“We’re Still on That Treadmill”: Privilege, Reflexivity, and the Disruptive Potential of Permaculture

Abstract

Permaculture, short-hand for “permanent agriculture,” is an ethical system and set of engineering and design principles, aimed at growing food locally while building community. Many adherents believe that it carries the potential to transform and re-localize our economic system. To explore these views, we interviewed 56 permaculturists in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Findings demonstrate that participants view the non-hierarchical, self-reliance, and exchange-based aspects of permaculture as potentially liberating. At the same time, they feel stuck and embedded within existing capitalist market relations, exemplified by land ownership, costs of implementing permaculture landscapes, and the need for employment-based income. Many tensions likewise emerge from their own class positions and the privileges associated with, and benefits accruing from, current capitalist modes of exchange and ongoing settler colonialism. We conclude by discussing implications for theory and empirical research in environmental sociology and cognate areas.