Laura Centemeri, La permaculture ou l’art de réhabiter, Quae, 2019
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17448
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2038-3460
17448
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Silvia Bruzzone
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Laura Centemeri, Permaculture or the art of reinhabiting, Quae, 2019
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
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Book Reviews
2020-01-30
2023-06-26
2020-01-30
2023-10-09
174-178
TS
Silvia Bruzzone
2019
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17448
174
Mälardalen University
2038-3460
2
en
178
Laura Centemeri, Permaculture or the art of reinhabiting, Quae, 2019
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17448/16297
10
174                                                         Tecnoscienza – 10 (2)

   Laura Centemeri
La permaculture ou l’art de réhabiter [Permaculture or the art of re-
inhabiting], Versailles, Quae, 2019, pp. 152

Silvia Bruzzone Mälardalen University

     Permaculture has become a buzzword, says Laura Centemeri, the au-
thor of La permaculture ou l’art de réhabiter. Media, in the last years,
have contributed to promote it as a way to trigger a change in the face of
environmental and societal challenges. Beyond les effets de mode, this
book is the result of a long research on permaculture as a political move-
ment. The research is mainly based on the experiences of France, Italy
and Portugal. When the author started, in 2013, she noticed the absence
of studies focusing on permaculture as transnational movement and of its
inscription in the history of organized environmentalism. This absence,
she explains, is due to the success of its founders’ strategy of presenting
permaculture as an a-political movement made of practitioners engaged
in the elaboration and experimentation of forms of subsistence capable of
minimizing the negative impact on the ecosystems while increasing biodi-
versity. The intention of the author was then to investigate the contribu-
tion of permaculture to the development of an “open ecological society”
and in overcoming the modern political vision whereby the social and en-
vironmental values are seen as inherently in contradiction.
     The book is divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to the
historical development of the permacultural movement. Its origins are
situated in Tasmania – cradle of what is considered the first ecological
party - in the 70’s. The initiators, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren – a
professor in environmental psychology and his student – wished to react
to the degradation of the environment caused by conventional agricultur-
al. They developed a method based on revisited traditional agricultural
practices in order to find ways of satisfying human needs while guarantee-
ing the regeneration and ecological sustainability of soils and of their fer-
tility. The original name of the method was in fact “permanent agricul-
ture” (Mollison and Holmgren, 1978) which turned into its contraction
“permaculture” later on. In order to do that they took inspiration from
the ways of working of ecosystems according to a principle of biomimic-
ry. As said their idea was to develop a method based on the technique
and not a political movement. Their initiative can be considered part of
the back-to-the-land movement, the intent of which was to provide prac-
tical tools to promote the autonomy of local communities through an ac-
tivism grounded on the practice.
     The transmission of knowledge – via courses and certification of the
training – was, and still is, the structuring element of the movement as
well as the organization of international conferences, where the condi-
tions of autoregulation internal to the movement are set.
Book Review                                                               175
    In the course of the ‘80s and ‘90s the first experience grows thanks to
the contact with other experiences in Australia, then from the rest of the
world, and also with other movements such as the Global Ecovillage
Network, the Altermondialist movement and the Transition Towns
movement. These exchanges bring to a diversification of practices as well
as to different interpretations of the method to include more socio-
political approaches to permaculture. The necessity in fact of taking into
account different forms of discrimination (in this regard we see the crea-
tion of a Black permaculture network) and of vulnerability (for example
persons with handicap) encourages the development of more intersec-
tional approaches. What emerges from this first part is a great diversity of
experiences, which go under the concept of permaculture and in the be-
ginning of the years 2000 the necessity of founding a new global coher-
ence within the movement is clearly stated.
    In the second part of the book, the author analyses the specific type of
activism expressed by permaculture and its contribution to the emer-
gence of a “open ecological society”. In the author’s view permaculture
can be seen as an activism of “prefiguration” (Yates 2015) and of the ac-
tion rather than an activism “of protest”. Permacultural design is a cen-
tral concept and is seen as an individual and collective capacity of elabo-
rating problems and of finding practical solutions in the local context.
The principles on which it is built concern taking care of the earth as well
as of persons, and fair share (or return of the surplus). Permacultural de-
sign is defined by the capacity to take into account the local constraints of
the eco-system according to their degree of modificability as resources to
build upon. The mostly known method of permacultural design is the
one by zones, which consists in organizing the activities in such a way to
have a good use of natural and human resources. Even though this idea is
very ancient (dating back to Romans’ time), what is new is the identifica-
tion of possible synergies among activities and the mutualization of tools
and resources. The observation and imitation of patterns of working of
eco-systems is another a key element of permacultural design.
    Permaculture is presented not an exact science or an engineering of
eco-systems but rather a practical knowledge or, as the author proposes,
an art of re-inhabiting a place. The connection with a specific place is in
fact central in permacultural activism. The term to “re-inhabit” comes
from the American bioregionalism which developed in California in the
‘70s and which played as inspiration to the founders of permaculture. It
designates a way to re-establish a link to a place, which have been dam-
aged and in which the interdependences between the social and the eco-
logical environment become the essential trait. It is about living there and
to develop different forms of wealth (ecological, cultural, social, sensorial)
which are not intended to profit the single person but to feed the collec-
tive well-being. In this regard, the ethic of care – namely earth care – in
permaculture refers not only to maintain or to preserve the environment
but also to repair damaged soils, to regenerate the life of the soils and to
176                                                        Tecnoscienza – 10 (2)

respect the diversity of its inhabiting beings (earthworms, nematodes,
bacteria, fungi, etc.).
    According to the author, what characterizes the art of re-habiting em-
bedded in permaculture practices is the identification of a plurality of
forms of valuation, which go beyond the market logic and utility. This
represents the core of the analysis in which the permaculture experiences
are put in the framework of the development of late capitalism.
    The training in permaculture, she explains, can be seen in fact as a
form of reawakening (éveil) to a variety of forms of valuation connected
to those places: such as the preservation of species or the production ox-
ygen (universal logic), or the taking into account of human or other spe-
cies’ needs in the conception of a place (goal-oriented logic) or the expe-
rience of place through the senses or through contemplation (emplaced
logic) (Centemeri 2018). As the author explains the acknowledgement of
the heterogeneity of forms of valuation is subversive per se as the capital-
istic system is based on the progressive expansion of forms of commen-
surability based on monetarization. The challenge is then to conceive
forms of organizations and institutions capable of preserving and devel-
oping this plurality and to develop tools capable of taking into account
and not to eliminate the problems of commensurability connected to it.
    The relationship with the market economy, we understand from this
work, is in fact very sensitive in permaculture. Here the author recalls
Tsing’s beautiful analysis (2015) of contemporary capitalism, which feds
on the value, which is created at its margins and which it is appropriated
through the supply chain. According to Centemeri, the economies gener-
ated from permaculture projects can be described as “peri-capitalist”
forms of economic organization (Tsing 2015) in what they remain more
or less dependent on the market economy. Controversies on the relation-
ship and compromise with the market economy are in fact present inside
the permaculture movement. In this regard, the author proposes to see
the experiences, which try to reduce the effect of these logics connected
to the idea of “multispecies commons” (Centemeri 2018). These are so-
cio-ecological systems organized on the basis of value logics and practices
alternative to the market as they are locally rooted and situated.
    An example is the experience of an orange farm in Sicily taking part
to a multiplicity of logics of exchange: from traditional market ones to
others based on reciprocity and cooperation. Very often, these experienc-
es prefer not to apply for public funding which requires standard princi-
ples of production. The aim of multispecies commons is not to generate
profits, but to allow a system to maintain itself and to regenerate in time.
    Permacultures initiatives, the author observes, are typically to be
found at the boundaries between different cultural and political systems
(écotones) and often in the grey area of regulation. Forms of auto-
certification of products – like Genuino Clandestino – develop in reac-
tion to conventional ones. They have no legal validity and are based on
the participation and acknowledgment of its members.
Book Review                                                                177
    So according to the author, while the idea of earth caring gathers a
strong consensus, the notion is not politically neutral. In this regard, even
though premature, it is well rooted in democratic values of social justice
and emancipation, it can gather also reactionary positions exemplified by
some experiences in Italy. The thesis of the book is that, contrary to the
affirmation of the founders, permaculture is the expression of a political
vision, which can go from an ecological reformist critique to a more radi-
cal posture towards the economic system based on accumulation and ex-
ploitation. It is also expressed in terms of practices that values the mar-
gins and the interstices as spaces of freedom and experimentation “de-
spite capitalism”.
    This is an interesting and rich analysis of permaculture in its historical
development and in what it challenges actual capitalist forms of produc-
tion and of living in the western world. The research is soundly rooted in
the sociology of environmental movements and raises the central question
of valuation brought by solutions at the margins of capitalism.
    However, if the attempt to show permaculture not as a pure “tech-
nique” but a political movement is well achieved, this is at the price of
putting the material dimension of the experiences in the shadow. In this
sense, readers of Tecnoscienza will find that the practice itself lacks in vis-
ibility and in concreteness. Since permaculture is proposed as a way of re-
inhabiting places through re-invented collaborations between the ecolog-
ical and social systems, one would have expected detailed accounts of
those cross-boundaries interactions. Some concrete and detailed exam-
ples of permaculture experiences throughout the text would have been
beneficial to the analysis and would have allowed the readers to better
understand the variety of solutions, their interconnections with the eco-
systems and the implications of the sensitive relationship between the
technical and political dimension of the practice which the author signifi-
cantly points out.
    Some methods – like patterns or zoning – are named in principles but
we as readers who, contrary to the author, have not attended the training
in permaculture have difficulties in understanding what the taught meth-
od is really about and also the connections between the “technical as-
pects” of the teaching and other aspects of the training, such as ethical
issues but also for example the relationships with political institutions,
funding and regulatory systems.
    Some examples of multispecies commons are given at the end of the
book but without entering into “technicalities”. Synergies between the
ecological and social system are evoked but not presented. Even though
the intention of the author was to talk about a movement, the reflections
on an “open ecological society” imply also an engagement with the com-
plex assemblages and heterogenous interactions (Braidotti 2013; Puig de
la Bellacasa 2010) between humans and other-than-humans.
178                                                              Tecnoscienza – 10 (2)

References
Braidotti, R. (2013) The Posthuman, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Centemeri, L. (2018) Commons and the new environmentalism of everyday life.
      Alternative value practices and multispecies commoning in the permacul-
      ture movement, in “Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia”, 64 (2), pp. 289-313.
Mollison, B. and Holmgren, D. (1978), Permaculture one: a perennial agricultural
       system for human settlements, Melbourne, Transworld.
Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2010), Ethical Doings in naturecultures, in “Ethics, Poli-
       cy and Environment. A Journal of Philosophy and Geography”, 13 (2),
       pp. 151-169.
Tsing, A. L. (2015) The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of
       life in capitalist ruins, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Yates, L. (2015) Rethinking Prefiguration: Alternatives, Micropolitics and Goals
       in Social Movements, in “Social Movement Studies”, 14 (1), pp. 1-21.



                                       ***
   Annalisa Pelizza
Communities at a Crossroads: Material Semiotics for Online Sociability in
the Fade of Cyberculture, Amsterdam, Institute of Networked Cul-
tures, 2018, pp. 226

Polina Kolozaridi Higher School of Economics and Club for the In-
ternet and Society Enthusiasts, Moscow

    “Digital community” is a tricky term. It is used in such a variety of
contexts, that both words constituting it had almost lost a meaning. Giant
social networking sites like Facebook, influencers with thousands of
followers, small activist groups, neighbors, who have a chat for solving
everyday issues – this is just a small list of those who can name themselves
as participants of an online community. Moreover, not only these groups,
but plenty of scholars follow this definition and write about digital and/or
online communities and their role, structure, dynamics, etc. It becomes
almost impossible to outline the boundaries of the concept. Probably, it is
not a term at all, and we should abandon its conceptual roots and speak
about all the listed phenomena only nominalistically describing them,
shouldn’t we? But even when we would try to avoid this word, it will
pursue us of speaking about “members” or “participants”. So what we
need in this situation as scholars is probably not to escape the vagueness
of the term "community", but to face it, analyze its controversies and
