Digging Deeper Than The Soil
What Gardening Is Teaching Me About Green Criminology
Before taking part in our gardening project, I did not really see the connection between gardening and green criminology. When my group, Planted Evidence, was assigned a garden box, I saw it as a fun activity and a chance to work together outside of the classroom. After spending time planting and reflecting on the course readings, though, I started to understand how gardening can relate to many of the ideas we have been discussing in class.
One thing gardening has taught me so far is that food does not simply appear in grocery stores. Planting vegetables made me think more about everything that goes into producing food, including soil, water, space, and ongoing care. It is easy to take these things for granted when food is already available to buy, but actually participating in the growing process made me appreciate how dependent we are on healthy environmental systems.
Gardening has also helped me better understand one of the main ideas I have taken away from green criminology so far: environmental harm is not always obvious. Before this course, I mainly thought about crime as something that involved breaking laws. The readings challenged that perspective by encouraging us to think about harm more broadly. Working in the garden made me realize how many environmental systems we rely on every day and how easily those systems can be affected when resources are overused or damaged.
Another connection I made was to the Treadmill of Production. The reading explains how modern societies are often focused on increasing production and consumption. While planting vegetables is a very small-scale activity, it made me think about how disconnected many people, including myself, have become from the process of producing food. Spending time in the garden gave me a greater appreciation for the resources and labour involved and made me think more critically about sustainability.
The reading on food crime and green criminology also changed the way I think about food systems. It explains that green criminologists often look at harms connected to food production, even when those harms are not considered crimes. Gardening helped me see food production from a different perspective and made me realize how closely food, environmental health, and human actions are connected.
The biggest thing I am learning from gardening is that green criminology is not only about studying environmental harms. It is also about understanding our relationship with the environment and recognizing how everyday actions connect to larger systems. Our garden may be small, but it has helped me think differently about food, sustainability, and the environment. Sometimes the best way to understand a concept is not by reading about it, but by getting your hands dirty and experiencing it for yourself.
Sources: Stretesky, P., Long, M., & Lynch, M. (2013). The Treadmill of Crime: Political Economy and Green Criminology. Routledge. Tourangeau, W., & Fitzgerald, A. J. (2020). Food Crime and Green Criminology.
Your post made me think more about how green criminology is not just something we study in theory, but something you can actually notice in everyday situations once you start paying attention. While reading, I found myself thinking less about gardening itself and more about how we usually don’t question where food comes from or what processes are behind it.
One idea from the course that your post connects to for me is White’s (2018) discussion of green criminology going beyond legal definitions of crime. What I took from your reflection is how environmental issues can be easy to miss because they are just part of normal life, even though they still involve harm in a broader sense.
It also made me think about the Treadmill of Production idea in a more everyday way, especially how fast systems can make people less aware of environmental impacts over time. Your post helped me think about how slowing down and actually observing processes can change how we understand those systems.
Overall, your reflection made me think differently about how awareness of environmental issues often comes from experience rather than just reading.
Generative AI (Grammarly) was used for grammar and wording suggestions. Final content and ideas are my own.
Hi Lovepreet,
Your post made me think more about how green criminology isn’t just something we study in theory, but something you can actually notice in everyday situations once you start paying attention. While reading, I found myself thinking less about gardening itself and more about how we usually don’t question where food comes from or what processes are behind it.
One idea from the course that your post connects to for me is White’s (2018) discussion of green criminology going beyond legal definitions of crime. What I took from your reflection is how environmental issues can be easy to miss because they are just part of normal life, even though they still involve harm in a broader sense.
It also made me think about the Treadmill of Production idea in a more everyday way, especially how fast systems can make people less aware of environmental impacts over time. Your post helped me think about how slowing down and actually observing processes can change how we understand those systems.
Overall, your reflection made me think differently about how awareness of environmental issues often comes from experience rather than just reading.