香港以糧為本「自然」識覺：與Tim Ingold對話都市人類學

Food-Centric Perceptions of Nature in Hong Kong: Urban Anthropology in Conversation with Tim Ingold

自然於各語言中皆有多重意涵，本研究脈絡中，該詞彙亦不斷歷經詮釋、推翻、重新定義。本文以Tim Ingold現象學式分析為橋樑，檢視都市情境如何形塑居民對自然之感知、想像，而自然識覺又如何影響環境治理及農糧系統變革。環境人類學將生態系統、地景等古典民族誌中視為佈景之範疇移向前台，發現以鄉村、都市二元對立框架探討人類社會與非人世界關係，存在許多限制。農耕活動以可食地景、園藝療癒模式進入都市日常，已成為全球風行之「永續發展」要件。此現象亦急遽、高密度再現於香港。本文將呈現環境人類學、都市人類學、空間、地方、地景、農業、糧食政治、飲食文化等看似各自發散之理論範疇如何相互關聯，並缺一不可地共同撐起對於都市自然識覺之分析、理解。
本研究回應Ingold針對「永續性」之批判：充滿對「原始」大自然之鄉愁、囈想。本文刻劃之香港「農業主義」與農業運動看似落入此窠臼，然而，相較於打造純粹、自然生活環境，位於城市中之家園何以存續、如何就地安居樂業，方為目標。耕種、居住、走讀、食用親手栽種之農作物等活動，組成強調草根、手作、身體感、健康飲食之生活實驗。經由感官體驗、知識交換、身體實踐、生命經驗識讀自然，並融入大地元素組成之物質世界。人與自然關係被重新塑造與重複述說，撐出城市中異質空間，生產呈現世代差異、卻具全球共時性之環境倫理。由此，自然識覺不再是抽象、浪漫修辭，在地糧食系統也不只關乎區辨、抵抗，反而再製了「身土不二」之親密狀態。

Nature has multiple meanings in different languages. In the context of this research, even among people who share relatively similar linguistic, ethnic, and historical backgrounds, there are discrepancies regarding the interpretation of this concept. Despite diverse arguments about human-nature relations and the improbability of finding a universally accepted definition, this term underlies one of today’s most mentioned topics, sustainable development. People’s understanding of nature significantly influences their opinions, decisions, and actions. Therefore, this paper aims to re-examine the implications and connotations of nature in daily conversations, specifically in the context of food and agricultural activism.
This paper sits within the nexus of several seemingly divergent but related theoretical frameworks, including environmental anthropology, urban anthropology, space, place, landscape, agriculture, food politics, food culture, etc. Since ecosystems and landscapes are relocated from the backdrop of an ethnography to the foreground, the rural versus urban dualistic framework is also subject to challenge. One recent development aptly aligns with this paradigm. Farming activities have entered daily life in cities and have become a globally recognised sustainable development element. In Hong Kong, the concepts of edible landscape and horticultural healing are increasingly known to people and becoming popular.
Applying Tim Ingold’s phenomenological analysis to my field data, this paper explores how an urban setting shapes Hong Kong residents’experiences of nature and how such perceptions result in changes in individual behaviours and reflections on agri-food systems and the planning of urban space. In particular, this research speaks to Ingold’s critique of sustainability. He indicates that this terminology is pervaded with nostalgia for pure and romanticised nature. In this sense, nature has a primordial configuration free of human intervention; to achieve sustainable development is to restore the planet to its original state.
At first glance, the agricultural activism in Hong Kong and its‘agriculturalism’, as this paper conceptualises it, seem to fall into Ingold’s depiction. However, this study finds that this‘agriculturalism’is not really about holding onto a primitive nature and opposing modern and urban ways of life. Instead, farming practitioners seek to establish a new form of living within a city rather than escaping it. They seek to carve out living space in an expensive city for the non-elite and the grass-roots. They initiated an experiment characterised by sustaining everyday necessities with one’s own hands, growing food, cooking, and making or recycling furniture. They attempt to reconsider their relationship with the more-than-human world by creating a setting where they can stay close to the land. In this way, they believe they can gain knowledge, skill, and sensory and bodily experiences so as not to depend on the consumption system, which, they believe, detaches consumers from producers and raw materials. In the process, the relationship between humans and nature is further reshaped to adjust to local circumstances. According to Hong Kong farming practitioners, this form of life benefits human beings’physical and mental health and the continuation of the ecological cycle. Despite their having no geographical boundary or community membership, their farms or living spaces become a heterotopia. People in this area talk a lot about environmental ethics, which shows generational differences. However, at the global scale, these ethics resonate with the globally circulating agenda of sustainable development.
In present-day Hong Kong, where the post-1997 sovereignty and subjectivity struggles constantly monopolise stories about the place, the localisation of the food system may easily be simplified as making a distinction between‘us’and‘others’and as a resistance to dependence on imports. However, this paper argues that, while the cross-border relationship is one of the concerns, the intimacy and entanglement of human society and our living environment—a state of‘non-duality of body and earth’—is the fundamental idea. This case of Hong Kong agriculturalism demonstrates an alternative representation of sustainability different from Ingold’s critique. This vision for future urban life is not based on regarding nature as a moral and aesthetic rhetoric but on making it a pragmatic strategy for survival and putting it into practice.