Mien Community Gardens

Healing Displacement The critical role of gardens in the refugee and resettlement chain

Sean O’Donnell PhD Candidate, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Elizabeth Brabec Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Director, Center for Heritage and Society

Overview ´  Try to better understand

displacement, emplacement, and the resettlement of refugees

´  Examine the role of gardens in place-making processes among former refugees

´  Look at how a particular group – Iu Mien Americans – have transformed Seattle public spaces into gardens that reflect their landscape ideals

The “Trauma of Exile” “The unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home” – Edward Said (2000)

This trauma may last decades, and span across generations

Exile and Place Attachment

While strong emotional bonds to one’s home may be a positive force (security, safety, continuity, wellbeing)…

… the physical separation from that place may lead to trauma, and a breakdown of social institutions

So What Happens Next? ´ There are three potential outcomes that refugees may

face long-term:

1.  Return to their country of origin

2.  Hope for resettlement

3.  End up somewhere in-between

So What Happens Next? ´ There are three potential outcomes that refugees may

face long-term:

1.  Return to their country of origin

2.  Hope for resettlement

3.  End up somewhere in-between

“Many refugees cannot go home because of continued conflict, wars and persecution. Many also live in perilous situations or have specific needs that cannot be addressed in the country where they have sought protection. In such circumstances, UNHCR helps resettle refugees to a third country.”

Resettlement ´ The “selection and transfer of

refugees from a State in which they have sought protection to a third State which has agreed to admit them – as refugees – with permanent residence status” – UNHCR

For many, this is a great outcome. But for others, resettlement is just another stage in a process of forced movement...

“The experience of displacement is not only about the loss of a place, and the pain and bereavement this entails. It is also, and inevitably about the struggle to make a place in the world” (Turton, 2005)

…Yet we should not see refugees as mere passive victims. They are agents in their own lives, their communities, and in their new environment

Refugees are actively engaged in the process of “(re)locating place and (re)building place in and around new spaces” (Jean, 2015)

Iu Mien Americans

´ Arrived to the United States beginning in the 1970s

´ The majority of Iu Mien refugees were born in Laos, and were forced to flee persecution as capitalist rebels

´ The majority of the 50,000 within the United States were resettled in the Pacific Northwest

´ Particularly Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle

Resettlement

´ Between 1976 and 1979, there were the first waves of Mien refugees being resettled into the United States

´ The result was a non-industrial slash-and-burn culture being embedded in a post-industrialized economy and urban culture

Seattle P-Patches

Methodology ´  Three sets of data were collected across the three community

gardens:

´ Semi-structured interviews were conducted over the course of two growing seasons (2015/2016) with 15 Mien gardeners, centered around life histories and participation in the garden

´ Random samples of plots in each garden, recording proportion of plot area dedicated to vegetable, herb, fruit, and ornamental plants, as well as species observations

´ Collected archival records held by Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods about the gardens since their inception

Following Resettlement ´  Younger generations have moved away from traditional Mien

culture, and with it, religious ideas, language, and traditional practices

´ Many have abandoned Animistic/Taoist beliefs for Christianity

´  The language is at risk of extinction, especially within the United States. Many grandparents can only speak to grandchildren through intermediate family members

We see how this new location is changing culture. But in the garden, we can see how the culture is in turn transforming the landscape

Benefits of the community gardens

´ When asked why they garden, nearly all participants gave reasons relating to food production (n=13), with a few explicitly for their family (n=5)

´  Six participants explicitly discussed gardening as promoting continuity and familiarity in their lives

´ One woman stated, “I want to eat something that I can grow. I want to get my habit back”

´ “Don’t know how to do anything else”

´ A couple in their 50s wanted to “garden like old culture…like what we had before”

Both material (nutrition, income, and exercise) and immaterial (expertise and memory, community belonging, and cultural expression/resistance) – Jean 2015

“…the re-emplacement of diaspora peoples who have managed to transnationalize local place-making by importing the cultural landscape, vernacular architecture, biotic baggage, and cognitive mapping traditions of their point-of-origin communities.

They have crossed borders but brought their epistemologies of place. They have used these knowledge systems to re-inhabit a transnational location by means of mimicry, the re-enactment of the diversity of species and forms and of the open spaces of conviviality that define their home places.”

- Devon Peña, Plenary Address at the 2006 “Place Matters” Conference

Place of Resettlement

Attachments and Heritage from Place of

Origin

Tangible + Moveable Heritage

Tangible + Immoveable

Heritage

Intangible Heritage

Behavior Individual / Community


Feedback Behavior


Origin



Heritage

Intangible Heritage

Individual / Community

Aid

Allowance

Friction

Resistance

Restriction


Feedback Behavior


Origin



Heritage

Intangible Heritage


Aid

Allowance

Friction

Resistance

Restriction


Feedback Behavior

Continuation

Adaptation

Reconstruction


Origin



Heritage

Intangible Heritage


Aid

Allowance

Friction

Resistance

Restriction

Types of Feedback ´ Economic

´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial


´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial


´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial


´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial


´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial


´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial


´ Environmental

´ Legal

´ Material

´ Social

´ Spatial

This feedback, and the different forms it can take, serves to regulate or re-enforce familiar actions.

Continuation and reconstruction are the most capable of maintaining continuity for the new cultural group.

´ If impossible or unsupported, however, former refugees or other displaced people are likely to adapt their actions to better reflect a heightened understanding of the conditions of a place.

In any case, there is a constant process toward finding a level of equilibrium.

“Community garden participation generates connectedness with their new country through allocation of tenure of physical space…by supporting a reconnection with the purposeful and familiar activity of growing food crops and by promoting a sense of belonging. Integrated within this is the contribution to food security through enhanced access to culturally appropriate foods that builds upon their social and cultural assets” – Harris et al. 2014

Thoughts ´ The garden is a powerful adaptation tool during a period

of resettlement, influencing both the physical and psychological notions of place

´ Within the context of camps, access to these activities may promote a sense of continuity, ease issues of trauma and stress, as well as provide opportunities for income-generation when available

Mien Community Gardens

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