“Zero pesticide”, ecological management, urban biodiversity policies: urban green spaces are increasingly coming alive. They are increasingly participatory, too, exemplified by the proliferation of community gardens and other collective experiments with plant-growing in cities.
In this book, Marion Ernwein examines the ways in which neoliberal urbanism shapes these evolutions, their promises and their potential. The book shows the role played by logics of eventification, neomanagerialism, and public-private partnerships in delineating the contours of the living city, and the role that human and nonhuman dwellers can play in shaping it.
The book draws on several years of research with policy-makers, service managers, municipal employees, gardeners and activists in Geneva (Switzerland) to make a compelling case for critically engaging with the political mechanisms through which the natures of the living city are defined.

The book launch is chaired by Fabien Girard (University Grenoble-Alpes, CRJ), with:
Marion Ernwein (University of Oxford) – author;
Thomas Lacroix (CNRS/Maison Française d’Oxford) – discussant;
Alex Vasudevan (University of Oxford) – discussant.

Followed by a drinks reception.

This event is sponsored by the School of Geography and the Environment’s Technological Life research cluster, Université Grenoble-Alpes, and UGA Editions.