Vivid Ecologies in Urban Rewilding: Shifting aesthetics and ontologies in more-than-human backyards in Rotterdam’s green turn.

Abstract

This thesis explores the concept of “vivid ecologies” as a novel approach to urban rewilding in Rotterdam by focusing on how engaged backyard gardeners redefine urban spaces through negotiations of biodiversity and aesthetic desires. Drawing on ethnographic methods and theoretical frameworks such as more-than-human assemblages and ontologies of urban green spaces, the study examines how gardeners disrupt conventional urban landscapes dominated by cleanliness and orderliness. Through an exploration of the garden assemblage, both within as outside its physical demarcations, it reveals how these practitioners cultivate intimate relationships with plants, fostering resilience and ecological diversity in these private spaces. Through participant observation, interviews, garden tours, and creative methods, the thesis elucidates how these practices challenge institutional norms upheld by municipal authorities and urban planners in transformative times of Rotterdam’s green turn. It argues that promoting biodiversity in backyards is not just an act of urban rewilding, but of “revivifying” urban green space by revitalising human-environment and human-plant affects and linkages. This study underscores the transformative potential of gardening practices in creating vibrant, potentially biodiverse urban environments that celebrate the interplay between human and nonhuman actors.