But the federal agency said, Theres a fence there, and it says no trespassing. As a bridge to the challenge of bringing a decolonization framework into permaculture practice and pedagogy, I would like to start by mapping those same questions onto permaculture itself. [x] In this case, settler peoples are studying and applying indigenous forms of land management, which can be positive as long as the tools and techniques are willingly shared by the indigenous peoples and not brashly stolen, like they have been so many other times throughout history. Decolonizing Permaculture Permaculture = Relationship by Stella Strega Scoz & Jose' Lorenzo Zamora Living Naturally: A Black Woman Practicing Permaculture by Kirtrina Baxter People of Color Statement from the NAPC by POC Caucus, NAPC 2014 Permaculture and the Patrix by Andrew Langford Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging the gap between privilege and I grew up with my sister and our single mom. And I am asking you to check that luggage at the door, to open your heart and mind to the possibility that these actions will benefit not just you as an individual, but also the global community, in ways that avoiding change and hoarding your privilege wont. That means that when people are talking about correcting agriculture to a time when it was better, were going back to that definition of when settlers came to America and started agriculture. Friendships ask for justice, equality, non-violence, respect, and communication. We would do well to reflect on our role as ecosystem designers and designers of ecological culture, and to think of ourselves in our design and organizing work as culture jammers.[i] What then, are some responsibilities here (vis a vis EarthCare, PeopleCare, FutureCare)? It will get those resources and eat you along with them, if need be. In an indigenous community, food shortages mean something within that society is awry and has to be fixed. ARTY: In your writings and talks, you seem to challenge the idea of mimicking nature, which many people in the regenerative agriculture movement use as a guiding principle. Why would I want to put that in my body? Copyright 2023 Permaculture Women's Guild & Heather Jo Flores. That was my choice and I dont regret it, but the burden of those loans is crippling. But we still need to learn how to adopt those ideals in our human relationships. And because of this they have a stake in the continuity of the colonial project. We all have indigenous ancestors, and they were once colonized too. Jenn Meilleur on LinkedIn: Decolonising Permaculture with Principle I am Cree Indian on my mothers side and Chihuahua on my fathers. Id like to think we can err on the side of survival, however temporary it may be in the big picture. The course will address the first four permaculture principles through the framework of African land-based wisdom, (Cherokee) earth-based (non-European) language, and the common uses at Earthaven Ecovillage. Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, Culture Jamming and Meme-based Communication. https://depts.washington.edu/ccce/polcommcampaigns/CultureJamming.htm, [ii] Rafter Sass Ferguson, Critical Questions, Early Answers, Permaculture Activist 93 (Autumn 2014): http://liberationecology.org/critical-questions-early-answers/, Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility, The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3, no. Because (and this is especially true when dealing with the permaculture community) I have consistently locked horns with the beasts enumerated above. Rather than being burdened with that task, the idea that we respect the unknown helps people deal with it. Friendships are the building blocks of community. We are a very young society and nation. [v] Ideally this process should be done without strings attached. Its a very broad term. There are a lot more specialized skills in the individual land plot scenario. He said that Western culture views the natural world as an it that can be exploited and processed. If its under your house and the machine needs it, it cares not who you are. The bread and butter of the permaculture movement is the PDC, or permaculture design course. You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings. The Earth is dying. Decolonization is not a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. There are stark differences between agricultural systems in indigenous communities and agricultural systems in contemporary communities. Decolonizing permaculture also means building relationships with extra-human nature that acknowledges the ways in which they, too, resist the hegemony of corporate capitalism - and this means also acting in solidarity with them. My dad, a working-class electrician whose parents emigrated from Mexico before he was born, wasnt around until I was a teenager, and wasnt able to help much through the haze of violence and alcoholism that dominated his life at that point. How do we remember that we are all indigenous to this planet, our Earth Mother, our Gaia? In another sense, a cultural sense, decolonization is about the process of removing colonizing thoughts from your own mind and colonizing behavior from your own lifeway. So, this idea of a fence is just antithetical to the way we view the world. If you have access to land use, permaculture allows you to design perennial systems of regenerative food production that are much more resilient than annual-based agricultural systems of food production. Really, what does that mean? One of the design methods used in permaculture that takes place early on in a site design is Zone and Sector Analysis. Special thanks to my dear friend Kiarna Boyd for holding me accountable to a high standard and compassionately aiding my evolution in this area. ARTY: When Europeans came to North America they erected fences. Learning Adventures with Earthaven Ecovillage, Saturdays, May 22 June 19 11am 1pm Eastern Time. Permaculture certainly appears to have been assembled from toolkits from all over the world and throughout history. Decolonizing PermacultureExploring the Permaculture Principles through an Equity LensSaturdays, May 22 - June 1911am - 1pm Eastern TimeOnlinehttps://www.scho. Special thanks also to gkisedtanamoogk (Wampanoag nation), Canupa Gluha Mani (Lakota nation), and Ana Oian Amets (Aquitainian proto-Basque ancestral recovery) for the same. would love to hear your thoughts on this! Marina Nobre: Reforestation is more than plantingtrees. This critique is offered to make the evolution of our movement cleaner and more respectful of indigenous cultures, and to find a way to balance Leaver and Taker[xi] cultures, maybe even to unify them. Recently the Pueblo of Jemez had a lawsuit against the forest service. Indigenous People have created the idea of the unknown and the sacred and reverence for where we are as the youngest entity in this place. These are a few thoughts Im left with. Tyson Sampson ARTY: The late Joseph Campbell, professor and author of books on mythology, said that Indigenous Peoples refer to the natural world and all in it as thou, as sacred. This workshop has five two-hour sessions. Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature. Is regenerative agriculture a place where traditional indigenous knowledge and science can complement each other? He helps facilitate PDCs with Lisa Fernandes of The Resilience Hub. Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging the gap between privilege and 9/15/20 - Turning Fire Into Water: Fire Preparedness through Forest and Watershed Restoration. Whenever I get questions about agriculture, I always get a little squirmy because I realize most people are coming from the perspective of the American historical narrative where Indigenous People are excluded. Whether we turn our observational gaze to food systems, energy systems or economic and political systems, they are all overdue for a radical ecological revision. It made the unequal Britain we see today, Why we should abandon the concept of the climaterefugee, When decolonization meets post-capitalism: the third annual post-capitalism conference, From a Dystopian Present to a Gaian Future, Overcoming Colonial Thinking to Connect With Life, Degrowth, Decolonization and Modern Monetary Theory, Political polarization is pushing evangelicals to a historic breaking point, Why You Dont Hear Trump or Farage Talking About the Tech Revolution, What Could Possibly Go Right? A-DAE: Thats a loaded question because the whole idea of agriculture puts a contemporary spin on the conversation. The conversation about decolonizing agriculture is about examining the agricultural system and concepts that allow for those injustices to happen. Our award-winning radio and podcast series highlighting diverse voices of grassroots leaders. Micmac girl and her grandmother working on a herb spiral built during a permablitz in Micmac country near Presque Isle, Maine. Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging The Gap Between Privilege And Though there isnt enough space to properly tackle the subject in this article, it still warrants a brief mention here. All of these yearsorganizing Food Not Lawns, writing the book, growing and sharing seeds, traveling and collecting species and storiesall of that has been funded by me doing a lot of crazy shit for money. A-DAE: I think were still dealing with the issue of fences today. Currently, Tyson is cultivating an apothecary for ethnobotanical accessibility and developing a broader collective to support traditional ecological knowledge. That is so hard for me to understand. My response to that? An example of a novel ecosystem with forest garden polycultures and a diversity of plants and flowers. Podcast: Decolonization & Sudden Oak Life By Melissa Ott Fant February 15, 2021 Education broadacre permaculture, decolonization, permaculture design course, Sudden Oak Life, traditional ecological knowledge Current PDC student Danielle created two podcast episodes from audio recordings at our Broadscale Permaculture weekend in February 2021. If SOIL cancels this class for any reason whatsoever, you would receive a 100% refund. Remember the permaculture principles: Respond to feedback; Designer limits the yield; Problems are solutions; Mistakes are tools for learning. someone with experience in conveying and working with these kinds of topics. Join us on this exploration of both the celebrations and the challenges of permaculture as seen through the lens of three marginalized voices. And a true friend gives all of this back to you, and so much more. I help to facilitate and teach Permaculture Design Certification courses (PDCs) here in Maine and sometimes in Boston, partnering with the Resilience Hub. I most often hear the term decolonization used in discussions about race, class, and privilege. Exploring the Intersection of Permaculture and Decolonization. We are probably the youngest species on our planet and in our environments; the trees and the plants and the animals are much older. I welcome your feedback and look forward to the conversations that will come of this article and others in this pivotal issue. And if we have privilege and agency within that unjust and atrocious system, we must commit to using that access to dismantle that system. People with more privilege than me have blown me off, forgotten to pay me, plagiarized my work, used my name to sell a PDC without hiring me to teach it, and even, as in the case with RealFarmacy and their smarmy Grow Food, Not Lawns Facebook page, tried to steal my trademark through the US Patent & Trademark Office. I became aware of the topic of decolonization a year ago. In my work regionally in the Northeast Permaculture network, one proposal that has emerged is that we consciously refrain from self-applying the term indigenous if we are not actually indigenous to Native North or South America. A-dae was interviewed by Arty Mangan, Director of the Bioneers Restorative Food Systems Program. But the real remedy is more diverse above-and-below ground living systems. For instance, my grandpa would take me to the field and tell a story about the last time he saw conditions like this and what his grandparents did. Another way to obtain all the basics of ecological design and the permaculture movement for those who can not make a full two-week course! You name it: housecleaning, selling jewelry, and, of course, growing and trimming marijuana (which is what probably eighty percent of West Coast activists and artists have done to sustain themselves for decades.). We want to create systems that are rebirthing a healthy environment. In this sense, there is broad overlap between movements for social justice and anti-racism. I come from a background of union activism, art & philosophy, direct-action environmentalism, public school education, and building trades. Permaculture allows us to design productive loops of synergies between our technologically built environments and the surrounding ecologies within which we live. I have been on my own since then, and have been generally self-reliant, unless you count student loans, which I accepted in order to access an education that was unavailable without them. We need to be relevant. On the surface, permaculture is often about designing eco-groovy, perennially edible landscapes, gardens and farms. I thought it was fascinating, the idea that you pretty much kill everything so that nothing living goes inside your body as a preventative to making you sick. The only way to truly balance the scales is by actually, physically redistributing wealth. She is now focusing on her writing and on EarthShine, a business that exposes children and teens to the wonders of the natural world. Bioneers 2023: Transformation, Regeneration, Celebration, Bioneers Statement on 2023 Conference Dates, 30+ years of leading edge/inspiring talks, conversations and shorts. So, that means, I need to plant more. Were adjusting to our environment rather than trying to keep everything out. Decolonizing Permaculture The Eco-Institute at Pickards Mountain Permaculture and Indigenous Wisdom December 6, 2021 Decolonizing Permaculture: Steps Forward in Acknowledging the Past By: Meg Toben A few months ago, I posted a request to Facebook for an indigenous permaculture co-teacher for our Permaculture Foundations Certificate Program. To decolonize regenerative agriculture, we have to go back and think about the times before European settlement and contact to the times when there was more of a balance in the ecological environments that were trying to correct now. We need people to understand why its important to have healthy soil and why its important that you have a healthy root system that sequesters water. Decolonization is also about sovereignty. Perhaps it is the willingness to play the superior that is the root of the problem? ARTY: What needs to happen to make the regenerative agriculture community more inclusive? I am a permaculture designer, gardener, activist and teacher. Understanding our place in the universe requires us to actually look at those time frames. I know that sounds trite and cliche, but thats because its a truism. With individualized, commodified resources, the whole dynamic of society changes. As Published in issue #98 of Permaculture Design Magazine, November 2015. Decolonizing Permaculture - Reclaiming Wisdom Through observation and gathering information about the site, its nearby surroundings, and the people who utilize or will utilize the site, we identify zones of use and sectors of energy that influence or affect the site. Decolonizing Permaculture - We got this! - Lenape Union Land Trust Download a sample from the Decolonizing Permaculture issue here (19MB). The industrial nation-state is an omnicidal machine, and it eats everything. This website uses Google Analytics and Meta (Facebook) Pixel to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages. In an ideal process here in North America, determining the future of settler people would be a separate process of negotiation between the newly repatriated indigenous governance structure and the settler peoples. A-DAE: Invite them to the table. However, it seems to me that there are ripples of injustice coursing through the permaculture community, manifesting as a pattern of landowners and/or self-proclaimed leaders doing things that hurt, offend, oppress, and devalue others. Why didnt I just market my seeds, produce, and skills as a professional, and make ends meet that way? Call me a socialist, but isnt socialism at its heart just a community coming together? They are not extinct. How did fences disrupt indigenous food sheds in New Mexico and other places? No portion of the original content on this website may be reproduced, in any language, without express written consent. How can we tend our own council fires in service to the community? I am here to learn how to be of better service to all people. Shes been living in rural, land-based community since 1995 and at Earthaven Ecovillage since 2000. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue. Decolonizing Permaculture Workshop Description. Think about the friends you currently cherish. It needs to rip through the Permaculture Community worldwide. Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging the gap between privilege and oppression by Heather Jo Flores A low-income community in Indiana, coming together to build a shared garden in somebody's front yard. I consider this principle when recognizing how I passively benefit from the actions that my ancestors probably took to help construct this oppressive and exploitative system. In an indigenous community if you had a person who hunted, if you had a person who could plant a seed, if you had a person who knew how to gather, then you had access to food. Our intention is to invite proponents of western ecological agriculture (e.g., regenerative ag / permaculture) to go deeper and encourage their peers to go deeperto not just 'take' practices from Indigenous cultures without their context, but to also encompass the deeper Indigenous worldviews inspiring a consciousness shift that hopefully will It was the system that separated and allowed for a lot of injustice that occurred with land theft, slavery and indentured servitude. A-dae is a compelling voice against the injustices of colonization inflicted on Native People and for the acknowledgment of Indigenous Peoples land stewardship as a basis for regenerative agriculture. In light of Earth Care, People Care and Future Care, how can this be a valuable concept? The Caldera in the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico is surrounded by a fence; its in a National Preserve. Some open questions I still have revolve around issues of permaculture and its relationship to colonization. By the time I dropped out in 10th grade at the age of 15, I had attended 19 different schools and lived in at least 30 different houses. I dont tell you all of this to make you feel bad or to pity me. Life is not just an idea that lives in the head, or a feeling that lives in the heart. They identify any person who owns land in a place to which they are not native as a settler (a.k.a. Recently, a friend and colleague pointed out that decolonization is not a metaphor. That stunned me. Decolonizing Permaculture Workshop Series - YouTube When I see basket-weavers who are weaving from roots that have been affected by pesticides, I worry about them. Is it possible that we can subvert patterns of abuse and oppression by forming honest, lifelong friendships across the divides? Why should permaculture designers care? My lineage of earth skills teachers includes Mike Douglas and Mal Stevens of the Maine Primitive Skills School.