As I reflected on how I could be relevant to communities of color close to where I am located in rural Maine (which is mostly white), I started thinking about making bridges with Native American communities to the north. We dont kill the natural systems in order to ensure that we survive, which is what food safety does. Decolonizing PermacultureExploring the Permaculture Principles through an Equity LensSaturdays, May 22 - June 1911am - 1pm Eastern TimeOnlinehttps://www.scho. Recently, a friend and colleague pointed out that decolonization is not a metaphor. That stunned me. Blogger, coach and permaculture consultant exploring the evolving edges and intersections of permaculture, social justice, radical ecopsychology and resilience PermacultureWomen Follow How can it be a misappropriated concept? How can we expect to design a regenerative legacy for our descendants if we havent yet made peace with the ancestors? In order to do that, we need to include Indigenous People. This concept is complicated by the fact that the ancestors of some settlers of color have been brought here against their will, in the slave trade or as indentured servants. Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging the gap between privilege and of the critical dialogue around permaculture, including its ties with cultural appropriation and white dominance (Watson 2016). I studied food safety law when I got my LLM [Master of Laws Degree]. I am Cree Indian on my mothers side and Chihuahua on my fathers. In an indigenous community, food shortages mean something within that society is awry and has to be fixed. I am a permaculture designer, gardener, activist and teacher. In this article we will seek to answer the following questions: What is decolonization? ARTY: Ive always felt like one of the big problems with agriculture is that it needs more biology, it needs more life, not less. Also, places that have been stewarded and kept by California indigenous basket-weavers, those are the places where carbon is probably its most healthy. Youre part of that system. Are you telling us that the Jemez people have been going over this fence? And the Jemez governors response was, I thought that fence was to keep the elk in not to keep the Indians out.. He said that Western culture views the natural world as an it that can be exploited and processed. I serve the larger Northeast regional network by being an active participant on the board of PINE, the Permaculture Institute of the Northeast. Is regenerative agriculture a place where traditional indigenous knowledge and science can complement each other? Think of it as regenerative design that heals and repairs ecosystems while at the same time producing beneficial yields. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue. A-DAE: Absolutely. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples He helps facilitate PDCs with Lisa Fernandes of The Resilience Hub. Recently the Pueblo of Jemez had a lawsuit against the forest service. A-DAE: Agriculture, as were told in the American narrative, is the delineating line between civilization and the wild Indians. On the surface, permaculture is often about designing eco-groovy, perennially edible landscapes, gardens and farms. But because we have the extra barrier of food access through money, food no longer is that indicator. In order to be successful farmers, we have to learn how to adjust to those environmental changes from the beings in that natural environment. I think we learn that through our relationships with other humans that not everything is meant to be sold. It was the system that separated and allowed for a lot of injustice that occurred with land theft, slavery and indentured servitude. Nobody should feel like a slave. 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. Permaculture Womens Guild by Heather Jo Flores As Published in issue #98 of Permaculture Design Magazine, November 2015 First of all, I want to say that I do not represent anyone but myself, and though I have vetted this article with several peers and mentors, I do not presume to know the needs and desires of anyone else. The first being the idea of collective resources. How can we expect to be designers of ecological culture if we dont have a clear understanding of our past? How did fences disrupt indigenous food sheds in New Mexico and other places? 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. 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. Why should permaculture designers care? Sylvia DiBlasio wrote an article with this title. The language of science is very minute, talking about atoms and nutrients and carbon. ARTY: How would you define regenerative agriculture? ARTY: In the webinar you hosted as part of a First Nations Development Institute series on land stewardship, you said that agroecology is a non-indigenous term; its an interpretation of an indigenous way of farming, but not an interpretation by Indigenous People. As a quick thumbnail sketch, permaculture is an ecological approach to the design of whole systems. And when I see nasty, divisive behaviors like interrupting, shaming, slandering, disregarding, plagiarizing, avoiding, condescending, taking advantage of, jacking up the rent and calling oneself King, Duke, or Benevolent Dictator, they are coupled with rationalizations about how doing the work is more important than how others feel about the way that work gets done. 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 To me, again, thats a fallacy. For example, you talked about growing corn for the deer. Third, Trauger's suggestions for food-sovereign gov-ernment could have been developed better, including a more careful and strategic reflection about scale. Decolonizing Permaculture - Resilience 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. As such, I spent much of my childhood either homeless, living in a van, or being dropped off at a relatives house for a few months, to lighten the burden on my mom. We can observe it knowing that we can probably aid in the health of it, knowing that there is something just beyond our reach, and knowing that there is something greater out there that we must respect. You need to adjust to them. ARTY: Relationships in indigenous ways are central. In this sense, there is broad overlap between movements for social justice and anti-racism. Before that, they were considered hunters and gatherers, which has its own connotations. I googled it and found a powerful, provocative body of work centered around a 2012 essay by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. Permaculture certainly appears to have been assembled from toolkits from all over the world and throughout history. 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. Some of the greatest joys come from the understanding of reverence and the sacred. How do we remember that we are all indigenous to this planet, our Earth Mother, our Gaia? It is about learning what it means to be an ally, how to listen (especially when what I hear is emotionally challenging), and learning to give thanks always.We have to decolonize our minds before we can decolonize Native North America. I dont tell you all of this to make you feel bad or to pity me. This article was originally printed in Permaculture Design Magazine (formerly Permaculture Activist) issue #98, Winter 2015. In that sense, I think there is some awareness that there needs to be more inclusion of non-white people in the organic community. The industrial nation-state is an omnicidal machine, and it eats everything. My lineage of earth skills teachers includes Mike Douglas and Mal Stevens of the Maine Primitive Skills School. Accurate and contemporary information about Indigenous science, media, and curriculum for social change, Free eBooks packed with wisdom and insights from visionary voices in the Bioneers community, Our newsletters provide insights into the people, projects, and organizations creating lasting change in the world, Visionary Plant Consciousness & Psychedelics, The Fight Against Climate Change in the North, Farming with the Wild: An Interview with Jo Ann Baumgartner of the Wild Farm Alliance. Why would I want to put that in my body? They know how to see the health of the soil without needing a microscope. Allan Savory, the founder of holistic livestock management, was criticized by scientists because initially he didnt use scientific metrics to measure his success, but instead he used the overall improved health and biodiversity of the landscape. It doesnt include indigenous people because only colonizers and settlers are considered farmers in America. Then come back and try again. A-DAE: At the heart of the concept regeneration is wanting to renew and correct some of the missteps that have taken us to the point of environmental damage and degradation. Im not tooting my own horn here, only illuminating my own body of work as an example of how effective a person can be, even if they didnt start out with much. The reason for this relates to a concept in the article Decolonization is not a metaphor, which the authors call settler moves to innocence. A move to innocence is a diversionary attempt by a settler person to absolve themself of the guilt of living on stolen land using some form of catharsis, without actually addressing the difficult societal structures involved. Our award-winning radio and podcast series highlighting diverse voices of grassroots leaders. I could go off on politics and science, but Im just going to end there. How does indigenous farming develop relationships and nurture life? I think nature is our best teacher. The Pueblo of Jemez said that the Caldera has always been sacred to the Jemez people, and they have always had continuous access. Have you been able to provide some indigenous perspective to that process? Im asking people to stop and say, Look at how we think about agriculture in America and think about whether it included Indigenous People. The answer is it doesnt. Pomo people do different things than Navajo people. My grandpas response was: Were farmers. Decolonizing Permaculture Whitewashed Hope: A Message from Indigenous Leaders and Organizations on Regenerative Agriculture and Permaculture "Whitewashed Hope" is an open-source document intended for sharing. Collective resources require collective and community management. So instead of making a statement like Permaculture allows us to remember how to be indigenous to place, we should choose other language. Is it possible that we can subvert patterns of abuse and oppression by forming honest, lifelong friendships across the divides? Friendships require vulnerability, compassion, patience, and most of all, effort. Once, during a presentation I said, Permaculture allows us to remember how to be indigenous to a place. It was a meme I had seen elsewhere, but I instantly felt skeevy after repeating it and vowed to never say it again. When I was a little girl in second grade, we were asked to draw a picture of our house. The Navajo people do different things than Kiowa people. Permaculture gives us the ability to design resilient homesteads, farms, villages, towns and economies so that we have the ability to weather the storms that come our way, whether they are economic or ecological in nature. She served as garden educator and camp director at the Truly Living Well Center for Urban Agriculture for eight years. Yes, Earth Care is important, and many species are going extinct, but we will climb right to the top of that list if we dont get the People Care and Fair Share ethics worked out. She served as garden educator and camp director at the Truly Living Well Center for Urban Agriculture for eight years. We need small, steady change built upon strong, healthy connections. The conversation about decolonizing agriculture is about examining the agricultural system and concepts that allow for those injustices to happen. Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging The Gap Between Privilege And And imagine what I could do now if I had a piece of my own land instead of 80 grand in student debt. I submit that the framework of decolonization would also save permaculture from being one more happy-faced, green, eco-groovy front for the project of genocide. The list below offers tangible suggestions for how to cultivate real friendships and alliances. would love to hear your thoughts on this! I have tried to work on group certification for tribal communities, but again these are systems that are massive, and it takes way more than me to make really lasting change. What is the purpose of this fence? Because in the Pueblo we dont have fences. In an indigenous community, there are some things that just cannot be commodified land, water, air, animals, even the health of the people, all of which are considered collective resources. Exploring the Intersection of Permaculture and Decolonization. We can whisper the names of the beasts: racism, sexism, ageism, xenophobia, misogyny, hate, fear, anger we all experience these things from time to time, and we see the resulting backlash and judgmental attitudes. In 200 pages she presents a cogent critique not only of anthropology, but of the cultural evolution of the entire Western concept of research. And finally, what does the decolonization of Native North America look like? Lee is a sustainability professional with twenty five years of experience envisioning, designing, and living innovative solutions to organic food systems, intentional community, and sustainability education. Decolonizing Agriculture & Our Understanding of Biodiversity Right now it doesnt make a prominent habit of eating white cis-dudes because its busy making a habit of disenfranchising people of color, women, queer peoples and all those others. But as these brittle industrial systems fall apart as a result of climate change or energy shortages, those others can always be redefined to include me or you. As Moore (2015) points out, "all life rebels against the value/monoculture nexus of modernity, from farm to . This idea of exploitation puts us in the position that we have to manage everything with the right to commodify things that should never be commodified. In historical terms, science has been used to dispossess a lot of Indigenous Peoples of land. When we farm, were thinking about natural cycles, and how do we become more embedded into those natural systems. It needs to rip through the Permaculture Community worldwide. Opening a heartfelt dialogue with life-A film review of Into The Soil, Start Where You are: Discovery at Zone 00, Explaining regeneration and its expansion beyond the limits ofculture. A-DAE: One of the major components I hear consistently in regenerative agriculture is this idea of carbon sequestration. The biggest difference in contemporary agriculture versus indigenous agriculture is the idea of money. We have to have reverence and respect for those unknowns. We will attempt to make a clear critique of settler colonialism here in industrialized North America, and demonstrate how we can simultaneously be both victims and perpetuators of settler colonialism. Ancestral Organics in Colombia is committed to the magic of nature, consciously-grown food, and regenerative farming. For example, she I am deeply grateful for the space to explore this important topic in these pages, and I am grateful to the other participants in this conversation for their help in unpacking these ideas and figuring out how to apply them to our permaculture organizing efforts. Amakiasu has been an educator for over 30 years. Decolonizing Permaculture The World Needs an Anti-Harassment Movement: So Does Permaculture. Faculty and SOIL Co-Founder Introduction to Permaculture | OUR Ecovillage She served as garden educator and camp director at the Truly Living Well Center for Urban Agriculture for eight years. 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. Decolonizing . She is now focusing on her writing and on EarthShine, a business that exposes children and teens to the wonders of the natural world. As designers of bioculturally diverse ecosystems,[xiv] how can we accomplish our goals of cultural, ecological and economic sustainability without contributing to the erasure of indigenous people and their lived experiences? This lack of discernment is a blind spot. People with more privilege have more control over their own lives and, as such, have better opportunities to manifest what they see as their true purpose, without the burdens (and time consumption) associated with struggling to survive on a daily basis. Articles covering the people, projects, and organizations creating lasting change in the world. 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. But we never had enough money for rent. The conversation about decolonizing agriculture is about examining the agricultural system and concepts that allow for those injustices to happen. Decolonization is not a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. I see an agenda of decolonization coupled with land use based on permaculture design as a positive way forward toward a time of greater ecological and social health, in which we may rediscover how to live in right relationship to a place while simultaneously repairing and healing historic crimes against humanity. And while that seems progressive or cosmopolitan, are there instances where design principles or techniques associated with permaculture were misappropriated from indigenous peoples without their permission? Many of these other disciplines take practices of Indigenous People, but dont include the people or dont include their stories. Because some people have more financial means than others, we have created a sliding scale fee system to accommodate a range of economic realities. But the real remedy is more diverse above-and-below ground living systems. Decolonizing Permaculture Workshop Series Program This workshop has five two-hour sessions. But I realized that saying that sentence, especially to a room full of (mostly) white people, has the effect of erasing the lived experience of contemporary indigenous North American people. We seek to learn from it, adapt with it, and collaborate, rather than to control, manipulate, and abuse it. The indigenous universal connection is the idea that you absolutely need to be part of the natural cycles around you, whether theyre negative or positive. 3 (2011): 54-70. http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/249/116, Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why Its So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism, The Good Men Project, April 9, 2015: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/. The middle of the scale reflects the value we believe the program holds and the low-end offers a more accessible entry point. 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. ARTY: What are the differences between an indigenous perspective of agriculture and a non-indigenous perspective? Decolonizing Permaculture: Bridging the gap between privilege and And when we publicly use ceremonies or songs from other cultures, we must be absolutely clear exactly how we got permission to use those ceremonies or songs. Recruitment is disingenuous. And this is a metaphor for what we, the permaculture community, are attempting to do with nature. Permaculture Design Magazine Issue: 98 - Decolonizing Permaculture It is an ethically bounded framework of ecological design that can be used to design everything from landscapes and farms to business enterprises and other cultural projects, on nearly any scale. And a true friend gives all of this back to you, and so much more. Friendships ask for justice, equality, non-violence, respect, and communication. To me its weird because in indigenous epistemologies people are a part of the environment, and its the same with the microbiome. 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. She said, No, what I mean is you need a pitched roof and a picket fence in front of the house. Scientific inquiry and the scientific field is fairly young compared to the natural systems that were trying to mimic. Ive studied it to death, and Im still learning. As a design process, permaculture can be used to design both outer and inner landscapes, using observation as the preeminent tool for understanding.
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