An Oasis of Peace or a Golfer’s Paradise? Gardeners and Post-Socialist Transformation (not only) of Prague
Abstract
In the text, we concentrate on garden colonies in Prague and their contemporary struggle for existence. At first, we offer a general theoretical background to gardening and garden colonies in order to show how theoretically rich the field is.
Then we position Prague garden colonies historically and legislatively. In the end, we sketch out a preliminary analysis of a discourse Prague garden colonies are now embedded in.
We hold that garden colonies represent an alternative to post-socialist urban space of Prague possessed by economic forces and we argue that the socio-political negotiation about the (non)existence of Prague garden colonies is also the negotiation of urban space, our experience of it, and of our approach and relationship to it. And by means of negotiating the urban through garden colonies as a specifically post-socialist phenomenon, the position of the past and the shape of the future of the city have come to the fore.