The permaculture movement in India: a social movement with Southern characteristics

ABSTRACT

Permaculture is an attempt to design and develop sustainable communities in harmony with natural ecosystems. It embraces solution-oriented approaches to contemporary social and environmental problems. Originating in Australia, permaculture was initially considered a design system but it has become a global social movement and it is practiced in different countries in various forms and at multiple scales. It is manifested in numerous networks of local practitioners, teachers, promoters, demonstration sites, organisations and magazines where various ideas and practices converge. Despite its popularization scant attention has been given to analysis of permaculture as a social movement. Moreover, the few academic writings which analyse permaculture as a social movement do not systematically engage with its manifestation and adaptation in the global South. The latter is the main contribution of this article. Based on original research this paper narrates the origins of the permaculture movement in India, and it pays close attention to its contextual adaptation by a diverse group of practitioners. It demonstrates that these diverse actors and their strategies have clear linkages to the independence movement; they are influenced by the incomplete project of Indian liberal democracy; they operate on the sphere of civil and political society; and they engage middle and lower classes in a formal and informal political nexus.

KEYWORDS:

• Permaculture
• global South
• India
• sustainability
• farming

Within the context of growing concerns for mounting social and ecological problems and injustices derived from rapid growth of industrial agriculture and the dominant patterns of production and consumption (Holmgren, 2002), permaculture was developed by the Australian biologist Bill Mollison and his student David Holmgren in the 1970s. In 1981 Bill Mollison received the Right Livelihood Award – also known as Alternative Nobel Prize - for his work in the field of permaculture.

Although the term was originally referred to ‘permanent agriculture’, it ultimately evolved to mean ‘permanent culture’, in order to emphasise broader challenges of sustainable living. Inspired by farming practices in Asia and elsewhere, and particularly influenced by the Japanese natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, and combined with a number of scientific findings in agriculture (see Suh, 2014), Mollison and Holmgren established a design system and philosophy which ‘works with, rather than against nature’ (Mollison, 1988, p. ix). In other words, the idea was to design self-sustaining human settlements while preserving and extending natural systems (Mollison, 1988).

Permaculture definitions are broad and encompass different foci, but they universally emphasise the combined social and ecological dimensions of the concept. For example, Permaculture Activist magazine defines permaculture as follows:

Permaculture is a holistic system of design, based on direct observation of nature, learning from traditional knowledge and the findings of modern science. Embodying a philosophy of positive action and grassroots education, Permaculture aims to restructure society by returning control of resources for living: food, water, shelter and the means of livelihood, to ordinary people in their communities, as the only antidote to centralized power’. (quoted in Veteto & Lockyer, 2008, p. 48)

Permaculture includes a number of ethical and design principles that have made it flexible and adaptable to different environments and ecosystems (Pickerill, 2013; Veteto & Lockyer, 2008). This has played an enormous role in its diffusion worldwide in various forms and scales. Starting with just a few permaculture groups in Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, permaculture has become global: It has been practiced and referred to as an alternative development model to the dominant paradigm of development (Hannis, 2011; Pickerill, 2013; Scott, 2001); It has been used in environmental policy measures (Pyhälä, 2013; Suh, 2014); Also, the term has entered academic journals and books (e.g. Bulut & Yılmaz, 2008; Ferguson & Lovell, 2014, 2017; Hawken & Rand, 2014; Ingram, Maye, Kirwan, Curry, & Kubinakova, 2014; Lockyer & Veteto, 2013; McManus, 2010; Taylor Aiken, 2017; Vitari & David, 2017). One can claim that it exhibits the analytical dimensions of a movement identified by Charles Tilly (1978, p. 8–9): It is organised through diverse groups and organisations, events and action repertoires and clear set of ideas and beliefs which are manifested in numerous networks of local and international practitioners, teachers, promoters, demonstration sites, organisations and magazines where ideas and practices converge. Permaculture events such as national and international convergences provide a platform for practitioners and enthusiasts to exchange ideas and diffuse the movement. The permaculture movement has influenced contemporary environmental movements in different ways. For example, the ecovillage, transition towns and the degrowth movement could in one way or another be understood as spin-offs (McAdam, 2013) of the permaculture movement. Moreover, permaculture adheres to more complex and less traditional definitions of social movements such as lifestyle movements (see Haenfler, Johnson, & Jones, 2012). This means some aspects of the movement are relatively individualised and their engagement with permaculture is ongoing rather than episodic, while their aim is primarily to transform practices rather than targeting the state.

Despite its popularization and the spread of permaculture practices, networks, organisations and events, scant attention has been given to analysis of permaculture as a social movement. Moreover, the few academic writings which analyse permaculture as a social movement do not systematically engage with its manifestation and adaptation in the global South. The latter is the main contribution of this article.

In Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia Lockyer and Veteto (2013) discuss the significance of bioregionalism, permaculture and ecovillage movements as solution-oriented movements in the current global context. They show how anthropological engagement with these movements can ‘improve the relevance of anthropology to the wider world’ (Lockyer & Veteto, 2013, p. 2). Suh (2014) discusses the most effective future paths for evolution of the movement and argues that the permaculture movement should focus on revitalising the communitarian spirit of traditional villages rather than building intentional communities. Finally, Ferguson and Lovell (2015) explore the socio-demographic characteristics of the movement and show that in the international permaculture movement participants are unevenly distributed in terms of gender and race. They call for a theoretical framework that takes into account the socio-demographic factors involved in grassroots environmental action.

In this paper I present original research and I show how the permaculture movement has manifested in India, a predominantly agrarian nation. I illustrate the movement has engaged a variety of actors and strategies and show it has cohered into a movement with the characteristics of a particularly Southern social movement. In a recent article I have argued (Fadaee, 2017) that one way of moving towards a global paradigm for social movement studies is to ‘bring in the South’ in our empirical and theoretical analysis of social movements. I suggest that emphasising the dominant characteristics of social movements in the global South which are rooted in their historical, political, socio-cultural and economic context can function as a starting point for developing the field of social movement studies towards globally relevant frameworks. I define four features of a Southern movement. The first characteristic discusses legacy of colonialism and/or anti-colonial movements in post-colonial societies and the social movements they spawn. Second, actors and strategies in the global South are heavily influenced by contexts with a variety of political structures and regime types from authoritarian to semi-authoritarian and liberal democracies. Third, in many societies in the South the continuous redefinition of state-civil society relations influences the potential for the emergence and expansion of social movements. Finally, the strategies involved in social movements in the South should be understood with regard to multiple forms of intersections such as a connection between nonmaterial and material issues and formal and informal forms of politics. The first two features emphasise significance of context while the last two draw attention to characteristics of potential actors and their strategies for social transformation. Accordingly, the empirical section of this article has been divided to sections on ‘context’ and ‘actors and strategy’.

This article aims at contributing to debates surrounding the Northern-centric essence of sociology and the extent to which theories, concepts and practices can travel across the North-South divide (see for example Connell, 2007) and its relationship to scholarship in and about places and groups which have traditionally been ignored by Northern academia (See for example de Sousa Santos, 2007). Hence, it adds to the growing literature on significance of Southern social movements for developing a globally relevant social movement paradigm (see for example Cox, Nilsen, & Pleyers, 2017; Fadaee, 2016; Motta & Nilsen, 2011; Thompson & Tapscott, 2010).

Empirically, the Indian permaculture movement illustrates the manifestation of the permaculture movement in a country with an ongoing agrarian crisis and a high level of poverty and environmental degradation. While permaculture has often been reduced to organic gardening, some people believe it is ‘a revolution disguised as organic gardening’ (see for example Alexander, 2016; Richards, 2015), emphasising permaculture’s radical potential to drive environmental and social change, which is manifested in its philosophy, ethics and design principles. In the context of ever growing concerns about global warming, food and water shortage, and widening global inequalities, today more than ever it has become important to stress the legacy of solution-oriented social movements such as permaculture.

The remainder of this paper is organised as follows: In the next section I introduce the philosophical, ethical and practical foundations of the permaculture movement. In the third section I show how the movement has manifested in India and illustrate varieties of actors and strategies. In the discussion section I explore the Southern characteristics of the permaculture movement in India and demonstrate how the examination of a Southern social movement based on challenges addressed by permaculture broadens our understanding of social movements.

The philosophical, ethical and practical foundations of permaculture

Philosophical foundations

The word permaculture originally referred to permanent agriculture and was later developed to permanent culture to emphasise the significance of the social in achieving sustainable and regenerative systems. Hence, ‘permanency’ is an integral aspect of permaculture. According to Suh (2014), Hopkins (1910) and King (1911) were the inventers of the concept of permanent agriculture who used the term to differentiate their understanding of agriculture, which was based on oriental agricultural practices, from the kind of agriculture which was being promoted by the United States Department of Agriculture in the early years of the 20th century. In 1978 with the publication of his book The One Straw Revolution the Japanese natural farmer Fukuoka (1978) linked the idea of ‘do nothing’ or ‘natural farming’ to permanency in agriculture. Later that year Mollison and Holmgren coined the term permaculture. Based on analysis of traditional farming in different parts of the world where farmers have historically practiced permanent agriculture, Mollison and Holmgren argued that for a permanent agriculture to be achieved in the contemporary context we need to focus on small scale production, self-sufficiency and minimum usage of resources. However, unlike Fukuoka who believed doing nothing will lead us to a permanency in agriculture, Mollison and Holmgren argued we need to consciously design our environment by mimicking the patterns observed in nature to be able to achieve permanent systems that maintain themselves.

Moreover, they believed that for this permanency to be achieved an approach is required which ‘addresses justice and sustainability holistically – not only in the ecological, but also in the economic, social, and cultural dimensions’ (Pyhälä, 2013, p. 206). Permaculture’s holistic approach encourages practitioners to understand the interconnections and dynamics of the web of life. In other words it aims at improving all elements of an environment or system. As Mollison (1988, p. ix) explains:

The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against nature, of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolution.

Moreover, permaculture advocates ‘rapid regeneration and significant improvements of natural respire base and yields’ by going beyond conservation and focusing on healing the damages which have been caused (Pyhälä, 2013, p. 202). Permaculture’s emphasis on regeneration is based on the fact that sustainable solutions can become unsustainable over time. Therefore designing systems which are sustainable and regenerative at the same time, lies at the heart of permaculture philosophy. In a regenerative system output is greater than the input, it is resilient and adaptive. Moreover, a regenerative system does not only have the capacity to feed itself and constantly bring itself to existence, but it also has the capacity to restore and improve. Permaculture aims at restoring ecosystems and improving the human habitats and lives of communities around them. Therefore, permaculture should not only be seen as a food production system but a ‘community planning philosophy’ (Maye, 2018) aimed at reconnecting humans with nature by regenerative means.

Ethical and practical foundations

Over the years the movement has increasingly engaged with community development, education, alternative economy, water and energy systems, natural building and ecological restoration. Permaculture’s impact in these numerous aspects drives from the fact that it is based on a number of ethics and principles which focus on the question of ‘what should be done?’. The ethics and principles can be combined in different ways and in different settings. Therefore, permaculture is rooted in local cultures and to a large extent its practice is based on indigenous knowledge, customs and resources. In the following I briefly discuss these ethics and principles before showing how these have been manifested in India.

Permaculture is based on three ethical principles of earth care, people care and fair share. Earth care emphasises the significance of a healthy earth as the basis of our human wellbeing and healthy human environments. People care highlights that people need to have access to the resources necessary for their wellbeing and basic needs. It emphasises the significance of collaboration and companionship for achieving a healthy and flourishing life. The ethic of fair share is about recognising that limited resources should be distributed fairly among human beings, animals and plants as well as between the current and future generations. It suggests this will be achieved by setting limits to our consumption and population growth (See Pickerill, 2013; Suh, 2014).

Twelve principles shape the practical foundations of the movement. These principles provide tools which would allow us creatively (re)design our environment and find solutions to a variety of problems. Each principle provides a unique perspective and the combination of all principles is meant to provide a balance in the whole system. While discussing these principles in detail is beyond the scope of this paper¹ it is important to acknowledge that they emphasise diversity, interconnectivity, self-sufficiency, waste reduction and energy redeeming. The emphasis on philosophy, ethics and principles has enabled permaculture to develop to a ‘flexible design system which can be practiced on different scales, by different people, with different needs and in different ecosystems’ as one of the practitioners in India explained. Hence, it is important to investigate how the permaculture movement has manifested in different contexts. In the next section I will describe the movement’s history in India and will examine its various actors and strategies.

Building the movement in india

Methodology

The data presented in this section is based on two field visits to India in 2017. In January I participated in a two-week Permaculture Design Course conducted by Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, the most active permaculture organisation in India. The course consisted of 40 participants, half Indians and half international and was held on two farms in the state of Telangana. After the course I volunteered at Aranya for a week to get an insight to their organisation, social networks and activities. The daily interactions with the course participants during the permaculture design course and intense discussions with founders of the organisation and farmers paved the way for my next field trip which occurred in November and December 2017 during the 13th Permaculture Conference and Convergence and after. I attended numerous talks and workshops, visited a number of farms and initiatives, participated in informal discussions with Indian practitioners and participants of the event and conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with practitioners and activists of the movement in India. Most of my informants were either actively engaged in the movement or were identified through snowball sampling.

Context

Bill Mollison visited India in 1986 and established the foundations of the permaculture movement by holding workshops for farmers and those interested in alternative agriculture in the following years. Soon, with the help of an Indian development NGO, the first permaculture demonstration farm was established in the Southern province of Andhra Pradesh. This was followed by the publication of a number of permaculture booklets, articles and books. The permaculture Association of India was formed in 1989 and provided a platform for conducting practice-oriented workshops for farmers and agrarian oriented NGOs. Although the movement originally started in Andhra Pradesh and for a few years it remained more active in Southern states of India, it has become a national movement involving a number of organisations, demonstration sites, events and many individuals from across the country who identify with the philosophy and objectives of the movement. In 2016, the first National Permaculture Convergence (NPC) was organised by the Hyderabad based organisation Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, which has over the years become the hub of the movement in India. The National Convergence brought together more than 1000 farmers, academics and practitioners of not only permaculture but different forms of alternative agriculture as well as those interested in biodiversity, natural resource management and different aspects of sustainable living such as health and nutrition. The India Permaculture Network was originated within this event. In 2017 the 13th International Permaculture Convergence (IPC) was held in India under the theme of ‘Towards Healthy Societies’. A large number of national and international delegates, 450 local farmers, officials, academics and numerous individuals gathered for a week to exchange knowledge, network, show case their projects and plan future networks. The idea of regional Indian permaculture networks was born during this week. The IPC and the NPC gave the movement a momentum and brought together large numbers of people who were before not necessarily identifying with permaculture. One practitioner explained this as follows:

The NPC and the Indian section of IPC covered a lot of people who are not seen as permaculturalists but they all come here and talk permaculture. A lot of these people do in fact very similar work to permaculturalists, they are just not called permaculturalist. The good news is that a lot of people are getting exposed to permaculture so hopefully more will move in that direction.

Referring to the significance of the national and international convergence another practitioner commented:

Permaculture has been in India for many years, but the momentum gathered between the NPC and IPC was tremendous. The NPC was a landmark in a sense. There was activity before that too, but the NPC opened up the doors and connected people who were doing good work everywhere but were not necessarily connected. The whole foundation has been led over the past thirty years or so and now the movement is spreading rapidly. I think if you would have done these convergences 4–5 years back this would not have been the result. Something is changing rapidly. In India there is a bit more awareness after disasters that are happening, and people are asking themselves why is there so much pain all around? And in that questioning they end up here [in the permaculture movement].

Actors and strategies

In general, four categories of social actors are involved in the Indian permaculture movement. The first group encompasses individuals working for/with NGOs. Many development and agrarian oriented NGOs have incorporated alternative agriculture and food related issues into their activities. Some of these NGOs organise permaculture courses and workshops for farmers and beyond. Some have established permaculture demonstration sites while others assist farmers with the permaculture design on their own farms or are occasionally involved with government projects on food security, bio-diversity, tribal development and natural resource management among others. These NGOs work with permaculture in one way or another, however, many of them might not exclusively identify as permaculture NGOs. For example, ‘Green Kashmir’ which defines itself as a permaculture trust, outlines its mission as ‘Introducing permaculture practices and principles in the Kashmir valley, for active hope, and practical real-life solutions to address environmental and social crises that modern-day Kashmir faces’.² One of the activists involved with Green Kashmir discussed the significance of permaculture for Kashmir as follows:

Permaculture to me is about empowerment. It’s about taking back control because in permaculture we say the governments, the development agencies are powerful, but they are not taking responsibilities and the situation is getting worse. So, who is left? The individuals and the communities. In Kashmir there is this importance of building a grassroots movement. If Green Kashmir connects with activists in India and other parts of the world, we will be seeing some change soon.

An activist working for an agrarian based NGO in the Darjeeling area mostly works with tribes and rural marginal communities. They do not exclusively work with permaculture, but he refers to their work as ‘spreading sustainable agriculture’ and permaculture is one of the frameworks they engage with. He believes that:

Permaculture is first of all about the sustenance. Farmers are at the moment very much into mono cropping because they think this is the way they can make money. I don’t say they should stop cultivating cotton. But if you are only growing cotton and it fails … you know there has to be some substitute for it. So, permaculture can help people understand they can go beyond mono-cropping and remain self-subsistence. There is also water scarcity. Lots of states and regions experience drought. So, permaculture can help solve the water crisis at least for small scale farmers to guarantee food security. According to your area, to your problem, permaculture can help improve your life.

The second group of actors involved in the Indian permaculture movement is comprised of individuals who have originally not been farmers but for different reasons have settled and/or work on small farms. Their backgrounds vary. Some have been working in the corporate sector, others are professionals such as medical doctors, scientists and engineers or social workers. Many have a connection to farming through their grandparents or parents and that is how their interest in permaculture originated. For these actors settling/working on small pieces of land means transforming the land into a permaculture site or transforming a barren/unproductive land into a food forest.³ These farms usually serve as demonstrations sites for the local community, farmers and those who have abandoned farming because of different problems they have faced. Also, in many cases they supervise and assist farmers on their farm. As one practitioner and activist mentioned:

When I go to their farm and see they can fix something by doing a little change, using a few permaculture techniques and principles I help them. But I try to be very careful not to offend them. Everything happens on an informal level, and in fact I never mention the word permaculture.

The third group of actors are city residents involved in urban permaculture. Although some have linkages to land or farming through their parents or grandparents many have developed an interest in permaculture through investigation and research in search of an alternative lifestyle and life project. A good example of this group is a young woman from Bangalore who had a well-paid job in the corporate sector and left her job because she ‘was so unhappy’. She decided to look for ‘something different, an alternative … ’. During her investigation she discovered permaculture.

I thought permaculture is really amazing because it is about many things: food security, livelihoods, health, empowerment, environment … I have a small garden and am trying to make it a permaculture garden. I wish to be working on a farm someday.

These actors grow a significant amount of vegetables in their urban gardens, kitchen gardens and rooftops. Many share a strong feeling towards the importance of permaculture in urban areas, as one of the practitioners and activists from Mumbai precisely explained:

urban areas need more intense attention than any other place. Because in the urban areas population is more and farmers are less. Also our food comes from far away and for this they require a lot of spray to preserve the food. After the vegetable arrives to super market then they add more spray … This food creates obesity, cancer and diabetes.

Moreover, many of these actors are active in their communities and neighbourhoods, and encourage different permaculture practices such as composting, water harvesting, waste management or natural buildings. Because of these efforts, common and public land has been converted to sites of food production. For example, a university professor has transferred part of a university campus in Hyderabad to a food forest. The involvement of a number of innovative practices has turned this food forest to a demonstration site for those interested in urban permaculture and agriculture. An urban permaculture project in Gurgaon – a satellite city of Delhi which faces serious waste management challenges – has transformed a housing complex to a success case which diverts a large amount of its kitchen waste to compost, grows a lot of its vegetables in the communal areas, and has developed an elaborated water harvesting system. The resident who led this initiative believes:

The idea is to pick up what works for you. We started composting with 2000 residents and 240 kilos everyday composting. We have copied what exactly nature does. Permaculture showed me the way I can take on my community and introduce various aspects to it. I got a complete holistic idea after I learned permaculture.

Finally, education is an inseparable aspect of urban permaculture. These actors are very often involved in the organisation of workshops and seminars in their communities and neighbourhoods, at schools and universities where they teach, and they discuss a variety of issues related to alternative agriculture, health and malnutrition.

The final group of actors is comprised of traditional farmers who have benefited from practicing permaculture. Some have successfully transformed their farm or are transforming it to a permaculture farm while others have only put to practice some of the permaculture principles, and yet have seen a positive change. Due to their constructive experiences with permaculture many farmers have become its’s advocates in their own area and community. Some have taken up leadership positions and have mobilised their fellow farmers against unsustainable and harmful agricultural practices such as pesticides and mono-cropping. However, it is important to mention that most of the traditional farmers do not work under the name of permaculture and mostly interpret the change in their practice as a return to traditional farming practices. To them, permaculture is grounded in India’s lost tradition of agriculture, and includes practices such as seed saving and sharing. One activist working closely with farmers believes that it is important ‘not getting stereotyped to the word permaculture’. To her the most important thing is that the farmers:

can see all the linkages, the networks which are related to our food, water, transport, community lives … that is what permaculture is about. But we did have that. A traditional Indian village was a perfect example of permaculture. So many farmers can easily relate to it.

Furthermore, a permaculture farm has the capacity to meet farmers’ needs in terms of food, soil fertility, income and input costs. It offers food throughout the year; it reduces waste and pests and keeps the soil healthy and productive. As permaculture favours simple nature inspired techniques and methods, it prevents farmers from becoming dependent on any external factor from seeds to pesticides and machines. Moreover, permaculture provides solutions for different kinds of environment and therefore, has the potential to attract farmers from dry and unproductive areas.

Finally, we should mention that in their attempt to develop sustainable and regenerative communities, permaculture practitioners are joined by many other actors such as activists of organic or local food. They participate in similar events and gatherings and see themselves as being part of the same struggle. Within this context embracing the relationships between the rural and the urban, the producer and the consumer and creation of alternative networks with regard to diet, food supply and local economies has become an important aspect of Indian permaculture movement. These networks go beyond the farm and expand to the community level and engage people on multiple scales and on a variety of issues. They are attracting many young and educated Indians, many of whom are increasingly critical of the consumerist culture and growing inequalities. One activist mentioned ‘with permaculture we are gradually moving from commodity consciousness to community consciousness’ while another noted that ‘the fair share ethic of permaculture teaches us to collaborate, to think about others, the community, in an economic system which is based on profit and individualism’.

However, permaculture activists realise that they are involved in a fragmented struggle with limited impacts. As one activist stated: ‘It has to become mass scale. But every movement starts with only a few people getting together and trying to make a change. Whether it’s going to be enough, or in time, I don’t know.’ Many remain optimistic but believe permaculture is only one way of ‘reclaiming control’. ‘Other forms of resistance are needed. But the potential is tremendous, especially because the youth is involved’ one of the practitioners expressed her optimism.

Indian permaculture: southern characteristics and their illuminating potentials

Some seventy years after Indian independence the legacy of two important figures of the independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, are widespread in the permaculture movement. These leaders represent very different aspects of the independence movement and consequently the permaculture movement. While Gandhi’s legacy is in his ideas of Satyagraha (civil resistance) and Swaraj (self-rule); Ambedkar’s uncompromising positions and campaigns for social equality and rights of India’s Dalits (ex-untouchables) is what has made him a great leader in minds of millions of Indians. For many, permaculture’s emphasis on self-sufficiency and practice instead of claims making (which is a dominant characteristic of many contemporary movements) are linked to Gandhi’s philosophy and ideas. Hence, many believe their involvement with the permaculture movement is in fact continuation of a tradition and a struggle which started before India’s independence. Permaculture activists’ struggle for land rights and their involvement with questions surrounding lower castes’ access to (better quality) land is oftentimes understood and explained with reference to Ambedkar’s legacy. Some permaculture practitioners have originally been Dalit rights advocates and permaculture has added a new dimension to their activities.

Furthermore, as India is a liberal democracy it offers a degree of respect for certain rights and freedoms. However, in comparison to many established democracies of the global North its performance remains subpar. For example, many groups such as Dalits and Adivasis (tribal and indigenous communities) remain extremely marginalised and excluded from the premises of Indian democracy to the extent that pro-Dalits and Adivasis activism is often times not tolerated. It is within this context that many permaculture practitioners use permaculture as a tool to improve livelihoods of these marginalised groups. In fact, two of the pioneers of the movement Narsanna and Padma Koppula first started their work with Dalits and Adivasis and through their work many of their fellow activists became involved in permaculture. Within the past years some states have developed an interest in alternative agriculture. Hence, the government’s counterproductive actions such as encouraging small-scale farmers to produce for corporations have decreased in these areas. However, as this support can change very rapidly the movement remains fragile and the actors remain in a constant state of anxiety. As one of my informants mentioned ‘a few years back it would not have been possible to hold the permaculture convergence at a university,⁴ or by no means you could expect the government to sponsor farmers to attend a permaculture convergence.⁵ It seems at least some of them like us but if one day they decide to get rid of us, they could easily do it’.

Because of the particular dynamics of state-society relations in India Chatterjee (2004) has defined two spheres of political engagement in India: the political society and the civil society. He argues political society is the sphere where subaltern groups can advance claims whereas civil society is the space for middle class activism which allows them to participate in politics by forming associations and engaging elected representatives and bureaucrats. A central feature of the permaculture movement in India is that it takes place in the sphere of civil society and political society at the same time, in that it operates within the sphere of NGOs and government projects as well as on the farms where the most marginalised groups such as small-scale farmers practice politics.

Finally, both material and non-material issues represent significant aspects of the Indian permaculture movement. Therefore, there is an inter-class dimension in the movement in the sense that it represents the non-material interests of the middle classes as well as the material interest of the lower classes, lower castes and indigenous communities. Moreover, it engages the critical and pro-poor segment of India’s middle class (see Fadaee, 2014). Finally, there is a clear formal/informal nexus in the movement. Many actions related to land and farmers’ livelihood happen informally on the farms or through the quiet encroachment of the farmers. Bayat (2010, p. 46) defines quiet encroachment as ‘silent, protracted, but pervasive advancement of the ordinary people on the propertied, powerful, or the public, in order to survive and improve their lives’. In some areas such as in the state of Telangana, permaculture activists have been involved in mobilising landless farmers to cultivate abandoned and idle government land and following years of considerable struggle, and in some instances they have managed to win the land. Such struggles are ongoing and they are a clear testimony to the relationship between formal and informal politics at work in the Indian permaculture movement.

This analysis shows various actors and strategies are involved in the Indian permaculture movement and that these actors and strategies have linkages to the independence movement; they are influenced by the incomplete project of Indian liberal democracy; they operate within the sphere of civil and political society and engage middle and lower classes in a formal and informal political nexus. Hence, it uncovers the inadequacy of uneven material bases of scholarship on global social movements and makes it apparent that any analysis of global social movements which does not entail a systematic engagement with manifestations of the movement in the global South remains superficial and misleading.

The dominant understanding of the concept of social movement comes from Charles Tilly (2008) who believed social movements configured at a specific point in history i.e. around the mid-1800s. They are associated with developments of European modernity and are formed around displays of worthiness, numbers and commitments. Moreover, according to Tilly social movements make their claims through campaigns and repertoires of contention. Campaigns are sustained and organised ways of collective claims making, and repertoires of contention employ combination of different forms of political action such as rallies, demonstrations, signing petitions, and public meetings. Although today we can circumvent Tilly’s limiting definition of social movements by relying on numerous definitions that have been developed in social movement studies; two significant issues arise from engaging with Tilly’s analysis. First, social movements the way we know them today emerged in a particular context and second, that context defines the nature of actors and their strategies for social change. Indeed, one of the most outstanding features of Tilly’s approach to social movements has been his ability to bring together history and sociology and to locate study of social movements at this intersection.

In his critical engagement with Tilly, Breno Bringel (2012) has suggested despite various redefinitions of the concept of asocial movement beyond Tilly, there are still three challenges for rethinking social movements beyond Tilly. Here I will focus on two of these challenges which are relevant to the discussions in this article. The first challenge is to spatialise social movements (also see Nichols, Miller, & Beaumont, 2016) and incorporate geographic particularities of different places beyond looking at the space as simply the ‘context’ within which social interactions occur. Space should be understood as a sphere of struggle, as an essential element of social movements which determines power relations and as an important factor in analysing strategies. As it was shown the centrality of small-scale farmers’ livelihoods and struggles over land (e.g. quiet encroachment of the farmers and struggles over better-quality land for Dalits) in Indian permaculture movement has led to territorialisation of the movement and this has influenced the scale and dynamics of activism. Permaculture is providing hope for landless farmers, for those who had abandoned their land due to their inability to remain self-subsistent or for those struggling to make a livelihood from their land. Returning to abandoned farms and making a living from them in some cases has been a contentious process. This is to reclaim food sovereignty but also to resist leaving small pieces of land to join the industrial agriculture sector or move to urban areas and thereby contribute to a larger socio-political struggle.

The second challenge addressed by Bringel is a call to epistemological openness. Tilly’s overreliance on premises and characteristics of European modernity remains dominant in social movement studies. This not only undermines the significance of Southern struggles and epistemologies in giving birth to modernity (Bhambra, 2014; Bringel & Domingues, 2015) but it obscures the capitalist, racist, patriarchal and sexist features of European modernity and its forms of knowledge (Grosfoguel, 2011). Hence, it is crucial to pluralise actors and centres which produce knowledge for, from and about social movements (de Sousa Santos, 2007) and build and reconstruct a social movement from different perspectives and by a wide range of actors, including marginalised or subaltern groups (Also see Guha, 1989). As was shown Gandhian philosophy and ideas of Satyagraha (civil resistance) and Swaraj (self-rule) play an important role within the Indian permaculture movement. Moreover, as permaculture incorporates several elements of India’s traditional farming methods which prevailed until the Green Revolution, many farmers easily relate to it and enthusiastically participate in processes of knowledge production in the movement (e.g. seed saving practices and traditional water harvesting methods).

Combining Bringel’s proposals for a post-Tilly social movement agenda with what I have highlighted as unique characteristics of Southern social movements could lead to the development of more complex and comprehensive answers to broader questions such as: How do social movements differ across the North/South divide? What is the relationship between certain strategies and the specific historical, social, political, economic, geographical and cultural context? How do strands of social thought, indigenous traditions and cosmovisions impact actors and their strategies? Finally, this research provides another testament to the ongoing discussions around Northern-centrism of social movement theory and the necessity of using Southern movements as sites of theory generation. Bringing in Southern social movement contexts and insights would enable conversations beyond Northern cases, and this could lead to invention of new concepts and change in theoretical propositions.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by The Sheffield Institute for International Development. I would like to thank Prof. Dan Brockington for his support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Sheffield Institute for International Development.

Notes on contributors

Simin Fadaee

Simin Fadaee is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses broadly on issues of political sociology, social movements and activism, environmentalism and environmental politics. She is the author of Social Movements in Iran: Environmentalism and Civil Society (Routledge 2012) and the editor of Understanding Southern Social Movements (Routledge 2016). She serves as a board member of the Research Committee on Social Classes and Social Movements (RC47) of the International Sociological Association (ISA).

Notes

1. These twelve principles are as follows. For a detailed account see (Holmgren, 2002). 1. Observe and interact 2. Catch and store energy 3. Obtain a yield 4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback 5. Use and value renewable resources and services 6. Produce no waste: 7. Design from patterns to details 8. Integrate rather than segregate 9. Use small and slow solutions 10. Use and value diversity 11. Use edges and value the marginal 12. Creatively use and respond to change.

2. https://www.greenkashmir.org/.

3. A low maintenance and sustainable food production method based on forest ecosystems.

4. The International Permaculture Convergence took place at the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University in Hyderabad.

5. The government of Andhra Pradesh had sponsored 100 farmers to attend the International Permaculture Convergence.