Plantifa: Antifascist Guerrilla Gardening Curriculum

Abstract

This paper suggests that an anti-fascist guerilla gardening (Plantifa) curriculum offers unique educational opportunities in the form of wholesome, and much needed, praxis. Utilizing anti-fascist (Bray, 2017), decolonizing (Tuck et al., 2014), and eco-justice frameworks (Shiva, 2015), Plantifa presents community activism that connects people with place, history, permaculture, and subversion of hegemony. In the context of education, a Plantifa curriculum offers learners to be immersed with their communities and local ecosystems, beyond mere classroom walls. It is a process of mapping local terrain and history, identifying non-invasive plants and suitable locations, considering food-bearing plants for community needs, as well as the afterward tasks of watering and nurturing. Questions of, "Why is 'democracy' as we understand and practice limited to humans, and who, what, or where ought to be included in a democracy?"; “Is planting local flora legally or ethically wrong?” and “Why is anti-fascism important to our community and our eco-system?” are just some of the questions learners can consider during this process of eco-revanchism. Ultimately, we are connecting wholeheartedly with the anti-fascist movement all over the world by appropriating their acronym (Antifa) with deference as a way to plant seeds of love against hierarchies. We are Plantifa!