The current study aimed at investigating the sustainability of KwaZakhele's Permaculture Project and was conducted in the Eastern Cape Province within the Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality at Ward 22 according to Municipal Ward demarcations. The researcher was motivated to carry out this study due to the fact that many food production projects in the NMMM are not sustainable and thus contribute to food insecurity and a high rate of unemployment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of permaculture projects in solving some of the food insecurity and unemployment issues in the NMMM. The KwaZakhele Permaculture Project (KPP) is a vegetable garden which produces different types of vegetables for marketing purposes and for household consumption. The KPP is supported financially by overseas-based organisations and have created ten direct work opportunities for KwaZakhele community. All the project members of the KPP are women. A qualitative research approach was employed in this study, with the emphasis of collecting primary data from the project participants as well as consulting secondary data from sources such as academic journals, books and government policy documents. The study reveals that permaculture design training and project monitoring are the most important developmental support permaculture projects need before and after implementation. The study also determined that the costs of establishing permaculture project can be higher or lower depending on the project size. Consultation and co-ordination fees account for a greater portion of the funding followed by permaculture infrastructure. The results of the study also indicate that permaculture design principles and ethics are seen as a strength for the sustainability of KPP.

This dissertation, Permaculture in the South of Brazil – the start of a silent revolution? examines the role of permaculture in farms that undergo agroecological transitions. The overall aim is to shed light on how the concept could enable a sustainable agricultural sector. This was done by exploring the motivations, challenges and potential benefits of a transition inspired by permaculture. Extensive field research was performed in the Brazilian states Santa Catarina and Minas Gerais; interviews were held with farmers from four different farms in transition, permaculture teachers and scholars. The theoretical support for the analyses of the findings comes under radical geography. It has led to insights from the assemblage theory and the potentially crucial role of shifting worldviews. The results indicate that permaculture becomes a part of an assemblage when applied in agroecological transitions. The concept inspires a shift in worldviews, fundamentally changing the role of a farmer. The thesis concludes that permaculture is a valuable consideration for a sustainable agricultural sector in the future.

There is growing agreement that integrative “whole person” approaches promoting transformative learning are important aspects of sustainability education. Increasingly, universities are using permaculture in teaching sustainability. Permaculture is an ecological design methodology for meeting human needs while increasing ecosystem health. This study investigates the implications of integrating permaculture into university sustainability curricula. Following “movement-relevant” research, this study also seeks to provide useful information to the permaculture movement about the challenges and opportunities posed by integration with academia. An interpretive approach was utilized, involving participant observation and interviews with students and instructors who had participated in permaculture courses at universities. The study finds that educational partnerships between the permaculture movement and academia can be mutually beneficial, advancing goals of both parties related to student engagement, enhancement of curricula, and the practice of sustainability. In particular, permaculture courses offer significant opportunities for advancing an integrative, “whole person” approach supporting transformative sustainability learning. / Graduate / 0745 / 0534 / 0515 / czimmer@uvic.ca

Modern agricultural production is being intensified worldwide and is often based on monoculture cultivation and the use of chemical pesticides. In Guatemala, the access to land suitable for farming is limited and many people struggle with land acquisition, malnutrition and discrimination. This is the situation for indigenous Mayans in the region of Lake Atitlán, where this qualitative study took place. An alternative approach is permaculture, where the focus is on regenerative living, self-sufficiency and reducing resource consumption. The concept is based on traditional knowledge that has been developed and practiced over time by indigenous people. The aim of the study is to examine how permaculture is practiced by different actors in the area, which includes both foreigners and indigenous Mayans. The research questions focus on how practicing permaculture can lead to ecological and social development in the area as well as what different challenges are encountered. The methods used in this field study was participant observation in the area and semi-structured interviews with ten respondents, both foreigners and indigenous people, who practice permaculture or similar methods. The result has shown that the respondents have experienced an increased access to food that provides a varied and healthy diet, as well as abundant and thriving ecosystems in their surrounding environment. Many of the indigenous respondents have chosen the practice in order to have enough food for a living and reduce their dependence on income and economic structures. In general, foreigners chose this way of life due to its simplicity and their longing to get away from a modern, hectic lifestyle. The respondents have experienced different challenges from current structures, but they are all positive about spreading the knowledge and practice.

The purpose of the research documented in this thesis is to identify and investigate the organisational design principles that influence change processes in a school context. The study analyses the various design features of the system which impinge on the processes of organisation change. Organisational design for the purpose of this study is defined as the beneficial assembly of organisational components in their proper relationships, a notion derived from studies in the natural order - permaculture (Mollison, 1990). There are four design principles that provide a perspective for the study of salient features that impinge on the processes of organisational change. These four perspectives are - site, social, energy and abstract. This conceptual framework based on a

Permaculture is a design system for the creation of ecologically sustainable human settlements, and plays an important role in the conceptualisation of a sustainable future. Permaculture is located in the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) that understanding systems ecologically. Permaculture is learned mainly through participation in permaculture design certificate (PDC) courses. The impetus for the thesis is anecdotal reports from participants in PDC courses that they experienced a sense of personal empowerment through learning about permaculture. The purpose of this research is to examine this claim by being a participant-observer with a group of participants in two PDC courses, and by following the engagement with permaculture of six PDC course participants over a period of two and a half years. / The first PDC course acted as a pilot study and pointed to empowerment as a significant outcome in participants' experience of learning permaculture. A focussed literature review provided a number of useful frameworks in which to understand empowerment through learning, as well as assisting in the development of data collection procedures and analysis for the substantive study. Since empowerment is a process that unfolds over time, the substantive study consisted of two phases. First was a situated study that was the examination of the second PDC course. Data collection for this involved a range of procedures based on methodology drawn from a phenomenological interpretive framework Second was a longitudinal study that followed the journeys of selected participants from the PDC course before, during and over a period of two and a half years after the course had finished. Here, data collection involved semi-structured interviews. / The study concludes that empowerment as defined in the study does emerge through learning permaculture in a PDC course but to different degrees for different participants. Significant elements in the empowerment process appear to be the needs and aspirations of the participants, the quality of the learning environment, the pedagogies employed, and the ability to engage in ongoing permaculture praxis at the conclusion of the course. The thesis ends by discussing the generalisability of the conclusions for education in schools, and concludes that while school systems and permaculture design courses differ in important ways, some findings are generalisable and enactable in schools. In addition, the NEP provides useful ways in which to view learning.

No description available.

Cette recherche se situe dans le domaine de l'éthique environnementale, qui à notre avis profiterait grandement de l'apport méthodologique du pragmatisme deweyien. En effet, celui-ci propose une épistémologie originale, est fondé dans la pratique et promeut un engagement démocratique. Nous nous intéressons à une approche particulière en agriculture appelée permaculture - une méthode de design environnemental ayant comme visée la durabilité et possédant son propre système éthique. Étant donné la situation environnementale actuelle, plus précisément l'état de l'agriculture québécoise et mondiale, une méthode qui donne des résultats concrets serait donc la bienvenue. Il s'agit de montrer que la permaculture et la philosophie de Dewey peuvent se comprendre l'une par l'autre en raison de leur grande proximité conceptuelle. Tout d'abord, nous analyserons les similarités théoriques pouvant être reconstruites entre la méthodologie deweyienne et la permaculture. Il s'agira de montrer que la permaculture, sous plusieurs aspects - épistémologique, pédagogique, sociale - peut se concevoir comme un pragmatisme deweyien appliqué à l'environnement, ce qui constituera un argument pour une incorporation accrue de la philosophie deweyienne dans le débat environnemental. Ensuite, par le biais d'un sondage mené avec les participants d'un cours de permaculture, nous chercherons à valider les résultats d'une recherche précédente menée selon l'orientation du pragmatisme environnemental, dans un échantillon de la population du Vermont. Celle-ci montrait une convergence des éthiques vers la durabilité, malgré une pluralité d'orientations. Nous tenterons de vérifier cette convergence - en supposant qu'elle sera plus écocentrique en permaculture - tout en cherchant à explorer les variations de l'éthique des participants s'investissant en permaculture. À l'aide de l'épistémologie deweyienne, nous viendrons mettre en lumière différents aspects de la position éthique des participants à vouloir s'investir dans la durabilité, constituant ainsi un argument dans l'utilisation explicative du cadre théorique deweyien en éthique environnementale.Cette recherche terrain s'inscrit dans une volonté d'expérimenter le pragmatisme en action. Enfin, étant donné la différence du nombre de répondants, les comparaisons effectuées entre notre étude et celle de référence doivent être interprétées de manière heuristique. Notre recherche se doit d'être perçue comme un exercice philosophique pragmatique et comme une amorce de recherche plus exhaustive.

The purpose of this research was to describe technopolitics on a permaculture farm. The literature on technology and technopolitics is beginning to take shape around a series of unanswered questions regarding the role and potential of objects in social life. Using an actor-network theory framework and relying on Callon's (1984) sociology of translation and its principles, I identified the concept of defect and tracked how it was mobilized at Manitoulin Permaculture through participant observation across two summers. The concept of defect incorporated both sociopolitical as well as technological factors. The makers at Manitoulin Permaculture made sense of their choice to defect to a new life at Manitoulin Permaculture. In addition, their technologies, both new and old, became defective, animating their community in new and unforeseen ways.

Achieving food security in its totality continues to be a challenge in developing nationsespecially those in Africa. The root cause of food insecurity in developing countries is theinability of people to gain access to food due to poverty (Pinstrup-Aderesen, 2002). While therest of the world has made significant progress towards poverty alleviation, Africa, inparticular Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind.Karamoja region is not any different from other developing regions battling with foodinsecurity because of poverty and unpredictable rainfall. For quite a long point in time,Karamoja region has suffered prolonged draught due to unpredictable rain failure which hasinflicted a lot of misery to the people by making them food insecure because of little or nofood harvests. In the dawn of climate change, the situation may further deteriorate if urgentsustainable food security strategies are not introduced in Karamoja.The tasks of reverting Karamoja’s food insecurity to the same secure levels of the other partsof the country requires a shift from emergency relief distribution to sustainable selfproduction planning by the people of Karimojong. This research therefore goes out toinvestigate the potential of one sustainable strategy called Permaculture in addressing the foodinsecurity at the household level for the Karamojongs.Permaculture is a practical concept applicable from the balcony to the farm, from the city tothe wilderness. It is a design system for sustainable environments providing food, energy,shelter, material and non-material needs, as well as the social and economic infrastructuresthat support them. Permaculture means thinking carefully about our environment, our use ofresources and how we supply our needs. It aims to create systems that will sustain not onlyour present, but also future generations (PIJ, 1999).The final result of the current paper is that according to the case study, the Karamojongpracticing Permaculture are more food secure than the ordinary Karamojong. It was alsofound that the land in Karamoja is fertile and if sensitization and awareness of this concept iscarried out, Permaculture will help in reverting the current food insecurity in Karamoja in along run.