The creation of a sustainable urban “green oasis” A qualitative study of the discursive making of an ecological social enterprise

Urban Farm DB summary

This study investigated how urban farmers at Rotterdamse Munt, an urban herb garden in Rotterdam, Netherlands, discursively negotiate their status as a 'social enterprise' using ethnographic fieldwork and a semiotic approach. The research found that Rotterdamse Munt has not fully transformed into a sustainable ecological social enterprise. Instead, urban farmers constantly negotiated between altruistic and commercial approaches, failing to fully achieve both, which obliged them to combine two contrasting identities through dual visual identity, services, and products to reach two different populations.