Perspectives of Permaculture: A Literature Review

Main text: Permaculture in the Philippines: Landscape Structure, Practices, and Perspectives

Permaculture is commonly considered to be a subcategory of sustainable agriculture (Maghirang et al., 2013). Therefore, it can be a valuable toolkit for meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) as permaculture ethics directly address sustainability’s ‘triple bottom line’ of social, economic, and environmental welfare (Frankel-Goldwater, 2012). Beyond the SDGs, permaculture was intended by its proponents to be a radical reimagination of conventional agriculture in which sustainable food production is an outcome of proactive individual action from the grassroots (Crosby et al., 2014). Nevertheless, eventual structural change (socio-political) is also viewed as necessary by its adherents.  Socio-cultural and environmental contexts have provided diversity in how permaculture is viewed by its practitioners. A review of some examples of permaculture communities in other countries provides clues on their perspectives of permaculture. 

Abdala and Mocellin (2010) studied permaculture practitioners in two ecovillages in Brazil, Arca Verde and Karaguata. These were identified to be composed of middle-class professionals (i.e. journalist, teacher, medical doctor, biologist, etc.) who chose to relocate from the city for practical reasons and experiment on communal and ecological living. One respondent even described himself as a ‘wanderer’ implying the privilege of mobility. The small communities were described to have simple and utopian lifestyles. It was also reported by the author that some political perspectives of the villagers have Marxist undertones with regards to social commentary on issues related to factory labor and division of surplus. The opportunity to ‘experiment’ on alternative lifestyles is in itself a privilege of the middle-class. Though not as financially stable as their counterparts in the city, their reliance on their knowledge capital gives them a safety net and distinct advantage over poor rural folk who don’t have the same opportunities. 

The communitarian lifestyle of ecovillage permaculture practitioners in Brazil demonstrated altruistic values (Abdala & Mocellin, 2010). Their advanced knowledge in sustainable consumption habits is a manifestation of the new consumption communities (NCC) phenomenon—defined as a group of localized people that oppose multinational corporations (Abdala & Mocellin, 2010). But apart from intentionally embracing an eco-centric lifestyle through simple communal living, their motivations were not yet clear. Hence, how long they will be able to maintain this lifestyle and perspective is subject for further research.

Brawner (2015) in her case study of villages in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) reinforced the permaculture-based ‘ecovillage’ model from a different cultural perspective. Instead of establishing ‘intentional communities’ for alternative communal living like in Brazil, permaculture existed in CEE as part of well-established traditional towns in which networks of gardens, villages, forests, and irrigation systems were already embedded into the socio-ecological landscape. Yet revisiting past values and ‘reimagining progress’ have met much resistance from older generations as they viewed permaculture as retrograde. This perspective has hindered the assimilation of permaculture principles into public policy. Practitioners continue to insist that permaculture can be a platform for the marriage of traditional practices with contemporary scientific knowledge thus redefining the trajectory of progress. The sustainability of such a model rooted in culture and tradition can only be hindered by opposing perspectives of development upheld by those in the position of power. A similar study by Kelly-Bisson (2013) in Canada followed a group called Permaculture Ottawa which resisted the neoliberal management of the environment.  

Kenis and Mathijs (2014) studied a permaculture-based network called Transition Towns in Belgium. An alternative lifestyle concept that originated in the United Kingdom, Transition Towns promoted the creation of resilient local communities and used a collective approach to affect behavioral change. It viewed localism or small-scale local economies as a sustainable alternative to globalization. One popular practice in these communities is community-supported agriculture (CSA)--a ‘shared risk’ market model that partners consumers with local farmers (Fernandez et al., 2012). 

In Turkey, Abiral (2019) described the ‘permaculture habitus’ of practitioners living in upper-middle class districts privileged with educational and financial capital. He discussed how permaculture practitioners tend to bring with them residues of their socio-economic privileges into their new ecologically-based dispositions as well as perspectives. These practitioners were described to have a general dislike for organized politics and are attracted to intentional communities such as the Transition Towns movement mentioned earlier.  

In a case study in Melbourne, Australia by Hillis (2011), it was concluded that permaculture appealed mostly to those who have had prior knowledge and experience in sustainable food and alternative agriculture movements. Though permaculture seems to appeal to the intellectual elite because of its philosophical and often utopian view of rural life, Millner’s (2017) studies of peasant farmers in El Salvador demonstrate that it is not an entirely middle-class perspective.

Similarly, the Asian experience of the permaculture movement in Japan sought to find congruence and unity in local culture and sustainable living through what Chakroun (2019) called a ‘concrete utopia’—concrete actions that critique or resist mindsets of a hegemonic society. In such a setting, networks of micro-scale permaculture experiments may be realized in local gardens helping to accelerate the transition to a sustainable form of society. However, scaling up this concrete utopia at the political and territorial level remains a challenge and a subject for further research. 

In the Philippines, since practitioners have yet to be identified, corresponding perspectives on permaculture have yet to be determined as well.  Research on this topic may help in identifying how the Philippine context influences the way permaculture is interpreted and manifested in the design of sustainable agricultural landscapes.

LITERATURE CITED

ABDALA, PAULO R.Z. & G.D.P MOCELLIN. (2010). Ecovillages and permaculture: A reference model for sustainable consumption? Encontro da ANPAD, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 25-29.

ABIRAL, BURGE. (2019). Permaculture and ecological lifestyle: A restricted radicalism. In R. Kinna and U. Gordon (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics, 477-49. Routledge. 

BRAWNER, JUNE. (2015). Permaculture in the margins: Realizing Central European regeneration. Journal of Political Ecology, 22 (1), 429. https://doi.org/ 10.2458/v22i1.21117. 

BUOT, INOCENCIO E. & K. OSUMI. (2004). Satoyama landscape in the Philippines. Journal of Nature Studies, 3, 1-11. 

CARAWAY, ROSE. (2018). The Spiritual Dimensions of the Permaculture Movement in Cuba. Religions, 9 (11), 342. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110342.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. (2019). Cultivating concrete utopia: Understanding how Japan's permaculture experiments are shaping a political vision of sustainable living. The International Academic Forum-Asian Conference for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (ACSEE), Tokyo, Japan, May 20-22.

CHAKROUN, LEILA. & L. DROZ. (2020). Sustainability through landscapes: natural parks, satoyama, and permaculture in Japan. Ecosystems and People, 16 (1), 369-383. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2020.1837244

CROSBY, ALEXANDRA., J. LORBER-KASUNIC, & I.V. ACCARIGI. (2014). Value the edge: Permaculture as counterculture in Australia. M/C Journal, 17 (6). http://journal.media-culture.org.au.

DE GUZMAN, ROWENA P., G.L.M. NELSON, G.N.A. ABRIGO, & R.D.T. BACONGUIS. (2017). Selected organic agricultural organizations’ social networks in the promotion of organic agriculture in Quezon Province, Philippines. Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 5 (2), 64-76. 

DEWEY, C.E., K. HOEKSTRA, K., & N. CARTER, N. (2014). Permaculture: Supports food security and primary education in rural Kenya. Abstract in proceedings of the 2014 Global Development Symposium, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 4-7 May 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/61849.

EYHORN, FRANK, M. HEEB, & G. WEIDMANN. (n.d.) International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Training Manual for the Tropics. 

FADAEE, SIMIN. (2019). The Permaculture Movement in India: A Social Movement with Southern Characteristics. Social Movement Studies, 18 (6), 720-734. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2019.1628732. 

FENWICK, TARA & R. EDWARDS. (2010). Actor-network theory in education. London, U.K.: Routledge

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2014). Permaculture for Agroecology: Design, Movement, and Worldview: A Review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 34 (2), 251-274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-013-0181-6.

FERGUSON, RAFTER SASS & S.T. LOVELL. (2015). Grassroots engagement with transition to sustainability: Diversity and modes of participation in the international permaculture movement. Ecology and Society, 20 (4), 39. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08048-200439.

FERNANDEZ, M., K. GOODALL, M. OLSON, & V.E. MENDEZ. (2012). Agroecology and alternative agri-food movements in the united states: Toward a sustainable agri-food system. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, Vol 37(1), 115-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/10440046.2012.735633.

FRANKEL-GOLDWATER, L. (2012). Permaculture as a tool for implementing the UN decade of education for sustainable development. [Master’s Thesis]. New York University, United States. 

FRANKHAM, JO. (2006). Network utopias and alternative entanglements for educational research and practice. Journal of Education Policy, 21 (6), 661-677.

GORUR, RADHIKA. (2017). Towards productive critique of large-scale comparisons in education. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 341-355. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1327876.

GRAYSON, RUSS. (2018). The Structure of Permaculture—understanding the network. Medium. https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/the-structure-of-permaculture-understanding-the-network-b41b5430732d

HALUZA-DELAY, RANDOLPH. & R. BEREZAN. (2010). Permaculture in the city: Ecological habitus and the distributed ecovillage. Localizing Environmental Anthropology. In J. Lockyer and J.R. Veteto (Eds.), Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages. 

HEADEY, DEREK & O. ECKER. (2013). Rethinking the measurement of food security: From first principles to best practice. Food Security. 5(3), 327-343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-013-0253-0 

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

HILLIS, DE CHANTAL K. (2011). The wired village: Sustainability, social networking and values in an urban permaculture community. [Master’s Thesis]. Melbourne Graduate School of Education, Australia. http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b4834593.

HIRSCHFELD, S. & R. VAN ACKER. (2019). Permaculture farmers consistently cultivate perennials, crop diversity, landscape heterogeneity and nature conservation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 35(3), 342-351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170519000012.

HEMENWAY, TOBY. (2009). Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture 2nd Edition. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

ISMAIL, NOR ATIAH & S.M. AFFENDI. (2015). Awareness and acceptability of permaculture in a residential landscape design: A case study of Denai Alam community. Research Journal of Fisheries and Hydrobiology, 10(14), 6-10. 

JANOS, SZILÁGYI ALFRÉD. (2015). The permaculture design in the open-air museum of Szenna. [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Szent Istvan University, Hungary. 

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2019). Actor-network theory. Education, Change, and Development. University of Canterbury. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.526.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Assembling the actors: Exploring the challenges of “system leadership” in education through actor-network theory. Journal of Education Policy, 33(6), 778-792.

KAMP, ANNELIES. (2017). Humans, nonhumans and the mediation of workplace learning in the senior school curriculum. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 69 (2), 214-228.

KELLY-BISSON, CHRIS. (2013). Forests for the people: Resisting neoliberalism through permaculture design. [Master’s Thesis]. Carleton University, Canada. 

KENIS ANNELEEN & E. MATHIJS. (2014). (De)politicising the local: The case of the Transition Towns movement in Flanders (Belgium), Journal of Rural Studies, 34, 172-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.01.013.

KREBS, JULIUS & S. BACH. (2018). Permaculture—scientific evidence of principles for the agroecological design of farming systems. Sustainability, 10(9), 3218; https://doi.org/10.3390/su1009321.

KRUGER, ELIZABETH MAY. (2015). Options for Sustainability in Building and Energy: A South African Permaculture Case Study. Energy Procedia, 83, 544-554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.12.174.

LAFFOON, MEGAN. (2016). A quantitative analysis of hugelkultur and its potential application on karst rocky desertified areas in China. [Thesis]. Western Kentucky University, United States. 

LATOUR, BRUNO. (1996). On actor network theory. A few clarifications plus more than a few complications. Soziale Welt, 47, 369-381.

LAW, JOHN. (2009). Actor network theory and material semiotics. In B.S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to social theory (141-158). Wiley-Blackwell.

LOVELL, S.T., S. DESANTIS, C.A. NATHAN, M.B. OLSON, V.E. MENDEZ, H.C. KOMINAMI, DL ERICKSON, K.S. MORRIS, & W.B. MORRIS. (2010). Integrating agroecology and landscape multifunctionality in Vermont: An evolving framework to evaluate the design of agroecosystems. Agricultural Systems, 103 (5), 327-341. DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.  

MAGHIRANG, RODEL G., R. DELA CRUZ, & R.L. VILLAREAL. (2013). How sustainable is organic agriculture in the Philippines? Transactions of National Academy of Science and Technology (Philippines), 33 (2), 289-321. 

MALEZIEUX, ERIC. (2012). Designing cropping systems from nature. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 32(1), 15-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150902820354. 

MAYER, ANNE-MARIE. (2019). Nutrition-sensitive outcomes of a permaculture project in Nepal. Field Exchange, 59. Retrieved from www.ennonline.net/fex.  

MCCLEARY, SUSAN. (2016). An introduction and long-term viability of community sustainable agriculture projects within marginalised communities: A food sovereignty study. Fourth World Journal, 14 (2), 79-105. 

MILLNER, NAOMI. (2017). The right to food is nature too: Food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement. Local Economy, 22(6), 764-783. https://doi.org/1016/j.agsy.2010.03.003.

MOLLISON, BILL. (1988). Permaculture: A designer’s manual. Australia: Tagari Publications.

MUGWALL, THOMAS. (2017). On the path of untricking Hermes: Adaptation of the design philosophy and methods of permaculture in community engaged art projects. [PhD Thesis] University of Tasmania, Australia. 

NAMULULI, ANASTANSIA MUSANA. (2011). The Potential of Permaculture in Addressing Food Insecurity in Karamoja District, Uganda. [Master’s Thesis]. Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden. 

PEETERS, BERT. (2011). Permaculture as alternative agriculture. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 26(1-2). https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1556-486X.2008.00007.x.

PERMACULTURE GLOBAL. (2017). Permaculture Worldwide Network. https://permacultureglobal.org/.

PONT, LOUIS-MARIE. (2015). What is permablitz and does it impact on local communities? [Bachelor’s Thesis]. Griffith University School of Environment, Australia. 

PUTRO, RADITYO HARYO. & R. MIYAURA. (2020). Indonesian Permaculture: Factors shaping permaculture farm systems in humid tropical Indonesia. Tropical Agricultural Development, 64 (33), 113-124.

RIVETT, MICHAEL O., A.W. HALCROW, J. SCHMALFUSS, J.A. Stark, J.P. TRUSLOVE, S. KUMWENDA, K.A. HARAWA, M. NHELMA, C. SONGOLA, G.J. WANANGWA, A.V.M. MILLER, & R.M. KALIN. (2017). Local scale water-food nexus: Use of borehole-garden permaculture to realise the full potential of rural water supplies in Malawi. Journal of Environmental Management, 209 354-370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.12.029.

ROBERTS, TOBIAS. (2017). Perennial polycultures and the richness of diversity. https://permaculturenews.org/.

ROTHE, KATJA. (2014). Permaculture design: on the practice of radical imagination. Afterlives of Systems, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.7275/R58913S2. 

THIONG'O, WANGARI. (2017). Food security through permaculture: A case study of Samburu County. [Master’s Thesis] United States International University-Africa, Kenya. 

ULBRICH, RAISSA. (2016). Practising change(s) - Analysing the german niche of permaculture with a social learning perspective to monitor social change in sustainability transitions. [Master’s Thesis]. Leiden University & Delft University of Technology, Germany.

VON HERZEN, BRIAN, T. THEURETZBACHER, J. NEWMAN, M. WEBBER, C. ZHU, J.S. KATZ, & M. RAMASWAMY. (2017). A feasibility study of an integrated air conditioning, desalination and marine permaculture system in Oman. 10th International Conference on Thermal Engineering: Theory and Applications, Muscat, Oman, February 26-28, 2017.

WANG, XUEYU. (2017). A using permaculture to enhance urban food security: An abandoned golf course case study. [Master’s Thesis]. Virginia Tech, United States. 

WHITEFIELD, PATRICK. (2004). Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain & Other Temperate Climates. Permanent Publications.