Green places in red spaces: broadening understanding of therapeutic gardening within rural Australia
Date
2023
Authors
Baker, A.
Aguilar, A.
Sellar, B.
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Marsh, P.
Williams, A.
Williams, A.
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Book chapter
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Source details - Title: Cultivated Therapeutic Landscapes: Gardening for Prevention, Restoration, and Equity, 2023 / Marsh, P., Williams, A. (ed./s), Ch.8, pp.175-191
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Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the concepts and practices of therapeutic gardening and other forms of cultivation within rural contexts. Whilst this chapter has a particular focus on therapeutic gardening across the many and varied rural and remote areas of Australia, our work speaks to an international issue. The practices of gardening, and cultivation more broadly, possess a rich and deep history of the land in Australia and hold considerable cultural, social, and economic importance. We examine a wide range of cultivation practices which occur within rural contexts to understand their meanings and implications for identity, sense of belonging, as well as physical and mental health and wellbeing. This exploration will be informed by an understanding of the diversity of people living in rural and remote areas in Australia. We also raise questions and identify assumptions relating to the notion of therapeutic landscapes and cultivation in rural areas, as well as how rurality may provoke a reconceptualisation of gardening and therapy. We argue that studies of therapeutic gardening and other forms of cultivation within rural contexts require specific geographical, cultural, and historical considerations that may, in turn, be instructive for metropolitan research as well.
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Copyright 2023 Taylor & Francis Group