The Past and the Future of “Gardens”

Special Session

Beykent University, Istanbul

Faculty of Arts-Sciences

Department of Sociology (EN)

29 April 2021 / 15.00-17.00

Zoom Meeting ID: 954 2362 6006

https://zoom.us/j/95423626006

Gardens hold  a significant place in human history. They have provided additional support for household subsistence and over time have also played a role as a laboratory for growing plants. In the Anthropocene where the majority of the world population live in urban dwellings, privately owned gardens or public gardens and parks have become indispensable spaces of multiple designs and functions. This session aims to explore the past, the present and the future of gardens from a social science perspective, aiming to highlight future research avenues on the topic.

Opening Address: Sir Roderick Floud (Economic history and anthropometric history), author of “An Economic History of the English Garden”, UK

Moderator: Akile Gürsoy (Anthropology), Beykent University, Istanbul, Turkey

Commentator: Huricihan İslamoğlu, (Emeritus Professor of Economic history, Legal History, Political Economy), Istanbul, Turkey

Session Participants: (in alphabetical order)

• Barbaros Fergus Garrett (Horticulture) Great Dixter House and Gardens, UK.
• Clive Potter (Environmental Policy, Agri-environmental policy), Imperial College, London, UK.
• Dan Keech (Cultural Geography), Urban horticulture and rural identity in the world heritage city of Bamberg.Geography and Environment), University of Gloucestershire, UK
• Filiz Özer (History of Architecture), Ottoman architecture and imperial gardens, İstanbul Gedik University, İstanbul, Turkey
• Marcel Mečiar (Sociology), Significance of gardens and garden colonies in the ‘normalization’ of Czechoslovakia, Beykent University, Istanbul, Turkey
• Matthew Reed (Politics, Ecology and Sociology, Food Citizenship), People providing food to themselves or others in their communities, University of Gloucestershire, UK
• Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good (Global Health and Social Medicine), Harvard University, USA
• Pat Thompson (Education, Ethnography) the Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacies (CRACL), Nottingham, co-author of “Why Garden in Schools”, UK.
• Roberto Briceño-León, (Sociology), Changes in the garden location between the colonial house and the "modern" house and the perception of security in Latin America.  Universidade Federal do Ceara, Brasil / LACSO, Caracas, Venezuela
• Sadeq Rahimi (Global Health and Social Medicine), Garden as Spatial Representation of Intimate Exteriority in Persian Culture, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, USA.