Subject: [permaculture] what is "politics" exactly...?
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:01:59 -0500
For what it's worth, my project of the past few years has revolved
around the question of "What would it look like if the permaculture
toolbox - of analysis, of design - were applied to social
intervention, along with ecological?"
Or, "How could we begin to fill in the blind spot between issues of
ecological health and issues of social health?"
The conceptual and cultural resources that are currently available
for filling in that blindspot, in my analysis, tend to fall into two
broad categories:
(1) Vague, lacking rigor, or plainly metaphysical, or
(2) Overtly technical, fine-grained, particularistic and/or atomistic
(studying individual events or individual entities, not proposing
possible cross-context rules).
Neither of these categories are much good as input into design.
Design needs succinct, coherent, well-formulated criteria, that are
broad and flexible without being hopelessly abstract i.e. Alexander's
pattern language, Mollison's design principles.
For the current draft of the a position paper for the Liberation
Ecology Project, that offers and contextualizes some design criteria
for Pc/social intervention, check it out here.
My intention is to create an entry point for thinking about both
ecological and social health - so some will likely sound very
familiar to permies. That being said, there is some framing and re-
framing going on that, so far, has done some useful perspective-
shifting for even the most field-tested sheet-mulchers.
I'm about to embark on a re-draft and expansion of the paper, so
feedback at this point is very welcome, and very efficacious.
Mil gracias to any readers & responders,
rafter t. sass
The Liberation Ecology Project
liberationecology.org
518-567-7407
[permaculture] what is "politics" exactly...?,
rafter t . sass, 12/12/2007