CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Sipos, Cintia |
|---|---|
| Title | Growing Resilience: Understanding Motivations in the Microcosm of a Community Garden in Hungary |
| Summary | Rapid urbanization is leading to the expansion of urban land cover, catalyzing the impact of various crises faced by cities. Community gardens, as a type of nature-based solutions, contribute not only to food provisioning but also provide multiple benefits that can tackle urban challenges in several dimensions. Despite these advantages, community gardens are often still overlooked in urban planning. Therefore, this thesis focuses on understanding what enables community gardens to function over time, develop and maintain capacities, and deliver multiple benefits, thereby contributing to increasing resilience in cities. Given that humans are key to functioning community gardens, understanding different actors’ motivations is essential for creating conditions that indeed meet their expectations. There is no one-size-fits-all solution as each case is unique and given the limited research on this topic in Central and Eastern Europe, the Hungarian community garden “Málnakert” was chosen for thorough study. Qualitative research methods were used, with findings analyzed and presented using the Environmental Stewardship Framework’s key elements, complemented by Self-Determination Theory. The findings identify organic food production and connection to nature as primary motivations. The research highlights that the garden has strong foundations due to initial external funding, secured land, adopted best practices from other successful community gardens and capitalized on stakeholders’ supportive attitude. These factors facilitate a continuous capacity development leading to an aim of becoming self-sustainable. While the overall conditions ensure the fulfillment of two basic psychological needs, autonomy and competence, the garden still faces challenges regarding the third need, relatedness. Finally, the thesis highlights the importance of improving these conditions to enhance motivation. This improvement might substantively contribute to community gardens’ long-term success and urban resilience. |
| Supervisor | Pintér, László |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/sipos_cintia.pdf |
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