That was my choice and I dont regret it, but the burden of those loans is crippling. Indigenous communities embrace the environments that were in. May 22: Decolonizing Permaculture Overview, May 29: Principle 1: Observe and Interact, June 5: Principle 2: Catch and Store Energy, June 19: Principle 4: Apply self-regulation and feedback. 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)? Many of them continue to resist the process of settler colonization and assimilation. Sylvia DiBlasio wrote an article with this title. 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. Decolonization is not a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. We have really strong seeds. 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. Understanding our place in the universe requires us to actually look at those time frames. Why should permaculture designers care? There are many reports that say carbon sequestration is happening in indigenous stewarded lands. No portion of the original content on this website may be reproduced, in any language, without express written consent. My lineage of permaculture teachers includes Charles & Julia Yelton and Lisa Fernandes of the Resilience Hub. Well explore how the concepts of colonization, power-over, and dominator thinking have pervaded modern culture and offer suggestions about how to move towards a more holistic, equitable, integrated, and life-centered mindset. Arty Mangan Food and FarmingIndigeneity Article. The easy absorption, adoption, and transposing of decolonization is yet another form of settler appropriation. Im living out a version of the American Dream with an eco-groovy veneer here on my one-acre permaculture demonstration site where we manage small scale agroforestry systems with poultry as integrated livestock. Amakiasu has been an educator for over 30 years. Native people continue to live and many continue to tend their council fires, which have been maintained for hundreds of continuous years. Agriculture is usually the delineating line where people talk about civilization and non-civilization or hunter-gatherers and yeoman farmers. Sometimes its public benefit; sometimes its through actual cash economy transactions. She is now focusing on her writing and on EarthShine, a business that exposes children and teens to the wonders of the natural world. ARTY: Ive always felt like one of the big problems with agriculture is that it needs more biology, it needs more life, not less. Special thanks to my dear friend Kiarna Boyd for holding me accountable to a high standard and compassionately aiding my evolution in this area. [v] Ideally this process should be done without strings attached. You serve on the National Organic Standard board. Rather than trying to disprove or prove the functionality of these systems, science needs to take their cues and use scientific methods to explain the importance and the positives of these stewarded lands. Another view, Front Yard Gardens: Rules for Growing Food Out Front, Gaining Ground: 8 places to grow food if you dont have access to land, Regenerating Our Reality through Circular Economy. For this program, there will be no barriers to entry for people who identify as BIPOC. 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. It started long before that event happened in our country, and regenerative agriculture needs to challenge that narrative that has led us astray thus far. I could go off on politics and science, but Im just going to end there. I most often hear the term decolonization used in discussions about race, class, and privilege. When we plant corn, we dont plant just for us, we plant for the environment around us too. I was like: What is this? 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. We need to give thanks always. When you look at the whole of time, it becomes overwhelming. 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. 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. kcet.org/shows/tending-nature/the indigenous science of permaculture. Have you been able to provide some indigenous perspective to that process? Full disclosure: I did not buy this one, or a photograph thereof, from an indigenous person. ARTY: When Europeans came to North America they erected fences. Faculty and SOIL Co-Founder A-DAE: Agriculture, as were told in the American narrative, is the delineating line between civilization and the wild Indians. If you identify as BIPOC and would like to receive a full or partial scholarship, please contact us at info@schoolofintegratedliving.org. would love to hear your thoughts on this! someone with experience in conveying and working with these kinds of topics. A-dae Romero-Briones (Cochiti/Kiowa) is the Director of Programs: Agriculture and Food Systems for the First Nations Development Institute. There are processes in the trees that grow, in the animals that migrate that we just will not know. I studied food safety law when I got my LLM [Master of Laws Degree]. Another proposal is that we should seek genuine and longstanding relationships with existing First Nations. And again, if somebody has enough money, they can play the buffoon and get away with it. My own history is of extreme poverty, marginalization, and struggle. Why didnt I just market my seeds, produce, and skills as a professional, and make ends meet that way? Think of it as regenerative design that heals and repairs ecosystems while at the same time producing beneficial yields. When youre trying to move an entire community of white people and as a non-white person, it is really, really hard and tiring. They identify any person who owns land in a place to which they are not native as a settler (a.k.a. For me, it is a process of learning how I passively benefit from my racial and gender privilege. A-DAE: Yes. 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. How did fences disrupt indigenous food sheds in New Mexico and other places? Remember the permaculture principles: Respond to feedback; Designer limits the yield; Problems are solutions; Mistakes are tools for learning. [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. Its much more nuanced than these terms that are in vogue or not in vogue depending on the time and audience. Its also important to remember that no group of people is monolithic, whether we are talking about the permaculture movement, people of color, or Native American peoples. )[xii] [xiii]. 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. What is the purpose of this fence? Because in the Pueblo we dont have fences. My term is coming to an end, and I hope they replace me with another indigenous person, but thats a political process, which is pretty crazy presently. If we genuinely care about the regeneration of ecosystems and culture, we should talk more openly about this tension of owning stolen land,[viii] especially when seeking relationships with contemporary Native peoples. Blogger, coach and permaculture consultant exploring the evolving edges and intersections of permaculture, social justice, radical ecopsychology and resilience PermacultureWomen Follow By this definition, just about every landowner in the permaculture community is a settler/colonizer. Through this process of the design and management of ecosystems, we can regenerate ecological health by weaving patterns of beneficial relationships in ecosystems. A-DAE: I think were still dealing with the issue of fences today. I think nature is our best teacher. Clearly were doing important work with permaculture, so I want to separate the baby from the bathwater. I do believe that most people wake up in the morning wanting to be good people and to do good work in the world, regardless of their race, class, gender, age, or what they eat for breakfast. Im here to learn how to be a good ancestor. Decolonization matters because it is the right thing to do in a moral sense. We need to be aware of white fragility if we start feeling defensive during racially charged conversations. Indigenous People need room to tell those stories. Collective resources require collective and community management. The body-mind this go-around happens to be in the form of a cis-male of northern European ancestry (from the British Isles and Scandinavia). 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. 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. Is it possible that we can subvert patterns of abuse and oppression by forming honest, lifelong friendships across the divides? These are a few thoughts Im left with. Third, Trauger's suggestions for food-sovereign gov-ernment could have been developed better, including a more careful and strategic reflection about scale. . You need to become embraced in that system in order to create not only a healthy food system, but also healthy people, a healthy environment, and a happy mental state. My mom, of Cree/Scottish heritage, who was beaten as a child and had me when she was 19, worked full-time-plus, at minimum wage, in a wide range of jobs. See inside The Nook at Gateway Neighborhood, The Butterfly House in the Hut Hamlet Neighborhood, and The Hummingbird Apartment at Village Terraces Cohousing. In places like the Amazon or here in California where the Mono people are still doing traditional burns, or places along the rivers where Indigenous People are stewarding the salmon and the salmon burial grounds, those are some of the healthiest soils. But because we have the extra barrier of food access through money, food no longer is that indicator. 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. How do we remember that we are all indigenous to this planet, our Earth Mother, our Gaia? 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 Not to say that racism, sexism, ageism and other -isms dont cause problems, but ultimately it is the control and ownership of money and property that allows people to abuse their other privileges. 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. Because (and this is especially true when dealing with the permaculture community) I have consistently locked horns with the beasts enumerated above. [xi] Daniel Quinn, Ishmael (Bantam/Turner, 1992) and Beyond Civilization (Harmony, 1999). Amakiasu has been an educator for over 30 years. Learning Adventures with Earthaven Ecovillage, Saturdays, May 22 June 19 11am 1pm Eastern Time. The course will address the first four permaculture principles through the framework of African land-based wisdom. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Trade Unionist. So, that means, I need to plant more. Were adjusting to our environment rather than trying to keep everything out. Decolonizing Permaculture - A Letter From Starhawk Please give generously to support a more resilient and regenerative world. Ive studied it to death, and Im still learning. What is Permaculture Design? In this article we will seek to answer the following questions: What is decolonization? By using this lens of understanding, you can look at these systems and choose your leverage points. As a design process, permaculture can be used to design both outer and inner landscapes, using observation as the preeminent tool for understanding. Well also discuss how to use these principles to transform ourselves, our values, our behaviors, our projects, and our society by interpreting them through a decolonized lens. 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. If the deer are coming, its because theyre hungry. You have to replace that societal indicator with something else. Alas, it doesnt seem as if people who own land will start signing deeds over to sovereign nations anytime soon, and in my most candid moments, I would probably say that theres not much point in continuing a discussion about equality until people are willing to do way more than just talk about it. These are systems that have been perfected because of relationships with other living beings, plants, animals, the land and everything that surrounds it; those relationships take time. He helps facilitate PDCs with Lisa Fernandes of The Resilience Hub. To what extent is permaculture practiced as a form of green missionary work throughout the world? And this is a metaphor for what we, the permaculture community, are attempting to do with nature. 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. Friendships require vulnerability, compassion, patience, and most of all, effort. We have to embrace the bacteria and the microbiome that make our community because thats the only way our bodies adjust to our environment. 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. This workshop has five two-hour sessions. This matters because an injury to one is an injury to all. Now imagine what I could have done had I been connected to the right opportunities at a younger age. He operates Midcoast Permaculture Design (midcoastpermaculture.com), serving residential and farm clients. In collective resources management, a variety of skills are needed because youre not only dealing with people, but youre also dealing with relationships and how to balance those relationships.