Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] what is "politics" exactly...?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] what is "politics" exactly...?
  • Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:48:17 -0500

Stimulated by Paul Cereghino's assertion (or recommendation) that

Permaculture design (even as applied to politics) should focus on analysis
of actual processes and phenomena, flows, source, sink, etc...

I Googled Ecology of Politics and Political Ecology to see what was out there that might correspond with Permacultural perspectives and found, not surprisingly, an interconnected web of familiar thoughts, people, books, theory and practice including:

Social Ecology: In response to the social and ecological crisis in
which we find ourselves immersed, social ecology advocates a
reconstructive approach that promotes a directly democratic,
confederal politics. As a body of ideas, social ecology envisions *a
moral economy that moves beyond scarcity and hierarchy toward a
world that fully celebrates diversity*.

Social ecology is, in the words of its leading exponents, "a
coherent profound critique of current social, political, and
anti-ecological trends" as well as "a *reconstructive,
ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society*".

What literally defines social ecology as "social" is its
recognition of the often overlooked fact that *nearly all our
present ecological problems arise from deep-seated social
problems*. Conversely, present ecological problems cannot be
clearly understood, much less resolved, without resolutely
dealing with problems within society. To make this point more
concrete: *economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts,
among many others, lie at the core of the most serious
ecological dislocations we face today*--apart, to be sure, from
those that are produced by natural catastrophes.

Ivan Illich (who distinguishes between /environment as commons /from
the /environment as resource)

/Political ecology (which Wikipedia defines as) the study of how
political, economic, and social factors affect environmental issues.
The majority of studies analyze the influence that society, state,
corporate, and transnational powers have on environmental problems
and influencing environmental policy. There are many approaches to
these issues, and some scholars give weight to the role that access
to natural resources plays in structuring political and economic
life: particularly how land degradation, 'fortress'-style wildlife
conservation, or deforestation influences a range of social
relations and politics.

A number of books (for which I have created a new category at
Permaculture Trading Post called Eco-Politics
<http://astore.amazon.com/pctradingpost-20?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=32>
and invite you to suggest other titles to add)

Deep Ecology

Noam Chomsky

Dave Foreman (Earth First)

Peter Kropotkin

Eco-socialism

Inclusive Democracy

Green syndicalism

Ecofeminism

Gaia philosophy

Greens

Anarcho-primitivism

Bioregionalism

<http://astore.amazon.com/pctradingpost-20/detail/0520236289/105-6154186-7665265>

Ecopsychology (what Mollison was teaching when he met David
Holmgren, I've been told).

Thomas Berry

Appropriate technology

Joanna Macy

Anti-Globalization

Amory Lovins

William McDonough

<http://astore.amazon.com/pctradingpost-20/detail/0865475873/105-6154186-7665265>

Paul Hawken and Natural Capitalism

<http://astore.amazon.com/pctradingpost-20/detail/0316353000/105-6154186-7665265>

The Natural Step

Derrick Jensen
<http://astore.amazon.com/pctradingpost-20?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=29>

Jarred Diamond

Vandana Shiva

Arundhati Roy

E.O. Wilson

...and much more. If Permaculture represents "the connecting
science", these provide many opportunities to connect the dots and
build bridges between our local cultures and the living planet.

Paul Cereghino wrote:
Permaculture design (even as applied to politics) should focus on analysis of actual processes and phenomena. Flows, source, sink, etc... If natural systems are are the source of inspiration for ecological design, what is the source of inspiration for political design.

More critically... what is the effective transitional system from current state to target state (least work greatest effect).
--
Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
(812) 335-0383
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
http://www.PermacultureTradingPost.com
Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way
http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower
http://www.PowUr.com/KeithJ-SunPower
Blog: http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/
also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html
also Association for Regenerative Culture
http://www.ARCulture.org
also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a
small world after oil.
http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington
also Bloomington Permaculture Guild




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page