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.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / My thesis examines the ways in which female performance poets deliver their messages and how those messages inspire, affirm, and encourage their audiences. From the traditions of outsider art—Beat poetry, feminist poetry, jazz, folk, punk, and rap—feminist performance poets choose the public sphere as a platform to witness to social injustices. In naming inequality, these poets challenge patriarchal foundations of gender roles, question academia’s criteria as to what constitutes “good” poetry, and expose social injustices. In this thesis, I examine the work of feminist performance poets Ani Difranco, Alix Olson, Andrea Gibson, Ursula Rucker, and Jessica Care Moore as examples of a new way of reading. Their work is significant in that they continue the tradition of feminist poetry by challenging the patriarchal status quo through a re-socializing and accessible style. Their work allows audiences to commune together in shared experience and promotes social change by demystifying cultural norms and gender codes in order to expose the exclusivity in patriarchal ideologies. These poets draw on a woman-centered spirituality, subvert misogynistic feminine archetypes, pay homage to ancestors and foremothers, and address issues of the body—naming oppression yet making room for pleasure.