Call for papers

At the crossroads of human civilisation and nature, the garden can be private or public, ornamental or nutritional, modest or monumental, rural or urban. It is the symbolic core behind the presence of humanity in nature, (Pierre Grimal 1974, Gilles Clément 2012) and the mythical source of social relationships. Because it lies at the centre of changes in forms of production, it also lays bare social choices, inequalities, conditions for survival, evolutions in the social sphere, ecological services for all forms of life, whether human or non-human. But it is also a space for art and rest, for poetic and metaphysical expression, and an essential resource for the household income and family life (Florent Quellier 2012, Collectif 2017, Philippe Pierson – Béatrice Cabedoce 1996). It is near and specific, universal and cultural (Philippe Descola 2005).

The conference on ‘Women & Gardens’ seeks to explore the gender dimension in such wide-ranging perspectives.

Over time, the history of gardens has focused extensively on landscaping (Alain Roger 1997, Anne Cauquelin 2000), development planning research has explored gardening practices and implications (Kohler et alii 2015, Collectif 2003), social sciences have encouraged analyses of their economic, convivial and conflictual dimensions, ecological sciences have become increasing important in the study of garden areas, and agronomy has investigated the benefits of gardens as resource, and in particular of food, in these areas: yet, the gender dimension of gardens has long been ignored.

The garden has been analysed in all its dimensions, as if it were possible to coalesce social differentiations into a more far-reaching reality. Like concepts such as city, work, ownership, it is perceived as the product of global humanity (Sylvette Denèfle 2004). Nevertheless, the specificities of different gardens are the very essence and mark of temporal and spatial contingences and, as such, express civilisational models, though we must not ignore the fact that they remain carriers of a universal differentiation of sexual roles (Gaelle Gillot 2002). This differentiation may be negative, but it may also act as a vector for emancipation, as a source of public space (Corinne Luxembourg - Camille Noûs 2021) and as evidence of the attention given to the city by women (Sophie Louargant - Alexia Barroche 2022).

In everything that constitutes a garden, women play a very specific role: responsible for vegetable gardens on farms run by men, investing in communal gardens, making use of public areas for family leisure activities, producing and receiving garden flowers, healers and witches, nuns and sinners in the garden of Eden, women militating for day-to-day ecological practices, and so many others. In the garden, they all play a role that needs to be studied in order to measure, using the universal indicator of gender, how they reflect recurrent images of feminine roles: modest, humble, invisible in their domestic dimension, dangerous in their sexual dimension (Camille Koskas 2021), charitable in their social dimension, etc.

As an enclosed space linked to a wider world, the garden is a place where women can exercise power or experience submission, develop creativity or comply with constricting norms. It can be a place for finding refuge, reconquering space, or contributing to their fulfilment. It is also a workplace that requires physical effort and technical and physical skills. Gardening careers involve relationships governing the professional environment which is far from encouraging equality between women and men. Its production processes and its practices reflect the sexual roles, both diverse and generous, that govern all such social spaces.

By concentrating on the garden, the conference on ‘Women & Gardens’ seeksto highlight the role of women, challenge the history, and provide insight into contemporary situations that are as much domestic as public, intimate as political.

Four axes for reflection are offered as a guide for possible presentations, though proposals on much wider issues are also welcome. All types of knowledge and experience can be put forward: academic or empirical, traditional or experimental, artistic or technical, etc.

Axis 1 The garden, as an expression of feminine roles in the history of the environment

A key aspect for proposals must be their link to ‘gardens’, as a place, a situated space, a material and biological reality, and a specific task for human societies in which relationships between a specific culture and period and the vast non-human world are played out, maintained, experienced, exposed, and transmitted. These considerations can generate presentations analysing the very notion of garden through cultural diversity with regard to feminine roles which are, or have been, expressed in the West or in other parts of the world (Léa Billen 2015, Marie-Jo Menozzi 2000): their relationship with space, territory, landscape, terrain, nature, house, property (or more broadly, possession) and shared – or indeed, public – space, or their significance in cultures where such notions do not exist.

Do the walls surrounding the garden act as limits or frontiers between the human world and nature, between wild and domesticated, between private and public, or do they open up links between worlds? Do women’s gardening activities follow certain delineations, do they establish or define spatial or relational divisions?

Reflections on all these concepts are welcome insofar as they allow us to think about the place of the garden in gender differentiation: enclosing or diminishing women, giving them typically feminine responsibilities and powers, understanding the use of plants for health or for sorcery, feeding the family or selling their crops, becoming mistress of a plot of land or relegated to a secondary role, etc.

Axis 2 Practices and ambiance, life in women’s gardens

Observation, experiments, garden practices, here or elsewhere, in a far or recent past, or today: how do these offer opportunities for understanding ways of being, of gardening, of using spaces that set men and women apart? Did women in hunter/gatherer and nomadic societies establish neolithic sedentary communities, or is there a predisposition to epistemological bias in archaeological research (Anne Augereau, 2021)? Has Western society, with its deep-seated inequalities, relegated women to the domestic tasks in gardening and family produce or opened up opportunities for autonomy and responsibility, as seen in the islands of Brittany? Did courtly love enclose the lady to a dream garden or surround her with an insurmountable wall (Collectif 1990)? In the East, were women given specific places and roles in the garden (Gaelle Gillot 2006)? Has the weekend handed responsibility for the family garden to men or allowed couples to develop shared leisure activities (Elisabeth Pasquier 2001, Jean-Noël Consales 2018)? Are community gardens – from the perspective of solidarity and attention to others – a source of feminine responsibility, an opportunity for empowerment, or merely an instant of ephemeral and unimportant leisure? Does ecology correspond more to feminine social values such as respect and care for others than to life-giving techniques for progress? By ‘others’, are we restricting our thinking to humans or should we also focus on other species? If the place of women has become less invisible in recent social situations, how does the garden illustrate this reality?

Regarding such vast questions about the history of gardens, as it runs parallel to human life in nature, what have we learnt from specific studies, examples, artworks, literature, and social sciences? We look forward to receiving proposals on these and many other aspects, whether they draw on book learning or real experiences, art or botany, working with plants or convivial activities, etc.

Axis 3 Working in the garden, the body in action

Mythology maintains a certain collusion between the cycles of the female body and those of the plant world, both of which are influenced by physical biological phenomena, signs of fertility and promises of descendance and abundance, continuity of life. Reducing women (and perhaps also plants) to such corporal realities can often be used to mask their desires and, above all, their capacity for action. As if their bodies should be dedicated to being submissive or used, rather than have an impact on their surroundings.

But, as we cannot think of the garden without taking into account gardening and working with the soil, it becomes an activity that places a strain on the body and necessitates the handling of heavy and sharp tools. Images display not only women as gardeners, but also as luxury and blooms (Martine Bergues 2011). How should we observe these illustrations, how should they be interpreted? What forms of symbolism are at work and how do they relate to women’s bodies? The delicacy of women and of flowers is subverted by their work in the soil, plantations, harvests, labour, all of which can be delegated, but also allows the over-urbanised body to reconnect with nature. Furthermore, gardening practices evoke memories, histories and family lives, the gestures, tastes and flavours of childhood (Anne Dufour – Catherine Dupin 2009).

Axis 4 The garden as a form of resistance

The conference seeks to address political and ideological issues that underlie social opinions regarding the role of gardens in territorial and city development (Marie-Jo Menozzi 2014), campaigns in favour of biodiversity, moves to oppose or support projects seeking to encourage growth and environmental prudence, where gardens have a role to play and women are players within them. Updated theories of eco-feminism (Emilie Hache 2011) can provide insight for the conference’s theme insofar as they focus on gardens.

At times when, in most societies, women are assigned the task of caring for the family and attendant domestic work, their education prepares them with skills that should lead to the development of a specific relationship with objects and others. These soft-skills, deployed in the garden as well as in politics, as a way of seeing the world and of organising social relationships are radically different from codes in the dominant masculine world. Given this hypothesis, is it possible that the long confinement of women ‘in the home’ has led to the surreptitious cultivation of ingredients for a cultural revolution which could turn out to be salutary at a time when ecological upheavals force us to introduce deep transformations to our way of life (Geneviève Pruvost 2021)? In today’s political environment, does recognition of the role of plants in the renewal of urban life coincide with recent changes in the role of women in public life? If women’s gardens exist, is it because women are particularly pertinent vectors for changes in contemporary paradigms? And if so, where and how concretely is this happening: in the city, in inner suburbs or in the remote countryside (Flaminia Paddeu 2021)? Which institutions support the creation and long-term sustainability of these areas, which social groups, etc.?

On the other hand, is the idea that gardening can lead to emancipation just an illusion, or simply a return to the assignment of women (usually surrounded by children) to caring roles, always thought to be subordinate, yet essential, for the survival of the species, distanced from more enlightened projects that distinguish humanity from the rest of living organisms? In this case, by what means can we extricate ourselves from this rut?

Other themes can also be explored and will be given due consideration. Proposals can focus on issues at the local or global level, facing individuals or territories, involving human and/or other species. Proposals drawing on experiments or empirical theories and/or put forward by academics, associations and institutions will be read with interest. Particular attention will be given to papers by young female researchers and gardeners.

Proposals should not exceed 2500 characters, including spaces, and must be deposited on or before 21 november 2022 on the web site: https://jardinsdefemmes.sciencesconf.org. The repository is now open. To submit a proposal, it is necessary to have a SciencesConf account. To create one or to log in, click on "Login" at the top right of the site interface.

Evaluation of proposals will be sent to authors in January 2023 and the final presentation (text, power point, poster, video capsule, etc.) and images must be submitted on or before 30 April 2023.

No travel and hotel costs will be reimbursed or paid by the conference management but there are no fees for attending the conference, while demonstrations, visits and publications relating to the conference will be available to all speakers.

Bibliography

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