The politics of place identity in peri-urban environments

Traditionally farm land, 'peri-urban' areas on the outskirts of our major cities have become a contested space. Now, thanks for a number of factors, different social groups have developed conflicting representations of what the ‘identity’ of peri-urban areas should be.

In Sydney, for example, peri-urban farmlands are progressively being taken over by housing developments and the associated arrival of newcomers has shifted farmers’ central position within the community. Combined with the challenge to urban farming presented by the liberalisation of agriculture in Australia, and the future of farming in these areas appears less viable.

Using Wollondilly Shire as a case study, ISF researchers examined how farmlands and farming activities are marginalised in the peri-urban and how this trend might be reversed. For this, a holistic framework of the ‘politics of place/landscape identity’ was developed, offering a heuristic tool for understanding how hegemonic, resistant and emergent place identities are produced in the peri-urban landscape.

Two hegemonic place identities were identified, both contributing (sometimes inadvertently) to the marginalisation of agricultural activities:

The first identity proposed to accommodate housing development while preserving agricultural uses through the maintenance of a sharp distinction between city and country. However, in planning practices, this rationale is used to characterise housing development as ‘in place’ and agricultural activities as ‘out of place’.

The second identity promotes the development of low-density residential development throughout the countryside, leading to a consideration of farming as a nuisance in the landscape. Furthermore, a resistant place identity defended by farmers was identified, which aimed at reasserting farmers’ legitimacy in the peri-urban landscape, by considering farmers as using the land appropriately. As of yet, this resistant place identity has not sparked collective action amongst farmers and, therefore, does not renegotiate their roles in the peri-urban. Rather, farmers have developed formal and informal arrangements with various stakeholders, as well as adaptive strategies at the farm scale, which might lead to a renegotiation of their role in the peri-urban.

The discussion identifies barriers that might prevent the renegotiation of the role of farming in the peri-urban are identified, as well as ways to address them. Levers for policy change that were identified include the need to renegotiate the meaning of the notion of viability and move beyond a spatial planning based on the city-country divide. Actions that could be taken by farmers and the civil society are also identified.

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

Can land-based and practice-based place identities explain farmers’ adaptation strategies in peri-urban areas? A case study of Metropolitan Sydney, Australia (2019) (Article)
Agriculture and Human Values

A politics of place framework for unravelling peri-urban conflict: An example of peri-urban Sydney, Australia (2018) (Journal Paper)
Journal of Urban Management, vol. 7, pp. 57-69