Abstract
As the adverse effects of intensive, high-input food production are made increasingly obvious, alternatives are ubiquitous; these localized alternatives can also be a model for resistance, creating space for the negotiation of 'progress', particularly in marginal and peripheral places. Using an international permaculture site in rural Bulgaria as a case study, this article explores the permaculture 'web of mutually beneficial relationships' that are both social and ecological, informing a model for sustainable livelihoods in a transformational time. Introducing the work of permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison to the rural postsocialist transition studies of Stahl, Cellarius, and others, permaculture inspires progress re-defined through subsistence and creative response to change.Keywords: permaculture, food systems, sustainable development, Postsocialist Europe
Highlights
I first encountered permaculture in action during fieldwork in Shipka, a small town in the Balkan mountains of Central Bulgaria in the spring of 2011
It is worth noting that the deficit of anthropological engagement with permaculture described by Veteto and Lockyer (2008) has not prevented the influence of anthropology on the permaculture worldview
Localizing subsistence economies may act as a subversive consolidation of agency in marginal landscapes, but what are the broader implications beyond these individual sites? Following Allen et al.'s (2003) use of alternative and oppositional, an applied political ecology may ask whether permaculture act as an alternative by operating within existing structures and allowing a space for withdrawal, or can it be oppositional in aiming to implement a new structural figuration? To some degree, each permaculture action or site may function largely as an alternative. These sites operate via withdrawal from larger markets and create a distinct, local space for food production and community while manipulating existing structures and do not operate to amass capital in the traditional sense
Summary
I first encountered permaculture in action during fieldwork in Shipka, a small town in the Balkan mountains of Central Bulgaria in the spring of 2011. Ethnoecologists have long been interested in the myriad ways of human subsistence across varied environments; in particular, ethnobotanists have documented how native plants may be foraged for medicinal and culinary purposes, given the base of local ecological knowledge acquired through informal pathways of learning With this historical—if subtle—dialogue between permaculture and anthropology in mind, I aim to bring permaculture gardening, as an applied design science, into dialogue with engaged scholarship, supporting the call for further collaboration between permaculture and applied environmental anthropology (Lockyer and Veteto 2013:14). I conclude with a discussion of pathways for engagement, or the 'operationalizable' possibilities for permaculture that warrant the attention of an applied and socially just political ecology (Veteto and Lockyer 2015)
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