ethical supply chains. My work in anthropology uses seeds and microbes as heuristics to explore how we shape and are shaped by the social, political, economic, and ecological worlds around us.

Motivated by a lifelong interest in gardening and alternative food production, this project investigated the role of community and urban gardens as alternative food spaces in Northeastern Ohio. While many community members used these spaces to supplement their household food security in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, these gardens also filled a crucial role as social spaces where people could interact in a safe and natural space. This project was funded by the McNair Fellowship/Oberlin College Research Fellowship.

Publications related to this research:

Flachs, Andrew. 2013 “Gardening as Ethnographic Research – Volunteering as a Means for Community Access.” Journal of Ecological Anthropology, 16(1):97-103
Flachs, Andrew. 2010 “Food For Thought: The Social Impact of Community Gardens in the Greater Cleveland Area.” Electronic Green Journal, 30(1):1-9.