Attack of the Butterfly Spirits: The Impact of Movement Framing by Community Garden Preservation Activists

Urban Farm DB summary

This study of the community garden preservation movement on the Lower East Side of New York examines the role of activist movement framing in the struggle to save hundreds of gardens from destruction. Through repeated confrontations with the Giuliani administration, gardeners de-routinized the process of urban redevelopment by portraying the loss of a garden as an unimaginable violation against themselves and the city. This reframing helped activists compensate for their disempowered political status and was instrumental in forcing the Giuliani administration to negotiate to save the gardens.