Terry Leahy 2022
Pluto Books
Available online free from Pluto, as well as in paperback and kindle versions
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/51078
Permaculture as a social movement. How are ideas from the founding texts of permaculture taken up by grass roots activists in the movement?
Those outside the movement often struggle to understand the term ‘permaculture’. Most grass roots activists define it as a design science for environmental sustainability. I question that and consider other options reflected in the practice of permaculture people.
Permaculture can be aptly seen as a social movement. How does permaculture operate, how does the network of permaculture people hang together?
Permaculture is often condemned for its anti-political strategy. Yet there is no doubt that permaculture people envisage system change to a post-industrial economy. Some in the movement today are moving towards an overtly political engagement.
Permaculture as a movement for system change hosts a range of visions of a post-capitalist society. Bioregional governance with a small-scale market economy is suggested in the founding texts of permaculture. The steady state economy and degrowth are popular ideas in the movement today.
Permaculture favours grassroots interventions to prefigure a permaculture economy. How this works out in practice is relevant to much debate in the left.
Permaculture has been criticized for a failure to deal with the politics of gender and colonialism adequately. To what extent is permaculture responding to these critiques? What might be the way forward?