Understanding Transience and Participation in University Student-Led Food Gardens

1. Theory: As currently written the paper   provides a very limited discussion and literature review on how transient   populations engage with and pose challenges for volunteer-led sustainability   initiatives. You suggest that transience is an important characteristic of   the modern age and suggest ‘a need for research on how to manage transient   volunteers’ but the reader is left wondering what work has already been done   on the topic: how it is theorised, what impacts it has, in what situations   has it been studied before, etc. A comprehensive literature review is   necessary to situate this work and point towards areas where this research   could make a useful contribution. The same applies when introducing systems   theory. At present this introduction comes across as cursory and lacking   detail.

Transience is a term that we have chosen   to describe the phenomena in student led food gardens. There are limited   explorations of this (which have now been included in the introduction).   There are other, similar, concepts that have relevance, and we have now   included some sections about them.

We have introduced and explained the   relevance of:

·      Temporary organisations

·      Episodic volunteering

We have also elaborated on the section on   systems theory to better explain its relevance to this particular study.

2. Problematic participation: This is an   unfamiliar concept to me, which is inadequately explained within the current   paper. In fact, its first mention is within the research questions. Given how   it plays such an important role within the research, this concept needs to be   introduced, thoroughly and certainly before its use in the research   questions. Moreover, I find the concept problematic and wonder whether it is   necessary at all. Could the idea be reframed to better convey the issue to   the reader or could it be removed altogether, to simply focus on how   transient populations present issues for student-led gardens?

We are well aware of the problem with   this term and have struggled to find a better one in spite of having gone   through multiple iterations and workshopping it with colleagues. We would   gratefully welcome suggestions for an alternative term (from the reviewers or   editors!), as we can’t see how we could remove it all together.

In lieu of changing or removing the term,   we have added some clarification until a time when/if a better term can be   found.

3. Research approach: My main concern   here is that focussing on three discreet case studies all selected as being   the most active and student-led, provides you with limited opportunities to   produce valuable insights. The use of three similar case studies allows you   to describe issues arising from transient student populations but few   opportunities to analyse the data. Identifying feedback loops is useful but   doesn’t take the analysis that much further. A broader research approach,   that looked at more diverse cases might open up how different university   gardens do or do not cope with transient student populations. Interviews,   with a wider range of student garden practitioners might help as would   interviews with university staff in cases where the university is more   actively involved.

We would like to offer a clarification   here about the methodology drawing on Yin’s (2003) typologies of case   studies. We use a single case study approach with three embedded units of   analysis. The case study was chosen as an exemplary case study (exemplifying the   trait of ‘transience’). We chose to use an exemplifying case rather than   comparative cases because we felt that transience in gardens as a phenomenon   deserved attention in its own right, not only in comparison to less transient   gardens (which have already been studied much more extensively). We agree   that comparative case studies would also be useful, and certainly a possible   avenue for future research.

We also deliberately used a descriptive   approach in this study (rather than an analytical approach). We feel that   there is a need to just describe what is happening given that both   student-led food gardens and transience in general are under-researched. We   also have other manuscripts in development taking more analytical and   prescriptive approaches, which we hope can build on this initial groundwork.

We have not undertaken interviews with a   wider range of student garden practitioners and university staff as suggested   as we were given only 10 days to make our revisions, however we agree that   this certainly would be a potential direction for future research. It should   be noted that staff from the National Union of Students were interviewed, and   Students’ Union and university staff members took part in the fishbowl   discussion. This was already noted in the methodology. However, since the   main focus is on student-led gardens in this study, we feel our choice to   mainly focus on students in our data collection is appropriate.

Some additional explanation in the   methodology was added to provide more clarity on these points.

First, the introduction of the paper   should be expanded to better position the research endeavor within the   already existing research on this topic. Additionally, while the research   questions are clearly delineated, the authors could give a better   introduction to the significance and intellectual merit of the topic for   those without any background on the topic. Lastly, the intro could also have   a roadmap to show the reader what will be in the paper moving forward.

We have now expanded the introduction to   better position the research in relation to the literature about episodic   volunteering and temporary organisations. These sections, we hope, better   introduce the significance and intellectual merit of the topic.

We have also added a roadmap at the end   of the introduction.

Second, while the methods are generally   well-described, the authors could further describe how and why these methods   were used and how and why these different locales were chosen. This would   help the reader understand the strengths and weaknesses of methods used.

We have expanded on how and why we chose   the methods we did, and why we chose the UK context.

Third, the results are interesting and I   like how they are organized thematically; however, it still could be useful   for there to be a bit more systematic approach to their presentation in some   way so the reader can see in full how the results were captured and can then   compare/analyze them. Right now, the results seem a bit strategically   included when they fit, but no broader sense of what was found is clear at   the moment.

We have restructured the results to make   them more systematic. Because the changes suggested by reviewers also added   to the length and the fact that they were already quite long, we have also   condensed them in some places.

Fourth, the authors could provide more on   the significance of the findings and areas for future research in the   discussion/conclusion sections as well as loop back to the literature   introduced earlier in the paper as a way to bolster the theoretical   significance of what was found.

As per the request of another reviewer,   we included more information about the phenomenon of transience, drawing upon   literature about episodic volunteering and temporary organisations. We have   linked back to these further on in the manuscript.

Lastly, while this paper is well-written,   the authors should probably drop the overuse of the bolding of terms since   that is probably unnecessary.

Thank you for this comment. We have made   changes accordingly. The first author would like to apologise for this – it   is a bad habit she has!

I would have liked to see some figures   somewhere in the paper about how many gardens thrive, how many have folded   how much food they produce etc . Are there examples where university   community gardens thrive? Yet your paper on student led gardens is a valuable   contribution.

These are great questions, and also   challenging ones to provide an answer to.

In terms of how many gardens thrive and   how many fold, this actually might be a study on its own regard because it is   incredibly hard to track gardens that fold because they often just fall off   the radar. There are no figures on this (at least for UK university gardens).   This is something the first author is interested in and hoping to take up in   further work. We have already cited a number of papers describing thriving   university community gardens, but chose not to outline specific examples as   the paper is already quite long. If this is a sticking point for the   reviewer, we can include some examples, however we feel that it is more   important to keep the text as concise as possible.

In terms of food produced, it is very   limited, although there are no figures for this that exist. We have now   mentioned this in the paper explicitly.

Check some of the spelling and grammar eg   line 61(...of which student-led food gardens are a subset of,...) get rid of   the second ‘of’. Line 67 (Some  of  the    learning  that  takes    place  in  university    community  gardens  includes) ‘include’ not includes as ‘some   of the learning’ is plural. Sentence in lines 113-115 is unclear.   Just check through the manuscript and   catch similar issues in the text.

We have made the suggested changes and   proofread the document further.

The only thing: I recommend introducing a   brief theoretical framework the author/s linked to the analysis. In this way,   a more fluid work would be achieved. Please, also, update the literature.

We have introduced and explained the   relevance of:

·      Temporary organisations

·      Episodic volunteering

We have also elaborated on the section on   systems theory to better explain its relevance to this particular study.

We have included some new literature   related to the aforementioned subjects.

My   question or ‘poke’ really asks for more critical examination of previous work   done on ‘transient populations’, Sustainability, volunteering etc (all   related concepts/areas). Where is the state of the art on this? What are you   adding?  As hinted at previously if   transience is such an important quality of modern life then it will have been   written about somewhere and so the questions previously posed are still   justified and require answering: how is it theorised? What impacts does it have? Etc.

We have   built on the existing section about transience to outline the state of the   art of the literature about transience, how transience is theorized and defined,   the impacts it has, and what we are adding (see section 2.2, and the   beginning of section 5).

Inclusion   of the section on temporary organisations is interesting but it is really   unclear to me why you have introduced this. You need to explain the logic of   this. (there appears to be some connections – both areas cover people   volunteering on a short basis?) but they aren’t clearly spelt out). You also   need to explain what you aim to do with it. At the moment it just gets left   hanging. There is this bit of work out there. Yes, so what? Moreover, you are   at risk of introducing further areas of potential inquire whilst at the same   time confusing things further. What is your focus?

There are   already connections stated through the existing text:

In section   2.3 we state that “The ways in which   temporary organisations might share something in common with organisations   with transient participants (like student-led food gardens) is in terms of   their approach to knowledge, risk, and time (see Table 1). Temporary organisations tend to have linear understandings of time and   problems with knowledge retention, but are more comfortable with risk.   Permanent organisations tend to have cyclical understandings of time and   better-established knowledge management practices, but are more risk adverse.   It is not yet clear what approaches   organisations with transient participants have to knowledge, risk, or time.   With a better understanding of these approaches, their strengths, and   weaknesses, stakeholders of transient organisations could self-organise more   strategically.”

However,   these connections were outlined on the back end of a paragraph. We have made   this a new paragraph so that it does not blend in with the overall description   of temporary organisations and added some clarifying statements.

Current   definition of transience – in and out of university – is unclear/ambiguous to   me. If the term hadn’t been used before, then you need to give an ordinary   language definition of it or say how your use differs from ordinary language.   At present the definition could imply students come and go, in the sense that   a single student comes into and out of university multiple times (transience   on a termly scale?). It could also imply that student populations can be   described as transient in the sense they typically enrol at a university,   away from home, for three years and then move home or somewhere else   afterwards. Here their transience is measured as a period of three years…?   Which of these do you mean? Differences in the definition have implications   for what you are talking about. I’m sure there are other situations where 3   years residency would make a semi-permanent population. This would also   create an interesting discussion. Does ‘transient’ student populations have   slightly different (more problematic) characteristics than other transient   populations? What are the particular implications of this for sustainability   initiatives?

The   second sentence in the paper already defines transience according to the dictionary   definition – “passing through or by a place with only   a brief stay.” Figure 1 is just an attempt to clarify of the difference   between movement in and out of university (along all the axes you describe –   the three yearly period, summer holidays, etc) and movement in and out of the   garden. We have added some clarifying statements on this in both the introduction   and section 2.2.

In terms of a wider discussion of the context   specificity of the definition of transience, we think this would be a very   interesting discussion however believe it to beyond the scope of the research   questions outlined in this paper.

In terms   of transient student populations having different, more problematic   characteristics than other transient populations, we think probably, yes. We   outline the ways in the following section of text from Section 2.2:

“The   set-up of student-led food gardens is also counter-intuitive because students are absent during a long   vacation period during the summer and therefore risk being neglected at the   time when they are in most need of care. Furthermore, the summer is the   time where students would get greatest benefit from accessing the food   produced. Variability in student volunteering during   the academic year due to uneven academic course   loads, other holidays, and vocational placement requirements is also   common.”

We have also   made this a new paragraph so that it does not blend in with the overall description   of transience.

Related to theory, I find the overall   paper confusing as it is not clear quite what you are focussing on. Is the   main focus on ‘transience in gardens’ or is ‘the main focus is on student-led   gardens’ as variously described in your response to my previous comments. In   the manuscript you also put emphasis on ‘understanding the impacts of   transience’ (page 5, line 188) or making ‘generalisations about Student Easts   gardens in general’ (page 6, 255-257) or on ‘how transience affects   participation in student food gardens’ (page 21, line 754-755). Each is   different. The point may appear fanatic at first sight but it has important   implications for the design of the study, what work you need to review, how   you present your results and how you make a contribution to theory, methods,   policy or practice. I think this issue is key when revising the work in the   future. Decide what you are actually focussing on and then structure the   paper, research design, results section and discussion around it.

Thank you   for flagging these inconsistencies in wording. We have changed all of these,   with the exception of “generalisations about Student   Eats gardens in general” as this one wasn’t referring to the aim of the   study, but rather to outlining the scope (which is Student Eats gardens in   general).

We have   also made revisions in other places where we saw inconsistent phrasings about   the aim of the study.

I’m now thinking the concept is a   non-starter because ‘problematic forms of participation’ are always going to   be situational or contingent. Ie. they are only problematic from a particular   position. So in this basic sense you have to explain why your currently   identified forms of  problematic   participation are indeed problematic. Why are ‘short-term participation’,   ‘irregular participation’, and ‘low participation’ all considered problematic   forms of participation?  Take for   instance short term participation ‘when people are involved for limited   period of time’. Why is this a problematic form of participation? It is not   immediately obvious. Is their ‘participation’ not as useful as other, longer   forms of participation? For whom is it problematic? For the initiative? Why?   In other words, the problem cant be devoiced from the ‘problematic   participation’ and from the situation.

So the section on ‘problems caused by   problematic forms of participation’ is where it gets super confusing. If you   accept that problematic forms of participation are situated/conditional, then   the terminology is self-referential. What you identify as problematic might   not be for problematic for others (it might even be desirable in some cases)?   So problems (for whom? Why?) caused by problematic participation (which only   makes sense as a conditional) is self-referential.

Its seems to me like you have to   massively rethink what you are focussing on – impact of transience / issues   of transient volunteer populations on sustainability initiatives – and how   you conceptualise it. Do not over complicate things.

Thank you   for this feedback. This was quite challenging to take on board and it was   difficult to figure out how to make our message clearer. However, this ended   up being the biggest thing we changed, so we hope that you find our new framing   of this easier to follow!

In terms   of problematic forms of participation being situational or contingent: yes, we   agree. We have therefore removed the phrase ‘problematic forms of   participation’ altogether and instead refer to short-term, irregular, and low   participation as appropriate. By being more precise in how we use these   terms, we hope this new draft is clearer about the situational/conditional   nature of these.

Though we   understand this may have been how this read before, the main message of the   study isn’t that problematic forms of participation exist and there are problems   caused by it. Instead, our findings are (1) what kind of problems these forms of participation cause and are   caused by, and (2) that they are causing   feedbacks.

By removing   the first research question and moving the first finding into the introduction/background,   we hope it makes the focus and conceptualization clearer.

My previous point about three very   similar case studies (yes they are embedded case studies) still holds. The   cases allow you to provide some basic descriptive analysis but they don’t at   present, allow you to go deeper. You state Student Eats ‘was chosen as an   exemplary case study (exemplifying the trait of ‘transience’)’ but this is   far from clear. Transience in what? Would refugee camps not demonstrate   transience better? Yes that sounds far-fetched but hopefully it makes the   point. You need to explain and link to your research problem.  I think we agree that going beyond the   three cases of ‘student led gardens’ is important and likely to reveal   further insights in how transience manifests, impacts student gardens. It is   also likely to reveal much more insightful interventions of how to cope with   the issue of transient student populations.

We   realise here we made a mistake. We called our case study an exemplary case   when what we meant to say is that we sampled the gardens as exemplars of   transience within the case study.

The intended   focus of our study isn’t so much on transience more widely, but rather on transience   and participation in student-led food gardens (though with some wider implications,   as outlined in the discussion). We have made changes in the introduction, background,   and methodology to be clearer about the focus (this was done in tandem with   your comment about the lack of clarity in the focus on the study).

We would   however, like to clarify that we didn’t use embedded case studies, we use a single   embedded case study approach (Yin, 2014). We have three subunits of analysis   (the gardens outlined in the methodology). Student Eats, the student-led food   growing initiative is our case study. The three individual gardens are the   subunits of analysis. There are four main types of   case study designs, depending on whether there are one or multiple cases, and   whether they are holistic or have multiple units of analysis (Yin, 2014) (see   table 1 at the bottom of this table). Embedded units of analysis were used   was because there were too may gardens funded through Student Eats to be able   to conduct a case study of all gardens in the depth that such a research   approach requires.

At the very least, never start a   methodology section with an explanation that the paper is part of a bigger   project: In my opinion, every paper needs to stand up by itself or it is not   worthy of publication. Much better to start with a re-affirmation of what the   problem is (clearly stated) and then explain how the research design and   methodology you have adopted solve the problem / answer the question posed.   So again here, the reader is currently getting a different message of what   the paper is about.

We agree   that every paper should stand alone and have adjusted the beginning of the   methods accordingly.

Good that you have stated clearly your   approach (page 5, lines 187-188). However, I’m not convinced description is   good enough or an academic journal. Moreover I’m not convinced that is what   you were aiming for, particularly when we think of the feedback loops. You   are aiming for explanation. It is as yet unclear quite what the explanation   is of.

As hinted at above I do not find taking a   ‘descriptive approach’ a satisfactory answer. You can do better than this and   indeed need to, to justify publication. Descriptive analysis can form one   useful part of the results but cant be the end. Furthermore, this comes back   to stating what the ‘state of art’ is at the start.

Descriptive case studies are case studies   “whose purpose is to describe a phenomenon (the ‘case’) in its real-world   context” (Yin, 2014, p. 238). Descriptive research addresses ‘what’ questions   (Blessing & Chakrabarti, 2009), like those in this study. This was the intention   with this paper all along as this manuscript is based on the first part of an   action research study, in which the first phase is intentionally descriptive   (with later phases being more analytical and prescriptive). There is a precedent   to publish a descriptive research in Sustainability   as they have done so in the past (e.g., Schulte & Hallstedt, 2018). We   feel that the topic of this study is appropriate for a descriptive case study   as participation dynamics in student-led food gardens are under-researched and   therefore there is much be learned through just description. This study will   provide grounding for future work on this topic.

We have, however, made changes to the   background and introduction to be clearer about the state of the art and what   our contribution is. We also added a section at the beginning of the   discussion to summarise our practicial and theoretical contributions.

Reference

Schulte, J., & Hallstedt, S. (2018).   Company Risk Management in Light of the Sustainability Transition. Sustainability, 10(11), 4137.

Comparative case studies. You argue that   the embedded case study methods is less about doing comparisons between   cases. I don’t see any issue in this and in large part see this as the added   benefit of multiple case studies. The point is you need to compare   results/insights between cases regardless of how similar or different they   are. Analysis between embedded case studies would seem vital to me. What if   one case contradicts another? What can then be said of the wider population   of which the cases are a part? Comparing across cases would improve   robustness of findings and increase validity.

We have added some comparisons in the   analysis to improve the robustness of the study. There were also already some   comparisons made in some places (e.g., lines 835-839). We have not divided out   the results from the subunits (the gardens) because we assured participants   of a certain level of anonymity, and this would be violated if we attributed results   to each garden. Rather, we have made more comparisons and tried to include   more contextual information without breaching our promise of anonymity.

Beyond these major areas, where I have   attempted to unpack some problems, challenge some assumptions and suggest   fruitful avenues to explore in the future I think it is also worth poinitng   out that the introduction also needs significant reworking. This includes   putting in a succient introduction that clearly outlines the problem or issue   the paper is addressing and then splitting this introduction from discussion   of key concepts – participation, transience and turn; temporary   organisations; systems thinking (Sections 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 currently). You also   need to include much more background on transience and sustainability,   stating clearly how much work has been done at this intersection (And if not   much then say this!).

We have created a new section for key concepts   that is separate from the introduction.

We have also clarified our explanation of   the ‘problem’ in the introduction and background section.

We have included more background on   transience in the background section.

Holistic (single unit of   analysis)

One case embedded within a   context

A simplified example:

Case: student-led food gardening in English higher education institutions

Context: English higher education environment

Multiple cases within   multiple contexts

A simplified example:

Cases: student-led food gardening in English, Canadian and Swedish higher   education institutions

Contexts: English, Canadian and Swedish higher education   environment

Embedded (multiple units   of analysis)

One case with multiple   units of analysis within a context

A simplified example:

Case: student-led food gardening in English higher education institutions

Embedded units of analysis: student-led food gardens   in English higher education institutions

Context: English higher education environment

Multiple cases with   multiple units of analysis within multiple contexts

A simplified example:

Cases: student-led food gardening in English, Canadian and Swedish higher   education institutions

Embedded units of analysis: student-led food gardens   in English, Canadian and Swedish higher education institutions

Contexts: English, Canadian and Swedish higher education   environment

First, the authors could strengthen the   introduction to make sure that it is clear how the paper contributes to and   answers key gaps in the already existing academic literature on this topic.

We have clarified our explanation of the research   gap we aim to fill and how we contribute to filling it through some   significant reworking of the introduction and background sections.

Second, the authors could also come back   to this literature in the end of the paper to more adequately suggest how the   findings contribute theoretically to the existing literature. While it is   true that the authors have illustrated how their findings contribute in   general, I think there is an opportunity to push on this set of issues even   more in order to strengthen/expand the impact empirically and theoretically   of the paper and the authors work.

We have added a section in the discussion   to summarise our theoretical contribution in one place, as many of the   connections to the literature are dotted throughout the manuscript.