CONCEPTUALISING PLANT-HUMAN RELATIONS AMONG GARDENERS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

In light of recent state initiatives to encourage planting and growing interest in gardening in Singapore, this thesis seeks to find out how through semi-structured interviews how gardeners conceptualise plants, and if their conceptualisations converge or diverge from how plants are conceptualised in state policies. Based on the findings, gardeners’ conceptualisation of plants both converge and diverge from the utilitarian conceptualisation of plants in state policies. Firstly, gardeners plant for therapeutic, social, and food consumption reasons. In these motivations, plants are conceptualised as objects which serve human needs, aligning with state policies. Secondly, in the context of a productive high-tech farming sector, hydroponics is used as a site to illustrate how gardeners understand plants. Gardeners and state policies are aligned in conceiving of plants as utilitarian. These functions include plants as productive food, as providing good taste, improving health and mitigating the effects of climate change. While gardeners’ utilitarian understanding of plants map onto the state’s understanding of plants, these conceptualisations may or may not align with state policies that relate to growing food or food production. Lastly, in their everyday encounters with plants, plants are more than just utilitarian objects for gardeners. These relationships are characterised by routine care as well as a sense of kinship. In understanding the relational aspects of plants, plants emerge as socially meaningful beyond just their function to gardeners’ lives. Therefore, while gardeners do think of plants in utilitarian ways, their practices of care and love elevate plants to more than just objects.