13. Urban Agriculture: From a Creative Disorder to New Arrangements in Rome

As Rome has always been characterised by a strong presence of agricultural activities, we investigate how the most recent forms, on which we focused, are questioning the making of the city. For this purpose, we apply the lens of order and disorder dialectic processes. The aim of this chapter is to address how Roman urban agriculture experiences represent possible creative initiatives in public space. Therefore, we chose to base our reflection on a various set of urban agriculture initiatives: urban hortus (orto urbano), guerrilla gardening, fruit harvest, that is various forms of collective citizen urban agriculture initiatives. The collection of data has been carried out mainly between 2014 and 2015. We carried out sixteen in-depth individual and collective interviews with members or actors linked to the initiatives, and also with municipality personnel. We explore the way these experiences are organised, how they fit in the territory, how they question the city (municipality, neighbourhood, citizens) and its order highlighting new ways of thinking, living and creating the city.