Cultivating the margins: Urban farming, social solidarity, and spatial justice in Indonesia

Abstract In the context of spatial inequality and recurring food crises in low‐ and middle‐income urban contexts of the Global South, empirically specified here as Indonesia, urban farming has emerged as a socio‐ecological practice that negotiates access to space and food sovereignty. This study examines how urban farming practices are sustained, organized, and experienced by urban communities across seven major Indonesian cities selected to capture institutional, spatial, and socio‐ecological variation rather than statistical representativeness. Using a qualitative research design, data were collected through participant observation, 52 in‐depth interviews, and seven focus group discussions with urban farmers defined as individuals or collectives actively engaged in food production on non‐rural land for at least 6 months. Data were analyzed inductively using grounded thematic analysis. The findings show that the resilience and sustainability of urban farming are shaped not only by economic motivations or formal policy frameworks, but also by collective affective infrastructures, social solidarity, and non‐commodified community relations. Urban farming functions as a site for producing social, ecological, and symbolic value that extends beyond market‐oriented outcomes. By empirically grounding socio‐ecological systems and food sovereignty frameworks in everyday urban practice, this study highlights the relational mechanisms through which urban agriculture contributes to food security, community resilience, and spatial justice. The findings underline the importance of policy support for collective land‐use arrangements and participatory urban planning. This study contributes an empirically grounded perspective from the Global South to debates on urban agriculture and resilience.