[Chapter_Fourteen] Permaculture and Justice

[Rachel A. Buddeberg]

I discovered permaculture last summer.  It made total sense to me.  We need to move away from our growth-oriented, self-destructive way of living.  We need to rethink the way we live.  To me, permaculture is all about redesigning our culture.  To me, that means everything - the way we live, the way we interact, the way we eat, etc.  As i was reading more, though, i noticed a pattern: Most people focused on how to grow our food.  Other aspects - raised in Chapter 14 - were often ignored, or sidelined.  And that didn't seem to bother anybody.  Was there nobody wondering out loud if we need to ask some more questions while we learn how to grow our own food?  So, let me start wondering out loud: Does permaculture create a just society?  How can we ensure that it does? 

I am troubled by the absence, within the permaculture movement, of actively addressing current injustices.  If we repair intersections within the current neighborhoods, we do not address the fact that our neighborhoods are segregated.  If we grow food in our backyards, we ignore that not everybody has backyards, nor the time to work in the backyard because they have to work 3 jobs to earn enough to even live somewhere.  And then i am troubled by Holmgren's gender balance suggestion (in Principles & Pathways, p. 267-9).  I thought we had overcome "separate but complementary culture" (274).  More importantly, though, his view of the male-female dichotomy does not recognize that men and women are not as different as many claim.  

Justice, of course, is a very broad, often rather vague term.  To me, a just society is one where everyone matters, where everyone is supported by society to reach their potential, where all voices are heard even if we don't like what they say (or how they say it).  I am adding a more formal way of approaching it below.  The questions i am pondering somehow reflect that definition… (Or those definitions…)

So, the questions i am asking us are: 
	• How can we ensure that permaculture addresses all aspects of justice? 
		• How can we use permaculture principles to ensure just distribution of resources in a world where almost everything is distributed unjustly? 
		• How can we recognize everybody impacted by our work?
		• How can we utilize everybody's skills and remove obstacles from our paths that prevent us from living to our fullest potential?
		• How can we make sure that everybody can participate?  Are we preventing some people from participating? If so, how? Can we overcome those obstacles? 
	• Are there any stories we can share that illustrate how permaculture addresses these aspects or how it doesn't?  
	• Could - or even should - permaculture address all this?  Maybe it is enough to grow our food differently, after all agriculture had huge impacts on the way we live, so maybe by changing this one thing everything else will follow?   

I would love it if we could discuss some or all of these questions.  Also, if you know of or are involved in permaculture projects that do incorporate fights for justice, please let me know!  I'd love to learn how they do this…  

Looking forward to a lively discussion! 

Rachel


And if you're really interested in the academic background, read on:
Traditionally, political philosophers defined justice as the just distribution of material goods.  Although that definition is still surprisingly prevalent in philosophy, those philosophers who go beyond the ivory tower have noticed that social justice movements define justice much more broadly.  There's David Schlosberg, for example, who has looked at the environmental justice movement and argued that it defines justice more broadly, including adding aspects of recognition, capabilities, and participation.  And then Iris Marion Young specifically credits social movements for helping her see the need to develop a broader definition. 

Let me clarify each aspect of justice a bit using environmental issues (primary philosophers are listed in parentheses): 
	• Distribution means that all bear an equal burden of environmental pollution and get equal benefits of natural resources. (John Rawls)
	• Recognition means that people are recognized:  Native Americans might have a different relationship to land or water than the predominant White-European view.  Recognition respects this. We might need to honor recognition by giving oppressed groups special participation rights. (Iris Young; Nancy Fraser)
	• Capabilities transform the stuff we get into fulfilling lives.  If the soil where we live is polluted, no matter how much money is thrown into the schools in that area, kids won't be able to develop to their fullest potential. (Amartya Sen; Martha Nussbaum)
	• Participation means that everybody can participate, that we ensure that barriers to participation are removed, and that disadvantaged/oppressed groups have particular rights. For example, the folks living downstream might need veto rights on any decisions made by the people living upstream. (Iris Marion Young)