an understanding of what I sense is a much more fluid, continually changing, motion of the social.
One of the areas where the difference in approach emerges most vividly, between the dynamic perspective espoused here and the analytical stance of other commentators, is in relation to the role of permaculture. In the previous chapter, I hinted that permaculture is acknowledged as a central ‘building block’ of Transition in the Handbook, even though it becomes less prominent in subsequent introductory expositions, such as the Companion. This evolution could be interpreted in a misleading manner, if permaculture were envisioned as a component (like a Lego piece) that can exist independently of Transition, and that can therefore be incorporated inside it (or removed from it) in seemingly mechanical fashion, without the ‘part’ itself being affected by its participation in an emergent whole. In this chapter, instead, I want to offer a dynamic account of the relatedness (and the difference) between permaculture and Transition, so that permaculture-in-Transition can emerge as the participant part of an internally related whole that unfolds through a process of constant transformation and re-fitting, a process inherent in the appearing of Transition as living sociality. Understanding the relatedness (and the difference) between Transition and permaculture – so as to be able to follow the movement of their changing fit – is in this sense a first step towards emancipating the account offered here from a concern about reducing Transition into a set of component parts susceptible of independent existence.1
Moving on from here, a fitting beginning is to introduce permaculture, which can be described as a design approach for bringing to life sustainable organic systems. This is a very broad definition of permaculture that does not immediately betray its origins in the practice of agriculture, food growing and garden design.2 The term permaculture originates from the merger of the words permanent and agriculture. In this sense, it was meant to offer a number of guidelines to convey a way of seeing and relating to food growing, such that food could be produced in systems that are as self-sustaining as possible, and – simultaneously – that fit harmoniously in the particular context in which the food growing is to be undertaken. In this sense, the permacultural design process typically involves sustained observation of all the relations (between plants, animals, climatic forces and all elements enfolded within a landscape, including human beings) that shape the site chosen for intervention.3 Those interactions are then considered for their potential in benefitting the success of the intervention, following the maxim of ‘turning problems into solutions’.4 What the act of observation is meant to disclose is a map of the ‘living landscape’, which the permacultural designer can work with, so as to generate synergies that will enable a successful intervention with minimal disruption of the existing ecology of relationships, be these of a social or biological nature. Institutionally, from its beginnings in the works of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, permaculture as a design approach has been disseminated through dedicated organisations, such as, in the UK, the Permaculture Association. These organisations administer, alongside other outreach work, a system of certification for permaculture teachers.
Beyond the application of the permacultural design approach to the design of food growing ecosystems, permaculture is acknowledged to have gradually shifted in meaning from permanent agriculture to permanent culture. In this sense, as a way of seeing and being in the world, permaculture promises to offer an approach through which all types of engagements (beyond just food growing) can be informed by an (ethical) orientation towards promoting care for the Earth, for other people and in support of social justice.5 This ushers possibilities for non land-based permacultural designs. It is possible to adopt the permacultural way of seeing to bring forth certain qualities of inclusivity and nonviolence in all forms of relating, without these being confined to the work of growing food or developing a garden. This broader applicability of permacultural design is reflected, for instance, in the work of Macnamara, a permaculture teacher offering one of the first permacultural design courses that is focused on the use of permaculture as a technique for ‘transforming people’6 by nurturing relationships of care and resilience vis-à-vis oneself and others.7
The emerging shift, within permaculture, from permanent agriculture to permanent culture is perhaps the point at which we can catch a glimpse of a process of differentiation that finds, in Transition, one of its possible continuations. Rob Hopkins, who has been (and still is) intimately involved with the unfolding of Transition since its beginnings, is a practitioner of permaculture. He first tried to apply it to facilitate a process of energy descent in response to peak oil and climate change in Kinsale, Ireland, where he used to live prior to moving to Totnes. It was in Totnes, however, that this form of permacultural intervention got a distinctive name as Transition.
This passage, where permaculture forks into something different (and yet genetically related to permaculture itself) through the initiation of Transition, is one that is often overlooked in the scholarly literature on Transition. Permaculture tends, in fact, to be presented as one of the ‘key components’ of Transition, following the approach of breaking something continuous into constitutive parts, as though it were the result of their juxtaposition. So it is, for instance, that Polk suggests that the Transition approach ‘uses permaculture as its central premise’.8 Hardt, after acknowledging that Transition is endowed with certain distinctive properties that are specific to its style of development, subsequently falls into the analytical way of seeing and dissects Transition into formative components, among which a central place is occupied by permaculture.9 The stress on permaculture is one that also emerges strongly in the early literature on Transition by Hopkins, albeit with a dwindling focus as one moves beyond the Handbook. So it is, for instance, that permaculture is acknowledged as one of the main philosophical foundations of the Transition concept in the Handbook.10 It becomes a ‘tool’ (among many) for Transition in the Companion,11 and loses a dedicated reference in The Power of Just Doing Stuff.12 Far from implying that permaculture is irrelevant to Transition, my intention here is to stress that the moving of Transition is related yet at the same time different from – and not reducible to – permaculture, not even by saying that permaculture is a ‘component’. This can mislead us into expecting to find permaculture inside Transition in exactly the same way as it exists for its own sake; insulating it from the bubbling tapestry of other trajectories it binds with (and alongside which it consequently achieves a fit) in the moving of Transition.
One initial step in the direction suggested here can be taken by dwelling on the distinguishing aspects between permaculture and Transition, as acknowledged by Hopkins himself:
Permaculture is a movement which offers, as redefined by Holmgren, the design system and philosophical underpinning of a post-peak society, yet at the same time, according to Stewart, it is often guilty of maintaining a distance from that society.13
For Hopkins, the moving of Transition possesses a quality of inclusiveness that is somehow missed in the permacultural approach when it comes to shooting for more than food-growing projects. There is, in other words, a sense in which permaculture is perhaps less inclusive than it purports to be, possibly due to the knowledge gap between a ‘trained’ permaculturist and someone who has not yet approached the knowledge base of the subject. For example, by virtue of being articulated through twelve principles and three ethical guidelines, permaculture is harder to explain and introduce to a complete layperson than Transition would be. This is something that Hopkins already picks up on in the Handbook.14 There is a knowledge barrier to becoming conversant in permaculture – by virtue of the means through which the narration of permaculture is articulated – that makes it somewhat harder for it to involve complete laypersons, unless these are convened specifically with the purpose of learning about permaculture.15 Permaculture is not, in other words, something as easy to ‘stumble upon’ as Transition is, despite the great resonance between the two in terms of approach.
In fact, I would like to submit that Transition could be regarded as a reflexive application of permacultural methods for the purpose of devising an approach that makes permaculture accessible to a wider audience.16 By this I mean that, on the one hand, Transition resonates with the permacultural practice of careful prior observation insofar as it stays tuned to the subtleties of interaction (such as knowledge differentials, information overload and the non-permaculture focused nature of gatherings in which Transition may be introduced) in settings where the moving of Transition expresses itself by making a difference. On the other hand, it is this very application of a careful