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Starting from the Ground: the Transformative Potential of Grassroots Movements Towards Sustainability

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Starting from the Ground: the Transformative Potential of Grassroots Movements Towards Sustainability Department of Thematic Studies Environmental Change Starting from the ground: the transformative potential of grassroots movements towards sustainability Imagining and practicing permaculture at Kosters Trädgårdar, Sweden Sue Schmit MSc Thesis (30 ECTS credits) Science for Sustainable development Linköpings universitet, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden i Copyright The publishers will keep this document online on the Internet – or its possible replacement – for a period of 25 years starting from the date of publication barring exceptional circumstances. The online availability of the document implies permanent permission for anyone to read, to download, or to print out single copies for his/hers own use and to use it unchanged for non- commercial research and educational purpose. Subsequent transfers of copyright cannot revoke this permission. All other uses of the document are conditional upon the consent of the copyright owner. The publisher has taken technical and administrative measures to assure authenticity, security and accessibility. According to intellectual property law the author has the right to be mentioned when his/her work is accessed as described above and to be protected against infringement. For additional information about the Linköping University Electronic Press and its procedures for publication and for assurance of document integrity, please refer to its www home page: http://www.ep.liu.se/. ii iii Table of Contents ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................. - 1 - LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................................... - 2 - 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. - 3 - 1.1 AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................ - 4 - 1.2 THESIS STRUCTURE.................................................................................................................................. - 5 - 2. METHODS AND MATERIALS............................................................................................................ - 6 - 2.1 PARTICIPATORY OBSERVATION .................................................................................................................. - 6 - 2.2 INTERVIEWS........................................................................................................................................... - 8 - 2.3 SECONDARY DATA................................................................................................................................... - 9 - 2.4 QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................. - 9 - 2.5 LIMITATIONS AND RESEARCH ETHICS ......................................................................................................... - 10 - 3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.........................................................................................................- 13 - 3.1 “TRANSFORMING OUR WORLD” – THE UN AGENDA ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ...................................... - 13 - 3.2 CATEGORIZING SUSTAINABILITY TRANSFORMATIONS .................................................................................... - 15 - 3.2.1 Technology-led, market-led and state-led transformations ...................................................... - 15 - 3.2.2 Citizen-led transformations ........................................................................................................ - 16 - 4. PERMACULTURE AS A CASE OF GRASSROOTS TRANSFORMATIONS TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY .......- 19 - 4.1 THE HISTORY OF PERMACULTURE ............................................................................................................. - 19 - 4.1.1 The permaculture design principles ............................................................................................ - 21 - 4.2 KOSTERS TRÄDGÅRDAR.......................................................................................................................... - 23 - 4.3 PERMACULTURE DESIGN AT KOSTERS TRÄDGÅRDAR .................................................................................... - 25 - 4.3.1 Integrated systems ..................................................................................................................... - 25 - 4.3.2 Resource management ............................................................................................................... - 28 - 4.4 PERMANENT CULTURE ........................................................................................................................... - 33 - 4.4.1 Transformative potential ................................................................................................................. - 34 - 5. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................- 39 - 6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................- 42 - 7. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................- 43 - APPENDIX I ...........................................................................................................................................- 50 - APPENDIX II ..........................................................................................................................................- 51 - APPENDIX III .........................................................................................................................................- 52 - iv Abstract This thesis examines the transformative potential of grassroots movements for sustainability and thus asks how citizen-led initiatives can contribute the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda. In focus is the permaculture movement and its efforts to promote small-scale farming in balance with ecological systems and principles. The study draws upon an ethnographic study of the permaculture farm Kosters Trädgårdar, located on the west coast of Sweden. Through extended participant observation and four interviews with owners and workers at Kosters Trädgårdar, this thesis seeks to identify the transformative visions, practices and agents mobilized by the permaculture movement. Although permaculture has a strong ecological heritage and is closely tied to small-scale farming practices, this study identifies a shift in the meaning of the term as explained hereafter. The experiences of Kosters Trädgårdar indicate that the cultivation of social community and alternative livelihoods is an equally important aspect of the permaculture movement that holds significant transformative potential. By inviting multiple actors to participate in and learn from the farming practices, and to enjoy and socialize around ecological food, Kosters Trädgårdar is effectively building local community and spreading its visions of sustainable food production beyond the circuits of the farm. Although we should not over- estimate the upscaling potential of local experiences, this permaculture farm emerges as a site of grassroot innovation, experimentation and learning and may hereby function as a testbed for the grand transformative visions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Keywords: Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Goals, green societal transformations, grassroots movements, citizen-led transformations, permaculture, Kosters Trädgårdar - 1 - List of abbreviations FN – Fieldnotes Int. – Interview KT – Kosters Trädgårdar PD – Permaculture Design Diploma PDC – Permaculture Design Course SD – Sustainable Development SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals WECD – World Commission on Environment and Development - 2 - 1. Introduction In 2019 the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets From Sustainable Food Systems released a report in which they called for a Great Food Transformation (Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2020; Willett et al., 2019). Central to the report was the claim that current global food systems are the drivers of multiple environmental problems such as climate change, the destruction of ecosystems, biodiversity loss and pollution (Stockholm Resilience Center, 2020; FAO, 2019). With a world population of 7.8 billion that will grow to approximately 10 billion people in 2050, the pressures on natural resources are likely to increase. According to Carter (2007) and Baker (2016), authors who focus on the politics of the environment and sustainable development respectively, global food systems have exploited natural resources to a point they cannot regenerate. As a consequence, current efforts to guarantee nutritional needs for the world’s population have turned into a matter of food insecurity in the long-term instead (Carter, 2007). Therefore the Great Food Transformation aims for “a substantial change in the structure and function of the global food system […]” (Willett et al., 2019, p. 476), while focusing the food production on environmental and human health (Willett et al., 2019). In fact, the seemingly recent political debates about how to protect natural resources and secure livelihoods have been ongoing for more than thirty years.
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