Cultivating care: Exploring the patchy Anthropocene in four community gardens in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

This thesis responds to the idea that storytelling and gardening are two practices that can be used to re-frame human action within the Anthropocene. Eight gardeners from four community gardens in Wellington City, Aotearoa New Zealand were interviewed. Alongside the interviewees, the author gardened at each of the community gardens from late autumn to early summer 2019. The interviews and field notes have been written up as creative non-fiction essays to form the majority of this thesis. Three major themes are explored through these essays; the patchy Anthropocene (a concept proposed by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing), the lively multispecies entanglements present at each of the community gardens, and the importance of care.