We are INSUAH.
Integrated Study on Urban Agriculture as Heritage.
A project and network to connect, understand, develop and protect Urban Agricultural Heritage (UAH) all around the world. We want to study the meaning of cultural heritage in different global contexts, work together to learn from each others approaches and together elaborate on the first scientific framing of the term UAH.
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Call for article proposals: Urban Agriculture – History and Heritage
Global Issues Convention 2024
INSUAH Visit to FAO Headquarters, Rome
Integrated Study on Urban Agriculture as Heritage
Given global challenges such as urbanisation, limited resources and food security, urban agriculture has turned from a phenomenon considered to be peripheral to a globally acknowledged instrument for sustainable development.
INSUAH will find out, what yesterday teaches us for tomorrow and how the concept of living local heritage initiatives can become a global strategy for sustainable urban development.
Furthermore, the term Urban Agricultural Heritage will be defined and scientifically framed – based on action research findings from the 5 global INSUAH Living Labs in very different societal and economic settings.
Usually, urban agriculture initiatives focus around creating new systems; the qualities of inherited and vernacular systems of urban agricultural production and its associated benefits -for food supply, income generation, social and biodiversity, and the urban metabolism – have not been subject yet to research activities, despite the fact that considering urban development and heritage together is strongly suggested in the UN agenda for sustainable development. To address this gap, the team will share case study based experiences from different urban regions: Sao Paulo (Brazil), Havana (Cuba), Bandung (Indonesia), Tokyo (Japan) and Nuremberg (Germany).
The project combines historical investigations, spatial analysis and living lab methods to detect, map and define the heritage and its associated values and threats, and to raise awareness of the heritage and elaborate targeted planning and policy agendas. The case study findings will be integrated in a parallel metalevel process by focussing upon a living heritage approach taking into account ecosystematic, contextual and participatory perspectives.
Urban Agriculture as Cultural Heritage
INSUAH demonstrates how urban agriculture is not a modern phenomenon, but can look back on long traditions in a wide range of forms. Urban agriculture can therefore be addressed and developed as cultural heritage.
This approach is already taken up by supranational institutions such as UNESCO and FAO, whose heritage formats are analyzed, reflected upon by the INSUAH team, and tested and evaluated based on action research experiences in the five global Living Labs. Furthermore, the international project team will highlight, how local initiatives can take up urban agriculture as cultural heritage in order to contribute to sustainable urban development in different global contexts.
Cultural heritage: What yesterday teaches us for tomorrow
An in-depth look at the treatment of urban agricultural culture as heritage has produced two very different approaches: a formalized and canonized heritage, awarded by supranational organizations, contrasts with informal, locally motivated processes that use the concept of heritage to enable history-conscious, sustainability-oriented transformations. Both approaches have their legitimacy and should therefore be understood as complementary (Jiang, 2021; Lohrberg, 2022).
The initiatives of the United Nations, in particular the GIAHS of the FAO, open up the possibility of displaying agricultural crops prominently in the public eye as flagships and thus raising awareness of the fact that traditional agricultural systems are a valuable source of knowledge and genetic information. Urban agricultural cultures can make specific contributions to this, as in many places they have adapted to the challenges of urbanization and industrialization over centuries and have developed their own characteristics (horticultural intensification, market-oriented diversification, allotment gardens). So far, however, this heritage has only been described in rudimentary form and interpreted in a way that guides action. In the sense of such an exploration, it is to be desired to specifically designate an urban agricultural system as a GIAHS and to communicate it accordingly
Living Local Heritage as a Global Strategy
Local heritage approaches, on the other hand, enable history-related transformation work, an equally legitimate approach that also allows action to be taken in many places or at a higher scale. The bottom-up principle seems particularly suitable not only for defining heritage, but also for preserving it in the long term as a living asset and establishing it in new forms. Especially urban areas with their diverse lifestyles can promote new initiatives to redefine agri-culture and thus also provide impetus for rural areas.
What both approaches have in common is that urban agriculture should not be seen as an invention of the 21st century, but as a historically deeply rooted, constant companion of urbanization. This awareness also needs to be strengthened, especially in view of the upcoming upheavals towards a post-fossil economy and society. The urban agricultural heritage – whether defined supranationally or locally – can reveal ways in which such a transformation can succeed.
Global Issues - Integrating Different Perspectives on Heritage and Change
The international research project INSUAH will be funded by Volkswagen Foundation. Together, the Foundation Compagnia di San Paolo, the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and the Volkswagen Foundation are funding eight international projects in the field of tension between “heritage and change”.
What does the natural and cultural heritage mean for indigenous peoples in the Amazon and how could a better awareness strengthen them against external influences? Are not the experiences and traces of migrants on the routes from Africa to Europe also to be considered cultural heritage, and does this not suggest a reconceptualisation of the concept of heritage? – These are two of many questions that illustrate how present and global the debate about our cultural heritage is. Two projects that exemplify the research interests of eight international teams in the field of tension between “heritage and change”. As part of their joint call for proposals “Global Issues – Integrating Different Perspectives on Heritage and Change”, the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo (Italy), the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden) and the Volkswagen Foundation (Germany) now make a total of around 11 million euros available for these eight new projects.
Based on an international peer review, interdisciplinary research projects were selected in which the perspectives of researchers and participants from different countries are brought together. In addition to a main applicant from Germany, Italy or Sweden, at least two partners from low- or middle-income countries outside Europe are involved in every project. Investigating the respective topics from different perspectives seems particularly profitable, as cultural heritage creates identity across national borders. Moreover, it is exposed to similar threats worldwide, so transnational approaches to solutions are in demand. Whether digitalisation, environmental changes or globalisation – with regard to the major transformation processes of the present, the topic of culture is usually given little consideration. This is one of the reasons why the thematic field was defined for this call.
INSUAH Partners
Frank Lohrberg
Institute of Landscape Architecture
RWTH Aachen University
Germany- Luciana Fukimoto Itikawa
Institute of Advanced Studies
University of São Paulo
Brazil Jorge Peña Diaz
Department for Urban and Architectural Design
Technical University of Havana
CubaOekan S Abdoellah
Center for Environment and Sustainability Science and the Department of Anthropology
Universitas Padjadjaran Bandung
IndonesiaMakoto Yokohari
Department of Urban Engineering
The University of Tokyo
Japan