Friday 10 Jan, Oxford Real Farming Conference

Where Liberatory Gardens & Farming Meet

Co-facilitated by Rae Hippolyte, Idman Abdurahaman and Shama Khanna

A soft space for dreaming at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, to explore what it means to work towards liberation through tending the land.

Recovering a more reciprocal relationship to the land through farming and gardening can be nourishing on many levels. But what is needed to make all experiences working the land a liberatory act? Can flowers liberate as much as food?

This session was inspired by new farms and growing projects emerging from urban centres, which take an inclusive, intersectional approach, prioritising meeting each other’s needs, alongside the needs of plants and the land. This session offers a dreaming space for what liberation on the land looks like and how we can get there.

More info here. Scroll down for our reflections …

Shama’s reflections:
For me, our ORFC session was about sharing and dreaming about queer BPOC perspectives on land practices, including gardening. It was also an attempt to step out of the busyness of the conference, and any pressure to find solutions in only a few days of collectivity, and create a softer, safer space to dwell together.

I don’t think Rae and Idman had had a chance to meet properly so I’m glad the event strengthened ties between their two incredible organisations, Earth Tenders in London and Folx Farm in Sussex. These growing spaces seek to prioritise the needs of workers as much as plants (and the bottom line) in the understanding that as caregivers, if we don’t care for each other our capacity to respond, or simply survive is greatly diminished. A reckoning with the tricky but ultimately win-win sum of mutual aid where the more you trust and give, the more you get back in return.

The day before our session, baby Union SALT reminded us that we must protect this precious set of relations based on workers’ needs to safeguard workers’ rights. But how do you keep liberation in mind, QTIBPOC desires and experience returning to the land, in developing a radical organisation? How do you continue to celebrate change, nuance and divergence (the grey tricky areas, even), which often gives way to the art and creativity I see manifesting in these spaces? The soft gathering LION organised at Folx Farm, for example, where I first saw myself as part of a nourishing community network, or the joyous summer celebration at Earth Tenders, where we shared blessings? For me, it feels like we are still growing and that we also need opportunities like these to stand back and give props for all the mold-breaking we’re engaged in.

In terms of gardening, after the event, I’m feeling encouraged to push through a few subtle interventions drawing on permaculture principles and our indigeneity to encourage spaces of curiosity, immersion, and interaction without the necessity to do anything more than sit, rest, and taste as quiet forms of resistance to the many oppressive forces at play. Life tests us everyday so exchanging invitations such as this can help fill ourselves up with what it takes to endure.

Rae:
Well over a month on from this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference and my part in designing “Where liberatory farms and gardens meet”, I take an hour to sit with my co-facilitators, to debrief and discuss our experiences and share what we have taken from the workshop and wider conference. Intended as a ‘soft space for dreaming, to explore what it means to work towards liberation through tending land’ on reflection, a question I had around the session and the wider conference was: what is the point?

It’s the first time I had attended the conference so I was unsure what to expect. I felt excited by the large and varied programme of events and the familiar faces from various social justice and landwork circles I had been on the periphery of for the past couple years.

The session was busy, 23 people in attendance and 10 late comers who were not granted entry as to not disturb the flow of the workshop but on reflection could have definitely added to the space and dialogue. Moving around the Link Room, there were interesting conversations being had. I joined a group who were engaged in a discussion about fences around community growing spaces and how this can lead to separation of care. We spoke about flowers being an access point for people, in particular children and young people living in urban environments to landwork and nature connection. One thing that was evident was that there were no landowners or people working within the traditional farming spaces. Many of the participants were social justice organisers, community and small scale growers. This makeup undoubtedly lent itself to our soft space approach. Meaning we could prioritise dreaming over mediating.

Thinking back to the question of ‘what’s the point?’ I have settled on the point being practice. It’s the practice of ORFC giving space for workshops that focus on topics such as liberation and year on year, through feedback and refining, finding ways to integrate these sessions into the conference so that they are accessible to more than those already engaged in the conversation (there is still a way to go). It’s the practice of those attending the workshop to refine their understanding of what laboratory growing spaces can look like, through conversation with others, so they can seek out or help to implement liberatory conditions in the places they occupy. For me as a facilitator, also engaging in these conversations shaping my understanding of what it truly means to be liberated on land, it’s the practice of holding these spaces. Of creating the conditions for people to feel able to talk freely, to provide the prompts that ignite the right conversations and the practice of knowing what isn’t needed. This workshop was by no means perfect but next time, it will be better and that’s the point.

What is the foundation to liberation on the land, can this be summed up in one word?

Practice!

Idman:
Earth Tenders is a project that’s still in a way in its infancy and I felt honored to be able to represent us at ORFC and to share what our story has looked like so far. At the start of this project Ali and I had grand visions of what the community garden could look like but most importantly what we wanted this space to feel like: healing, joyful, nourishing, liberating.

The thought of facilitating a dreaming space at a conference I hold many complex feelings about was quite exciting. Mostly I was simply intrigued by the idea of cultivating a soft dreaming portal in a place I often find quite overwhelming. In my experience, attending conferences where we convene to direct the future of food and land work often disappoints me and I think mainly it’s because the way those spaces make me feel, disembodied, disconnected from the land and the natural environment we aim to protect and repair. I think it’s simply because these spaces are not designed with people like us in mind from the very start.

Moving on to the actual workshop, starting off with breathwork, allowing attendees to land and ground in their bodies, feeling supported by the earth beneath us, we began our discussion. The reflections that came out of the breakout groups were insightful and one of the groups I joined briefly spoke a lot about the self, how this work brings up matters of the heart – ego, worthiness, self gaslighting, work life balance. This work is deeply personal to many of us and I don’t think we often see spaces created where we can talk about how to care for ourselves whilst caring for the land and non human beings. How can we support each other to build inner capacity? That’s one question they stayed with me.