Cultivating Belonging, Agency and Biodiversity: Transformative Learning in a Women*-Led Community Garden

Abstract

This paper examines community gardens as socio-material learning environments that enable transformative learning under conditions of social inequality. Drawing on a participatory action research case study from the Horizon Europe project PLANET4B in Graz, Austria, we analyse the co-creation of a women*-led community garden (GAIA Gartenberg) within the framework of a Bio-/Diverse Edible City. The initiative involved women* experiencing intersecting forms of marginalisation and was intentionally designed as an inclusive, low-threshold, and care-oriented learning space. Building on transformative learning theory and informed by feminist STS perspectives, the analysis traces how learning emerged through relational, affective, and embodied practices rather than solely through cognitive knowledge transfer. Empirically, the paper reconstructs the gradual formation of a learning community through phases of contextualisation, trust-building, experiential co-creation, and the transition toward collective stewardship. Participatory and arts-based methods enabled participants to engage with biodiversity and diversity as lived and situated concerns embedded in everyday practices such as gardening, food, and collective decision-making. The findings highlight the central role of facilitation, brave spaces, and supportive institutional conditions in fostering agency, belonging, and response-ability. We argue that community gardens, when understood as socio-material infrastructures rather than solely as food-producing sites, can support transformative learning processes that connect personal change with broader socio-ecological transformation, while remaining highly context-dependent.