The Journeys of Permaculture: A study of how permaculture as a travelling model for sustainable living takes shape in a community in Scotland.
Summary
Permaculture has become increasingly popular as a design for sustainable living. Permaculture design was established by Australians David Holmgren and Bill Mollison in 1978 as a response to the environmental crisis and is now practised internationally. Little anthropologic research is available on the topic and even less focuses on how permaculture has spread. This study contributes to filling that gap by studying how permaculture can be seen as a travelling model for sustainable living that takes shape at a permaculture community Rubha Phoil, on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The concept travelling model as coined by Behrends, Park and Rottenburg (2014) and the accompanying concepts of translation, mediator and interstitial space are used to give insight into how permaculture travels and takes shape in a small yet transnational community in Scotland. Through ethnography and literature analysis this study shows that, viewed as travelling model, permaculture takes shape at Rubha Phoil in multiple forms. Firstly, the international foundations of the community and different translations of permaculture community that the mediators show, allow Rubha Phoil to be defined as a transnational community. Secondly, through interstitial space at Rubha Phoil many different translations are created. As the owner and volunteers express a feeling of disconnection with their social and natural surroundings, permaculture is translated as a reconnection method. Also between the mediators of Rubha Phoil interpretations of permaculture differ, as their translations are shaped by their personal contexts. Lastly, Rubha Phoil is a node in an international permaculture network, to which it is connected through travelling mediators who carry their personal translations of permaculture.