permaculture

[Steve Hart <stevenlawrencehart@gmail.com>]

>From Steve Read's first comments I follow....Perhaps we could begin further
discussion on this wide topic of Social Permaculture with some reference.
Lets start with the works of Murray Bookchin...has anyone any of his books
or even studied his work.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-08-28/how-my-fathers-ideas-helped-the-kurds-create-a-new-democracy/

https://www.amazon.com/Murray-Bookchin/e/B001H6WN6A


Kia ora Ehoa

*Steve Hart*
*Ecology Architect*

Designer, Teacher, Builder of Ecologically Sustainable Resilient
Environments, through Urban Design, Architecture, Landscape Architecture
and Systems Ecology via Ecological Agriculture..


*Skype: tipenemanawaPhone: +64 220 75 62 11*



The Permaculture International College
https://permacultureeducation.com/
https://permaculturecollege.academia.edu/SteveHart
In association with www.organicag.co.nz & bdmax.co.nz
*I*




On Wed, 22 Aug 2018 at 12:39, Steve Hart <stevenlawrencehart@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Totally agree Steve Read...and great to see such comments to share and
> hopefully debate. Yes, as great a contribution we have made to the world so
> far we still have a long way to go. The whole Social Permaculture sphere
> opens up a number of dimensions. I have begun working with a PC friend who
> is developing the trainings and offers of "Human Design" . I have found
> these helpful to assist in many situations. But, the whole arena of working
> with other cultures remains a challenge. I find myself doing a lot of
> observation, then a lot of assumption. But, often there are hidden elements
> to trip one up. Its great to see more Advanced PDCs of specific topic
> appearing. The learning never stops. Best regards Steve Hart
>
> Kia ora Ehoa
>
> *Steve Hart*
> *Ecology Architect*
>
> Designer, Teacher, Builder of Ecologically Sustainable Resilient
> Environments, through Urban Design, Architecture, Landscape Architecture
> and Systems Ecology via Ecological Agriculture..
>
>
> *Skype: tipenemanawaPhone: +64 220 75 62 11*
>
>
>
> The Permaculture International College
> https://permacultureeducation.com/
> https://permaculturecollege.academia.edu/SteveHart
> In association with www.organicag.co.nz & bdmax.co.nz
> *I*
>
>
>
> On 22 August 2018 at 07:20, Alan Enzo <ecoenzo@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The signup page for the European Permaculture Network is broken.
>> https://permaculture-network.eu/eupn-registration/
>>
>> Please let me know where I can go to enter in an email address to be
>> added to this list.
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Alan Enzo
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 12:06 PM Monika Frank <monika_pk@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Steve,
>>>
>>>
>>> thank you very much for this text.
>>>
>>> will contact you soon on behalf of the centres de formation et
>>> demonstration.
>>>
>>>
>>> hug,
>>>
>>> Monika
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *Von:* europeanpermaculturenetwork@googlegroups.com <
>>> europeanpermaculturenetwork@googlegroups.com> im Auftrag von
>>> Permaculture Francophone <steveread002@gmail.com>
>>> *Gesendet:* Dienstag, 21. August 2018 14:53
>>> *An:* europeanpermaculturenetwork@googlegroups.com
>>> *Betreff:* [eu-pc-network] Peoplecare and contextuality
>>>
>>> Whats the most fashionable thing about permaculture where you are?
>>> Forest gardens? Herb spirals? Raised beds?
>>>
>>> Here in France its the latter. Now people are getting very exited about
>>> "la permaculture humaine". Human permaculture, yes a tautology but
>>> "peoplecare" works out as "prendre soin de l'être humain". And that looks
>>> less good on a T shirt or book cover.
>>>
>>> Peoplecare is widely talked about in different countries and
>>> unfortunately has taken the same fashionista path as the
>>> gardening/agricultural aspects of permaculture.
>>>
>>> So what are the problems?
>>>
>>>
>>>    - Lack of understanding. People love herb spirals but don't
>>>    understand what they are for nor where they would best be installed. I 
>>> have
>>>    a 7 ha farm, I don't need a herb spiral. Where I work in Tunisia 
>>> anything
>>>    raised up, like a herb spiral or potato tower simply dries out. People 
>>> care
>>>    is going the same way. Non-violent communication, consensus, sociocracy
>>>    have become a sort of mono-cultural norm for PmC peoplcare and social
>>>    permaculture.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    - Lack of contextuality. This is probably worst sin that can be
>>>    committed by a permaculture designer. Everything depends on the 
>>> context,
>>>    from farming techniques to social organisation strategies. What works 
>>> here
>>>    won't work there. People in general and especially permaculture 
>>> designers
>>>    most really take this on board. I work in several different countries 
>>> and
>>>    that means I work in several different cultures. It beholds me to 
>>> really
>>>    observe the people that I work with and how their culture operates. 
>>> This is
>>>    a fascinating part of our work and sometimes/often tiny differences 
>>> emerge
>>>    that, like that famous butterfly, can have huge consequences on the
>>>    development of a project.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    - Binary thinking. Years of research in neuropsychology, social
>>>    biology, anthropology have shown that only very special cases show any
>>>    binarity. For the vast majority we have to think in terms of 
>>> continuums.
>>>    Men/women, conservative/liberal, north/south ..... The woman/man 
>>> dichotomy
>>>    is a particularly good example of how not to analyse a group. For
>>>    the vast majority of abilities most human beings group around an 
>>> average
>>>    competence with some individuals either very good or very poor at
>>>    accomplishing certain tasks. (In this context a special case is that
>>>    most women (XX) can give birth, we haven't yet found a man (XY) who 
>>> can.
>>>    The continuum kicks in again though as one person in 1,666 are neither 
>>>  XX
>>>    nor XY, (plus Klinefelter (XXY) one in 1,000, births Androgen 
>>> insensitivity
>>>    syndrome one in 13,000 births, Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome 
>>> one
>>>    in 130,000 births ... etc)
>>>
>>> So where does this lead us? The knowledge sets needed to be a competent
>>> permaculture designer working with growing systems is wide and various, 
>>> the
>>> same is true with social permaculture and peoplecare. As a designer with 
>>> 30
>>> years of experience my social permaculture skill set includes
>>> neuropsychology, social anthroplogy, history, nutrition and social 
>>> biology.
>>> These branches of science give us important information about the 
>>> nature(s)
>>> of human beings that are essential if we want to create viable and durable
>>> human societies. These knowledge sets then need to be complemented with
>>> knowledge about human systems. Economics, architecture, energy production
>>> and more.
>>>
>>> Too often people are presented with solutions that are non-contextual,
>>> overly simplistic, based on out-dated science (or research paid for by
>>> Industry) or just downright lies. As permaculture designers we are faced
>>> with a cunundrum, we work to design and build complex and durable systems.
>>> The difficulty is that faced with a choice between simplistic
>>> explanations/solutions and complex explanations/solutions it is much 
>>> easier
>>> for people to accept the former. (This is one of the reasons for the lack
>>> of massive adoption of permaculture by people. We have made enormous
>>> strides but as the world starts to burn there is much left to do.)
>>>
>>> When I run permaculture courses my most frequent response to a question
>>> is "it depends on the context". I will then go on to give examples of
>>> different approaches but always with the same caveat, "this worked here, 
>>> it
>>> might work there but will probably need to be adapted". Not a message that
>>> is easy for people to absorb. Luckily we have the principles elucidated by
>>> Mollison and then re-interpreted by Homgren. I continually bring 
>>> everything
>>> back to them. Clear guiding principals well explained help people absorb
>>> the art and science of permaculture. It also encourages them to understand
>>> before acting.
>>>
>>> So back to social permaculture, there is no "one size fits all". People
>>> from countries based on rice cultivation engage automatically with the
>>> context within "something" is to be found. The opposite is true of wheat
>>> cultivating people who fix on the "something" itself and much less on the
>>> context. And of course thats binary, in truth its a continuum and depends
>>> on the indivduals, at the same time it is generally true. People in China
>>> have a different way of looking at the world as compared to people in say
>>> Sweden. A social permaculture approach that works in China may well be the
>>> opposite of what can be accepted by a Swede. Its a good thing that we in
>>> the permaculture world love diversity so much.
>>>
>>> Peoplecare is also about our bodies, and of course those of others. Its
>>> no good me running an amazing farm that "earthcares" if at the same time 
>>> it
>>> reduces me to a groaning mass of aches and pains. Ergonomy can help us
>>> design production systems that look after our bodies and neuropsychology
>>> when applied to (people centered) architecture can help us design 
>>> buildings
>>> that encourage good health.
>>>
>>> Complexity, contextuality, non-linearity, non-binarity key concepts at
>>> the heart of many scientific researchers and many permaculteurs. Which is 
>>> a
>>> good thing.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>> #permaculture
>>> #social permaculture
>>> #peoplecare
>>>
>>>
>>> https://steveread.wixsite.com/steveread/blog
>>>
>>> --
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Alan Enzo
>> *Illegitimi non carborundum*
>>
>>
>> --
>> for updates on the EuPN, also follow: permaculture-network.eu!
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>>
>
>