Bustan Qaraaqa (Arabic for the Tortoise Garden; www.bustanqaraaqa.org) is a community permaculture farm located in the village of Beit Sahour, on the eastern edge of Bethlehem, Palestine. Established in 2008 by British ecologists and activists and local Palestinian partners, Bustan Qaraaqa is based in a one-hundred-year old stone house on fourteen dunums of land situated in Wadi Hanna Saad. The purpose of the farm is to catalyze a grassroots agroecological movement in the occupied Palestinian territories that responds to severe problems of food insecurity and ecosystem degradation. Such problems stem from humanitarian and environmental crises that are often instigated and exacerbated by the ongoing Israeli military occupation. Palestinians have endured extreme loss of land and lack of water access because of settlement construction and the establishment of the separation wall, which strengthens Israel’s monopolization of natural resources. Furthermore, the occupation has intensified soil and water pollution, habitat destruction, territorial fragmentation, movement restriction, and economic isolation. These effects aggravate population growth, species decline, desertification, and climate change.
In close collaboration with local neighbors, Bustan Qaraaqa serves as a model farm for experimentation and demonstration of permaculture designs and techniques for communal living through simple and inexpensive projects. The farm is also an education center that trains and assists local farmers throughout the region, as well as facilitating ecosystem restoration, species rehabilitation and conservation, food production for people in the midst of economic crises, and cultivating communal interdependence and pride as a form of resistance to military occupation. Ecological, economic, and social aspects are clearly embodied.
Permaculture is an important asset-based community and agricultural development strategy, because its methods “focus on the opportunities rather than the obstacles” (Holmgren, 2004, p. 4). Rooted in “ecological science and systems theory” (ibid, p. 4) as well as community research, religious traditions, and native cultures of place (ibid, p. 6), permaculture stems from three interrelated ethical maxims: “Care for the earth (husband soil, forests and water)”; “Care for people (look after self, kin and community)”; and “Fair share (set limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus)” (ibid, p. 6). Furthermore, the word permaculture not only means permanent and sustainable agriculture but also permanent and sustainable culture (ibid, p. 1).
Bustan Qaraaqa’s permaculture projects reverse deforestation, enliven degraded soils, nurture biodiversity, collect and reuse water, and minimize negative consequences of human footprints on the earth by composting waste, recycling old material, and efficient design. The farm’s current projects include a tree nursery, water conservation and reuse, green building, and fish farming.
The free tree nursery harbors native and adapted plants in order to ameliorate environmental degradation through re-habitation and reforestation. Making adapted and native trees, some of which had gone extinct in the region, available to local communities is a vital step to reforesting the region into an edible landscape. The nursery contains over fifty species that provide food, fuel, building materials, soil restoration and remediation, landscaping, ecosystems restoration, and resistance to land confiscation. Bustan Qaraaqa’s workers have widespread experience in agroforestry projects.
Water conservation and reuse is another major project. Water shortage and lack of access is a rampant problem in the Palestinian territories. Israeli settlements consume twice the amount of water that Palestinian communities consume (Palestine monitor, 2009, p. 46); the World Health Organization states that a decent standard of living implies 100 liters per person each day, while the average West Bank Palestinian barely drinks 70. Israel also controls 80% of the West Bank’s depleting groundwater sources and the Jordan River, which is channeled to taps in Tel Aviv and farms in the Negev; such diversion has severely diminished the ancient waterway and has made essential aquifers extremely vulnerable to salinization and raw sewage (Faris, 2011). Over 200,000 people in rural villages are disconnected from the water network, and those who are connected rarely receive an uninterrupted supply due to military stoppages and rerouted pipes. The situation may worsen in light of climate change and population growth. Bustan Qaraaqa develops rainwater harvesting systems for rooftop and road runoff, which is stored in cisterns and tanks for household and irrigation use. Additionally, the farm utilizes swales (ditches dug along the contour of a slope) to retain water, build up soil, and prevent erosion. Bustan Qaraaqa also practices and demonstrates water conservation and recycling with a humanure toilet (which is also a form of waste management) and an elaborate graywater reuse system.
The farm’s green building program includes rainwater catchment, humanure toilet, showers, kitchen, and a greenhouse. The greenhouse embodies four design principles, each achieved through a variety of methods: reduced material consumption (multifunctional architecture, using salvaged materials, and using local materials for eco-construction); water conservation (rainwater harvesting and storage, water recycling, and graywater biofiltration); climate improvement (carbon-neutral winter heating, solar passive winter warming, and efficient design for summer cooling); and food production (winter fruits and vegetables, summer fruits and vegetables such as tropical crops, and an aquaponics system).
The aquaponics system, which is the first one in the West Bank, is also part of Bustan Qaraaqa’s fish farming project. The project was pioneered by the BySpokes crew (www.byspokes.org) and has been replicated in numerous urban and rural sites in Beit Sahour and the Jordan River Valley. The aquaponics system uses cheap and locally-available (mostly reclaimed) material and effectively works with the high alkalinity of the West Bank’s groundwater. This system grows plants that require copious amounts of water even during the long dry season, and is capable of growing locally-adapted and exotic plants.
Permaculture projects like Bustan Qaraaqa are extremely transferable. Even though permaculture, as a form of agroecology, is highly contextual, the principles and design methods are applicable in any setting. Permaculture’s co-originator David Holmgren’s twelve principles testifies are: observe and interact; catch and use energy; self-regulate and accept feedback; use and value renewable resources and services; produce no waste; design from patterns to details; integrate rather than segregate; use small and slow solutions; use and value diversity; use edges and value the marginal; and creatively use and respond to change (2004, p. 7-18). Permaculture started in Australia and has been used in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. With Bustan Qaraaqa as an example, permaculture design and development simultaneously addresses scientific, economic, and social factors.
References
Faris, S. (2011). Holy water: A precious commodity in a region of conflict. Retrieved October 29, 2011, from Orion Magazine.
site: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6473
Holmgren, D. (2004). Essence of permaculture. Retrieved June 30, 2011, from Holmgren
Design Services Website.
site: http://www.holmgren.com.au/
Palestine monitor 2009 factbook. (2009). Ramallah: Palestine Monitor & HDIP.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Intervention Reflection
Interventions, whether developmental or medical, are often presented in militaristic language, in which a foreign third-party forcefully enters the scene to right a wrong. Even when the intentions are supposedly peaceful, this framework only exacerbates the pre-existing conflict. However, some version of intervention is sometimes necessary, and is much more effective when conducted by those familiar with the context of conflict, which necessitates time and proximity. Professionalizing intervention would seem to foster neither, because it more rigidly establishes the role of the intervener as an outsider, and usually a transient one at that. Certainly outsiders can and do play a vital role, but outsiders must be intimate with a place in order to intervene respectfully and appropriately, and foreign specialization does not often encourage either one.
A classmate and I had a fascinating conversation regarding John Paul Lederach’s intervention in the Oka crisis. This case study provided fertile space in which to discuss and wrestle with the ethics of intervention. My friend wondered if Lederach’s decision to refuse participation in strategies of violence was an ethical decision, because he believes Lederach is not a stakeholder in this situation and, as a privileged outsider, should present a diversity of tactics to his clients. My friend is wary of solely ideological assumptions of violence and peace which do not attempt to understand their contextual emergence. I am sympathetic to this suspicion, and I agree that Lederach is definitely not a major stakeholder like the First Nation groups are: Lederach’s life is not woven into the texture of those events and thus has the ability to leave at any moment. However, I also think that once Lederach ruptures the sphere of influence by arriving in that place, he cannot now pretend like he is disinterested. His introduction into the ecosystem of conflict not only changes his organismal interactions within it, but his introduction also transforms the ecosystem itself; in this way, he has a stake simply because he is now present. Once we know and have witnessed we are called by the event to respond, whether in action or feigned ignorance.
I understand the point my friend made about presenting a diversity of tactics. However, I think Lederach did allow this to happen in a way. He did not encourage the First Nation groups to give up violent resistance, instead simply opting not to assist in strategizing. This is a valid decision considering his skillset, which does not include strategic planning for violent revolution. Furthermore, polite silence is not the same thing as solidarity; I’m not convinced by imperialistic intervention or by sterile objectivity. Allies should be able to offer insights, advice, and experience, which are all embedded in valuations of the world. Ultimately, the intervener should leave the final decision to the people whose lives are irrevocably intertwined in the context, even if the intervener disagrees with the ultimate decision. But the intervener, as an ally, also has the responsibility to voice concern and to make suggestions. Could Lederach have participated in strategizing for violent resistance by assuming an advocacy role for nonviolent direct action? My friend’s important concern is that renouncing violent revolution often leads to denouncing any form of revolution, effectively shutting the door on both. In the Oka crisis, the First Nation groups’ desire was reclamation of ancestral land, while the government’s only purpose was to dissolve tension. In a way, by not strategizing perhaps Lederach subsidized the government’s aims by ending the confrontation: the government’s goals were met while the First Nation groups were silenced. At this point, he could have played the role of both activist and translator-guide (process design and facilitation).
I empathize with some violent liberation movements, including the second Palestinian intifada. First World activists and peacebuilders run the risk of looking down our condescending noses at the actions of the oppressed without ethnographic studies of what caused such actions. However, phenomenologically, militarized strategies of liberation almost always reproduce the cycle which they sought to overthrow, because they are dependent on the same worldviewing and the same resources (eg. international arms trade) in order to resist empire. The result is more deaths and another repressive regime. As black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde said, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine transformation” (Lorde & Clarke, 2007, p. 112-3). For instance, the first Palestinian intifada was predominantly a concerted and mobilized nonviolent revolution, and it paved the way for the Oslo Peace Accords. However, in the aftermath of Oslo’s failure, the second violent intifada began in which suicide bombings drastically increased. Now, the situation on the ground is far worse than it was ten years ago with a massive concrete wall, intensified movement restrictions, and accelerated settlement construction. Because of this, I think the ends and the means must be as commensurate as possible.
Speakin of which, are the roles of activist and carrier-catalyst incommensurate? For instance, could Lederach have negotiated with the government while also siding himself with the First Nation groups? As an intervener, I should not allocate legitimacy completely to one side. I do allocate legitimacy in some instances more to one side than the other, but sole legitimacy would blind me to the suffering and experience of the other, thus reproducing a cycle of violence. By taking sides without allocating sole legitimacy, Lederach could have still functioned as a carrier-catalyst (negotiation) and a bridge builder (trust building) in order to understand what the government was and was not willing to concede to the First Nation groups. As a conduit (active listening and deep communication), Lederach would also have filled the role of the seer (conflict analysis and diagnosis) for the First Nation groups by explaining how far the government would go. The resistance groups could then have made their decision how to respond. If the government’s main aim was to dissolve tension with no intention of compromising, such information would be vital to the strategies of the First Nation groups. As a carrier-catalyst and conduit, Lederach could have then communicated clearly to the government how far the First Nation groups were willing to go in response. As an outsider with such potential connections, Lederach could have enacted multiple parts. The insights gained from these connections could be relayed to the side which the intervener has taken, thus strengthening their position and possible responses.
In such a situation, however, peacebuilders must guard against thinking they can become completely one with the oppressed. There may be some exceptions to this rule, because conversion can happen even while we recognize irreducible differences. In my experience, I have seen “the oppressed” welcome the outsider into their own midst as one of them, as an “other” who is now part of them. Lederach did not have enough time to do so in this situation, which could be part of the problem. As the situation stood, Lederach seemed to have two choices: either represent the First Nations or access them to government. I think some situations could arise in which the first choice is the more appropriate, but in this particular situation Lederach’s mission might have been more successful if he more proactively attempted to connect the First Nation groups to the powers that be so that their legitimate demands could be heard. The government’s willingness (or lack thereof) to cooperate could have been articulated to the First Nation groups; as a conduit and a carrier-catalyst, Lederach could have filled this vital niche. As a seer, I think it would have been appropriate for him to predict what might occur if the current violent resistance escalated, especially considering the superior force and resources of the government.
If presented with a similar scenario, I don’t know what decisions I would have made. My experiences in nonviolent intervention were ad hoc, rooted in the crisis of the moment and the obligation to respond. We had no time to plan or to train, and the important roles of conflict intervention were messily inhabited as we broke bread around a table under the specter of military night raids. At times, this is the only possible response: the willingness to place our political bodies in the midst of the body politic.
References
Lorde, A. & Clarke, C (ed.). (2007). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press.
A classmate and I had a fascinating conversation regarding John Paul Lederach’s intervention in the Oka crisis. This case study provided fertile space in which to discuss and wrestle with the ethics of intervention. My friend wondered if Lederach’s decision to refuse participation in strategies of violence was an ethical decision, because he believes Lederach is not a stakeholder in this situation and, as a privileged outsider, should present a diversity of tactics to his clients. My friend is wary of solely ideological assumptions of violence and peace which do not attempt to understand their contextual emergence. I am sympathetic to this suspicion, and I agree that Lederach is definitely not a major stakeholder like the First Nation groups are: Lederach’s life is not woven into the texture of those events and thus has the ability to leave at any moment. However, I also think that once Lederach ruptures the sphere of influence by arriving in that place, he cannot now pretend like he is disinterested. His introduction into the ecosystem of conflict not only changes his organismal interactions within it, but his introduction also transforms the ecosystem itself; in this way, he has a stake simply because he is now present. Once we know and have witnessed we are called by the event to respond, whether in action or feigned ignorance.
I understand the point my friend made about presenting a diversity of tactics. However, I think Lederach did allow this to happen in a way. He did not encourage the First Nation groups to give up violent resistance, instead simply opting not to assist in strategizing. This is a valid decision considering his skillset, which does not include strategic planning for violent revolution. Furthermore, polite silence is not the same thing as solidarity; I’m not convinced by imperialistic intervention or by sterile objectivity. Allies should be able to offer insights, advice, and experience, which are all embedded in valuations of the world. Ultimately, the intervener should leave the final decision to the people whose lives are irrevocably intertwined in the context, even if the intervener disagrees with the ultimate decision. But the intervener, as an ally, also has the responsibility to voice concern and to make suggestions. Could Lederach have participated in strategizing for violent resistance by assuming an advocacy role for nonviolent direct action? My friend’s important concern is that renouncing violent revolution often leads to denouncing any form of revolution, effectively shutting the door on both. In the Oka crisis, the First Nation groups’ desire was reclamation of ancestral land, while the government’s only purpose was to dissolve tension. In a way, by not strategizing perhaps Lederach subsidized the government’s aims by ending the confrontation: the government’s goals were met while the First Nation groups were silenced. At this point, he could have played the role of both activist and translator-guide (process design and facilitation).
I empathize with some violent liberation movements, including the second Palestinian intifada. First World activists and peacebuilders run the risk of looking down our condescending noses at the actions of the oppressed without ethnographic studies of what caused such actions. However, phenomenologically, militarized strategies of liberation almost always reproduce the cycle which they sought to overthrow, because they are dependent on the same worldviewing and the same resources (eg. international arms trade) in order to resist empire. The result is more deaths and another repressive regime. As black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde said, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine transformation” (Lorde & Clarke, 2007, p. 112-3). For instance, the first Palestinian intifada was predominantly a concerted and mobilized nonviolent revolution, and it paved the way for the Oslo Peace Accords. However, in the aftermath of Oslo’s failure, the second violent intifada began in which suicide bombings drastically increased. Now, the situation on the ground is far worse than it was ten years ago with a massive concrete wall, intensified movement restrictions, and accelerated settlement construction. Because of this, I think the ends and the means must be as commensurate as possible.
Speakin of which, are the roles of activist and carrier-catalyst incommensurate? For instance, could Lederach have negotiated with the government while also siding himself with the First Nation groups? As an intervener, I should not allocate legitimacy completely to one side. I do allocate legitimacy in some instances more to one side than the other, but sole legitimacy would blind me to the suffering and experience of the other, thus reproducing a cycle of violence. By taking sides without allocating sole legitimacy, Lederach could have still functioned as a carrier-catalyst (negotiation) and a bridge builder (trust building) in order to understand what the government was and was not willing to concede to the First Nation groups. As a conduit (active listening and deep communication), Lederach would also have filled the role of the seer (conflict analysis and diagnosis) for the First Nation groups by explaining how far the government would go. The resistance groups could then have made their decision how to respond. If the government’s main aim was to dissolve tension with no intention of compromising, such information would be vital to the strategies of the First Nation groups. As a carrier-catalyst and conduit, Lederach could have then communicated clearly to the government how far the First Nation groups were willing to go in response. As an outsider with such potential connections, Lederach could have enacted multiple parts. The insights gained from these connections could be relayed to the side which the intervener has taken, thus strengthening their position and possible responses.
In such a situation, however, peacebuilders must guard against thinking they can become completely one with the oppressed. There may be some exceptions to this rule, because conversion can happen even while we recognize irreducible differences. In my experience, I have seen “the oppressed” welcome the outsider into their own midst as one of them, as an “other” who is now part of them. Lederach did not have enough time to do so in this situation, which could be part of the problem. As the situation stood, Lederach seemed to have two choices: either represent the First Nations or access them to government. I think some situations could arise in which the first choice is the more appropriate, but in this particular situation Lederach’s mission might have been more successful if he more proactively attempted to connect the First Nation groups to the powers that be so that their legitimate demands could be heard. The government’s willingness (or lack thereof) to cooperate could have been articulated to the First Nation groups; as a conduit and a carrier-catalyst, Lederach could have filled this vital niche. As a seer, I think it would have been appropriate for him to predict what might occur if the current violent resistance escalated, especially considering the superior force and resources of the government.
If presented with a similar scenario, I don’t know what decisions I would have made. My experiences in nonviolent intervention were ad hoc, rooted in the crisis of the moment and the obligation to respond. We had no time to plan or to train, and the important roles of conflict intervention were messily inhabited as we broke bread around a table under the specter of military night raids. At times, this is the only possible response: the willingness to place our political bodies in the midst of the body politic.
References
Lorde, A. & Clarke, C (ed.). (2007). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Mediation Reflection
The practice of mediation is considered one of the central tools for peacebuilders. Mediation, along with negotiation and facilitation, form the backbone of CJP’s conflict transformation ethos, due in part to the plethora of faculty members who have been involved with the Mennonite Central Committee. But mediation, like negotiation, is also a common skill, albeit an unrefined one; as James Joyce would have it, mediation is a chaosmos, an order which is unsettled by the disorder it seeks to direct. We often facilitate conflict between family members or friends, acting as middlemen (or women) relaying messages and summarizing underlying needs. The trick is to unearth this unrecognized daily practice and recognize its distinctive methods. Mediation is the structured emergence of difference that creates space for potential convergence.
Unfortunately, I have been somewhat skeptical of mediation. I never doubted the vital importance of it in certain circumstances but I wondered how applicable it was in many situations, especially when it became extremely specialized and professionalized. In my limited view, mediators whitewashed severe inequities and power imbalances by claiming neutrality, leading some to boast they could mediate anything, presumably even racial or economic conflicts. Major nations send mediators like George Mitchell to facilitate the (laughably named) Middle East peace process, who inevitably fail because they enter assuming, or pretending, that two equal parties sit at the table. And when Palestinians refuse to concede on certain issues, the mediators complain that they aren’t giving up enough ground. But how do you give ground when you don’t have much to give? How do you give ground when you believe that most of your ground was taken by the party with whom you’re supposed to be negotiating?
I worked with a reconciliation group based in Jerusalem. Musalaha does important work, including mediation work. In the vein of narrative mediation, Musalaha recognizes the vitality of storytelling in which an encounter with the other is unavoidable. That important work, however, is endlessly challenging and frustrating because they are handcuffed by a desire to appease exceedingly conflicting groups. In the midst of my frustration I recognized that Musalaha attempts to walk a string-thin line. They are in an extremely volatile situation as a non-profit organization funded mostly by Evangelical Christians, many of whom still ardently sympathize with Israel but also want to help “Arab Christians.” The director, an Israeli Palestinian, says he has “an itch for justice” and is ready for Musalaha to speak more boldly. But if Palestinian participants cry justice for their beloved country too loudly, most Israelis won’t come. However, if Musalaha continues a more neutral stance on political issues, Palestinians will consider that stance as normalizing the occupation and they may not come much longer either. In this case, the process of mediation transforms some individual lives, which cannot be underestimated, but those individual lives return to extreme societal and structural disparities separated by a dividing wall of hostility and concrete.
During this time, once or twice a week several friends of mine and I slept in the home of a nonviolent protest leader outside of Bethlehem because of the regular occurrence of IDF night raids. Apparently, they came to the village regularly, and came while we slept there but never came to the house. Not until we missed a night. Our friend was later taken into a back room at a checkpoint crossing and was beaten for ten or fifteen minutes before being released. Israeli soldiers had the protest leader’s cellphone number, calling him regularly to request visits in his front yard to work things out over tea. The protest leader said that by inviting them for tea he would be accepting the present power inequality in which they could come at will and armed to his home. When the wall fell and the occupation ended, then he would invite them.
Coworkers in the reconciliation group were skeptical of my involvement with nonviolent intervention, direct action, and journalistic advocacy. An activist friend angrily reprimanded me for working with a reconciliation group, all of which she claimed hide behind neutrality and historical amnesia; this friend reprimanded me for this as we drove out to the village to sleep in the protest leader’s home. These experiences, as well as daily crossing through the checkpoints in the separation wall, convinced me that direct action and mediation are both needed. But they manifest themselves in different contexts in which one practice may be inappropriate. Activists sometimes forget that conversation is a desired result of direct action; the table is made more accessible for all. Mediators sometimes forget that makers of peace must often be disturbers of peace. Governments idolize King and Gandhi now that they are dead, but they were vilified as troublemakers and verbally and physically attacked when alive. Mediation has an important place, but cannot be the only core of peacebuilding. It is a backup when negotiation fails because of entrenched ideologies, and nonviolent direct action replaces failed mediation processes. Both channel energy and turn up unheard voices. As Ched Myers and Elaine Enns have said, the two are estranged relatives.
I took my role as a mediator seriously during role-playing sessions and I tried to practice the discussed skills. I have acted as a sort of mediator for friends in dispute, but surveying the field provided a more stable framework in which to work. Part of the beauty of mediation is the interpretability of methods that allows for diverse engagement with the process, whether that is traditional, transformative, narrative, victim-offender, or community mediation. The word chaosmos came to mind several times during the process of mediating and being mediated: a mediator must extensively plan and organize, but must also be open to the unpredictability of human encounter. The mediation process may shed light on unexpected emotions and details that could never have been predicted, even in a role-play situation. This highlighted the fact that mediators do not control the process but instead facilitate it, direct it. In a way, mediators conduct the flux toward an acceptable rhythm. One observer commented that mediators play the role of encourager by soliciting generative ideas from participants. The ownership belongs to the participants and the mediator, in a way, plays stupid so that participants are forced to constantly reshape and reform experiences and emotions. Instead of being the all-knowing third party, the mediator elicits different aspects of repeated stories by assuming ignorance. This forces the participants to continually clarify desires and perspectives. And, unlike negotiation, a third party is able to rephrase previously entrenched views that might make listening and understanding more possible.
My valuation of mediation rose during the class role-playing sessions. I hope to complete the required hours at the Fairfield Center and explore community and narrative mediation in more depth. Conflict will inevitably arise and the skill to stimulate discussion, facilitate listening, and to construct more collaborative environments is critical. And to do all of this without controlling and manipulating the process or the people involved. Mediation is the art of asking the right questions and the art of shared storytelling. In many ways, these are lost arts that must be restored.
Unfortunately, I have been somewhat skeptical of mediation. I never doubted the vital importance of it in certain circumstances but I wondered how applicable it was in many situations, especially when it became extremely specialized and professionalized. In my limited view, mediators whitewashed severe inequities and power imbalances by claiming neutrality, leading some to boast they could mediate anything, presumably even racial or economic conflicts. Major nations send mediators like George Mitchell to facilitate the (laughably named) Middle East peace process, who inevitably fail because they enter assuming, or pretending, that two equal parties sit at the table. And when Palestinians refuse to concede on certain issues, the mediators complain that they aren’t giving up enough ground. But how do you give ground when you don’t have much to give? How do you give ground when you believe that most of your ground was taken by the party with whom you’re supposed to be negotiating?
I worked with a reconciliation group based in Jerusalem. Musalaha does important work, including mediation work. In the vein of narrative mediation, Musalaha recognizes the vitality of storytelling in which an encounter with the other is unavoidable. That important work, however, is endlessly challenging and frustrating because they are handcuffed by a desire to appease exceedingly conflicting groups. In the midst of my frustration I recognized that Musalaha attempts to walk a string-thin line. They are in an extremely volatile situation as a non-profit organization funded mostly by Evangelical Christians, many of whom still ardently sympathize with Israel but also want to help “Arab Christians.” The director, an Israeli Palestinian, says he has “an itch for justice” and is ready for Musalaha to speak more boldly. But if Palestinian participants cry justice for their beloved country too loudly, most Israelis won’t come. However, if Musalaha continues a more neutral stance on political issues, Palestinians will consider that stance as normalizing the occupation and they may not come much longer either. In this case, the process of mediation transforms some individual lives, which cannot be underestimated, but those individual lives return to extreme societal and structural disparities separated by a dividing wall of hostility and concrete.
During this time, once or twice a week several friends of mine and I slept in the home of a nonviolent protest leader outside of Bethlehem because of the regular occurrence of IDF night raids. Apparently, they came to the village regularly, and came while we slept there but never came to the house. Not until we missed a night. Our friend was later taken into a back room at a checkpoint crossing and was beaten for ten or fifteen minutes before being released. Israeli soldiers had the protest leader’s cellphone number, calling him regularly to request visits in his front yard to work things out over tea. The protest leader said that by inviting them for tea he would be accepting the present power inequality in which they could come at will and armed to his home. When the wall fell and the occupation ended, then he would invite them.
Coworkers in the reconciliation group were skeptical of my involvement with nonviolent intervention, direct action, and journalistic advocacy. An activist friend angrily reprimanded me for working with a reconciliation group, all of which she claimed hide behind neutrality and historical amnesia; this friend reprimanded me for this as we drove out to the village to sleep in the protest leader’s home. These experiences, as well as daily crossing through the checkpoints in the separation wall, convinced me that direct action and mediation are both needed. But they manifest themselves in different contexts in which one practice may be inappropriate. Activists sometimes forget that conversation is a desired result of direct action; the table is made more accessible for all. Mediators sometimes forget that makers of peace must often be disturbers of peace. Governments idolize King and Gandhi now that they are dead, but they were vilified as troublemakers and verbally and physically attacked when alive. Mediation has an important place, but cannot be the only core of peacebuilding. It is a backup when negotiation fails because of entrenched ideologies, and nonviolent direct action replaces failed mediation processes. Both channel energy and turn up unheard voices. As Ched Myers and Elaine Enns have said, the two are estranged relatives.
I took my role as a mediator seriously during role-playing sessions and I tried to practice the discussed skills. I have acted as a sort of mediator for friends in dispute, but surveying the field provided a more stable framework in which to work. Part of the beauty of mediation is the interpretability of methods that allows for diverse engagement with the process, whether that is traditional, transformative, narrative, victim-offender, or community mediation. The word chaosmos came to mind several times during the process of mediating and being mediated: a mediator must extensively plan and organize, but must also be open to the unpredictability of human encounter. The mediation process may shed light on unexpected emotions and details that could never have been predicted, even in a role-play situation. This highlighted the fact that mediators do not control the process but instead facilitate it, direct it. In a way, mediators conduct the flux toward an acceptable rhythm. One observer commented that mediators play the role of encourager by soliciting generative ideas from participants. The ownership belongs to the participants and the mediator, in a way, plays stupid so that participants are forced to constantly reshape and reform experiences and emotions. Instead of being the all-knowing third party, the mediator elicits different aspects of repeated stories by assuming ignorance. This forces the participants to continually clarify desires and perspectives. And, unlike negotiation, a third party is able to rephrase previously entrenched views that might make listening and understanding more possible.
My valuation of mediation rose during the class role-playing sessions. I hope to complete the required hours at the Fairfield Center and explore community and narrative mediation in more depth. Conflict will inevitably arise and the skill to stimulate discussion, facilitate listening, and to construct more collaborative environments is critical. And to do all of this without controlling and manipulating the process or the people involved. Mediation is the art of asking the right questions and the art of shared storytelling. In many ways, these are lost arts that must be restored.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Cosmopolitanism and Bioregionalism: Reflection on Contemporary Conflict Resolution
Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse have produced a remarkable and thorough resource for reflective practitioners. Contemporary Conflict Resolution is an ambitious attempt to explore the history, practices, and critiques of the field. I felt compelled to read beyond the assigned chapters because of the multiplicity of important topics. Indeed, the volume is so broad and expansive that the task of reflecting on it is extremely daunting. Too many possible trails diverge in this dense wood.
Cosmopolitan conflict resolution is the central theme of the massive book (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 265), the deepest level of which is conflict transformation (ibid, pp. 31-32). This well-articulated approach is based on cooperation (ibid, p. 20). However, the current global economic and political structures engender extreme competition, centralization, and stratification. Interestingly, the authors adamantly praise the United Nations as the pinnacle of cosmopolitan conflict resolution (ibid, pp. 273-4), which depends on the aforementioned structures (ibid, p. 272). The authors defend the United Nations from detractors throughout the book (ibid, p. 291), which is indeed admirable and appropriate at times. But they do so by propagating global citizenship in a world community (ibid, p. 396). This appears reasonable, but becomes problematic when cosmopolitanism remains comfortable with mere reform of the state system (ibid, p. 399).
Reform is certainly not a four-letter word, and is absolutely necessary at times, but many historians claim that state-making has served, not to protect people from violence as Hobbes would contend (ibid, pp. 95-96), but to organize for the purpose of war (Alexis-Baker, 2011). Rather than paving the way for the world community, nation-states disintegrated communities (ibid). Indeed, European peasants staged major rebellions, causing some of the most tumultuous periods in European history (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 275), during the infancy of the nation-state when leaders introduced uniform language and currency over huge territories (Alexis-Baker, 2011).
The Occupy Wall Street movement is resisting similar trends within liberal democracy, in effect agreeing with the authors’ critique of the internal democratic peace theory (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 280). Liberal democracies bifurcated the political and economic systems, in which the supposed equality of the former actually supports structural inequality in the latter (Myers, 1994, p. 294). Many Americans, even poor Americans, seem to have accepted this division and forfeited economic or political transformation because Horatio Algers’ bootstrap tales are still so prevalent.
The authors of this textbook have internalized another tale which believes that international law and human rights can be normalized in a convergence of state interests that will ultimately transform the current systems (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 280). This strikes me as “an admittedly overoptimistic ‘long history of the state’ in terms of the development of international norms” (ibid, p. 275) and an extremely positivist view of historical progress (ibid, p. 267, 269), a view which has caused inestimable violence to the indigenous people of the West, to non-Westerners, and to women of all races (Caputo, 2006, p. 38). The UN did not prevent the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor have they ever effectively constrained Israel, who easily ignores UN resolutions without any fear of repercussion. Israel is an example of a rejection of the liberal cosmopolitan values and principles which the authors religiously endorse (ibid, p. 411), but the authors main example of rejection is Wahhabist Muslims who cannot accept liberal democracy because majority opinion might outvote the will of Allah (ibid, p. 411). The authors fear this rejection of cosmopolitanism, but is it fundamentally different from Israel’s stance or even from American conscientious objectors? Even if the majority votes for war, which they do through tax dollars and presidential votes, conscientious objectors reject majority opinion within a liberal democracy. The authors’ viewpoint thus orients them back to military force in order to impose liberal democratic cosmopolitan values (ibid, p. 327), even though just war criteria have never prevented any war. Is the role of the peacebuilder ultimately to control the flow of history? Could there be a difference between controlling and leavening?
Liberal human rights and international law are incredibly important references and tools, but they often seem shallow when compared to deep cultural reservoirs of human folly and wisdom (discussed in chapter fifteen). Certainly these reservoirs can be dangerous because of their endless interpretability. However, this is no less the case for the text of human rights, whose staunchest advocates think such rights are universal. But nothing cultural is really universal, which is why people spend so much time arguing for human rights, or rather evangelizing for them. I am not necessarily against ‘evangelism’ for justice and peacemaking, but I tend to think that interpretability is what gives texts their life, and I tend to think that universality emerges from the plurality of particularity, not from an indistinct uniformity. Part of the irony is that many peacebuilders insist on abstract formulations like “the family of nations” or “the world community” (ibid, p. 266, 396) and then also posit human rights as the basis for all relationships. But healthy families and communities are not centered on rights; they are centered on responsibility to other members. In a way, solely rights-based approaches can devalue communal interdependence by operating on individualistic assumptions: instead of active and responsible participation, we get de-personalized laws of non-infringement. Some have argued that such laws were actually designed to dismantle social groups into more manageable individuals (Alexis-Baker, 2011). Again, I am certainly not rejecting the significant tool of human rights, and they may be transitionally necessary in a world of global economics and nation-states. But I am suggesting that they may not be all-sufficient. In the end, stories are all we have.
No system will ever be perfect, but are we able to even imagine alternatives such as bioregionalism? Bioregionalism is a political, economic, and cultural way of life defined by ecological boundaries such as watersheds and soil types, rather than arbitrary state lines. We are members of specific communities within specific ecosystems, not of some amorphous world community. However, these specific communities are irrevocably connected to other specific communities and require participation and cooperation and therefore preventing devolution into tiny isolate enclaves. Bioregionalism thus takes very seriously “post-structural concerns for local participation and human diversity” (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 267).
What might a cosmopolitan bioregionalism look like? The textbook authors are rightly committed to pluralism (ibid, p. 396-399), but for some reason think that global governance can deliver locally defined welfare for the most marginalized (ibid, p. 397). While perhaps possible, the authors don’t adequately explain how global governance, presumably under UN administration, would prevent homogenization and “top-down forces of militarist, market-driven, materialist globalization” (ibid, p. 398). The earth itself is capable of cultivating pluralism, witnessed in natural biodiversity, but it is also able to limit and ground it (Myers, 1994, p. 364). Theoretically, placing economics under the control of bioregional knowledge would foster cooperation because everyone would be dependent on resource stewardship of that place; however, abolishing centralized authority (whether the nation-state government or the UN), does not automatically instigate inter-regional warfare over territory. The textbook authors note that real commons did not predominantly end in tragedy because people mostly cooperated by regulating competition and restricting freedom (Ramsbotham, 2011, pp. 294-295). Bioregional governance requires a networked confederation of local groups to plan, cooperate, trade, mediate, and share knowledge (Myers, 1994, p. 366).
Bioregionalism is one imaginable alternative that can even be planted within the shell of existing structures. The chapter on environmental conflict resolution (Ramsbotham, 2011, pp. 293-304) introduces extremely important issues such as climate change, peak oil, resource competition, and the survival of the marginalized (ibid, p. 293). The authors relate important examples such as a Californian water conflict (ibid, p. 295), but they would have benefited significantly from discussing the potential of permaculture as a form of peacebuilding. Rooted in ecological science and systems theory (Holmgren, 2004, p. 4) as well as community research, religious traditions, and native cultures of place (ibid, p. 6), permaculture is a form of land and cultural design and management that stems from three interrelated ethical maxims: “Care for the earth (husband soil, forests and water)”; “Care for people (look after self, kin and community)”; and “Fair share (set limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus)” (ibid, p. 6). Furthermore, the word permaculture not only means permanent and sustainable agriculture but also permanent and sustainable culture (ibid, p. 1). A brief example is Bustan Qaraaqa, a community permaculture farm located in Beit Sahour, a village close to Bethlehem, Palestine. The farm addresses food insecurity and environmental degradation that result from infrastructural instability and a military occupation. Through education and demonstration, the farm models cheap and easy ways to live sustainably and produce food such as water conservation, aquaponics systems, tree planting, and will soon include waste management and fish farming.
On a final note, the authors could have strengthened their helpful survey (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 294) by mentioning Cuba. The Caribbean country plummeted into economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union (Rosset & Bourque, 2005, p. 363). Fossil fuel availability drastically decreased, as well as food imports which dropped by more than fifty percent; Cuban agriculture lost seventy percent of available fertilizers and pesticides (ibid, p. 364). Daily caloric intake in the early 1990s dropped by thirty percent from the 1980s (ibid, p. 364). Remarkably, Cuba survived and thrived in the aftermath of their initial catastrophe by employing alternative technologies, returning to animal instead of mechanical traction, remembering older techniques (such as intercropping, crop rotations, and composting), and supplementing limited synthetic fertilizers with agroecological practices such as biopesticides and biofertilizers, natural enemies, earthworms, green manures and cover crops, and integration of grazing animals (ibid, p. 364).
The government simultaneously converted almost all state farms into worker-owned cooperatives, acknowledging that farm managers’ must be “intimately familiar with the ecological heterogeneity” of the land (ibid, p. 365). Individual farms (ibid, p. 364) and these worker-owned cooperatives represent a fascinating synthesis of capitalism and socialism. Urban farming played a central role in overcoming food insecurity (ibid, pp. 365-366), flipping conventional wisdom on its back by proving that small countries can feed themselves, even without copious synthetic fertilizers and corporate-scale farms (ibid, p. 366). Cuban practices such as agroecology, fair prices, land redistribution, local production, and urban farming are very applicable elsewhere (ibid, p. 367). Cuba emerges as a key example of an alternative paradigm that addresses extreme environmental and social challenges (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 293) and is a paradigm, along with bioregionalism, that has definite resonances with the important insights of cosmopolitan conflict resolution (ibid, p. 32).
References
Alexis-Baker, A. (2011). The myth of state as savior and elections as a confession of faith. Retrieved November 9, 2011, from Jesus Radicals.
site: http://www.jesusradicals.com/the-myth-of-the-state-as-savior-and-elections-as-confession-of-faith/
Caputo, J. (2006). Philosophy and theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Holmgren, D. (2004). Essence of permaculture. Retrieved June 30, 2011, from Holmgren
Design Services Website: http://www.holmgren.com.au/
Myers. C. (1994). Who will roll away the stone?: Discipleship queries for first world christians. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Ramsbotham, O., Woodhouse, T., and Miall, H. (2011). Contemporary conflict resolution (3rd ed.). Malden: Polity Press.
Rosset, P, & Bourque, M. (2005). Lessons of Cuban resistance. In J. Pretty (ed.), The Earthscan reader in sustainable agriculture (pp. 362-367). Sterling: Earthscan.
Cosmopolitan conflict resolution is the central theme of the massive book (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 265), the deepest level of which is conflict transformation (ibid, pp. 31-32). This well-articulated approach is based on cooperation (ibid, p. 20). However, the current global economic and political structures engender extreme competition, centralization, and stratification. Interestingly, the authors adamantly praise the United Nations as the pinnacle of cosmopolitan conflict resolution (ibid, pp. 273-4), which depends on the aforementioned structures (ibid, p. 272). The authors defend the United Nations from detractors throughout the book (ibid, p. 291), which is indeed admirable and appropriate at times. But they do so by propagating global citizenship in a world community (ibid, p. 396). This appears reasonable, but becomes problematic when cosmopolitanism remains comfortable with mere reform of the state system (ibid, p. 399).
Reform is certainly not a four-letter word, and is absolutely necessary at times, but many historians claim that state-making has served, not to protect people from violence as Hobbes would contend (ibid, pp. 95-96), but to organize for the purpose of war (Alexis-Baker, 2011). Rather than paving the way for the world community, nation-states disintegrated communities (ibid). Indeed, European peasants staged major rebellions, causing some of the most tumultuous periods in European history (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 275), during the infancy of the nation-state when leaders introduced uniform language and currency over huge territories (Alexis-Baker, 2011).
The Occupy Wall Street movement is resisting similar trends within liberal democracy, in effect agreeing with the authors’ critique of the internal democratic peace theory (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 280). Liberal democracies bifurcated the political and economic systems, in which the supposed equality of the former actually supports structural inequality in the latter (Myers, 1994, p. 294). Many Americans, even poor Americans, seem to have accepted this division and forfeited economic or political transformation because Horatio Algers’ bootstrap tales are still so prevalent.
The authors of this textbook have internalized another tale which believes that international law and human rights can be normalized in a convergence of state interests that will ultimately transform the current systems (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 280). This strikes me as “an admittedly overoptimistic ‘long history of the state’ in terms of the development of international norms” (ibid, p. 275) and an extremely positivist view of historical progress (ibid, p. 267, 269), a view which has caused inestimable violence to the indigenous people of the West, to non-Westerners, and to women of all races (Caputo, 2006, p. 38). The UN did not prevent the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor have they ever effectively constrained Israel, who easily ignores UN resolutions without any fear of repercussion. Israel is an example of a rejection of the liberal cosmopolitan values and principles which the authors religiously endorse (ibid, p. 411), but the authors main example of rejection is Wahhabist Muslims who cannot accept liberal democracy because majority opinion might outvote the will of Allah (ibid, p. 411). The authors fear this rejection of cosmopolitanism, but is it fundamentally different from Israel’s stance or even from American conscientious objectors? Even if the majority votes for war, which they do through tax dollars and presidential votes, conscientious objectors reject majority opinion within a liberal democracy. The authors’ viewpoint thus orients them back to military force in order to impose liberal democratic cosmopolitan values (ibid, p. 327), even though just war criteria have never prevented any war. Is the role of the peacebuilder ultimately to control the flow of history? Could there be a difference between controlling and leavening?
Liberal human rights and international law are incredibly important references and tools, but they often seem shallow when compared to deep cultural reservoirs of human folly and wisdom (discussed in chapter fifteen). Certainly these reservoirs can be dangerous because of their endless interpretability. However, this is no less the case for the text of human rights, whose staunchest advocates think such rights are universal. But nothing cultural is really universal, which is why people spend so much time arguing for human rights, or rather evangelizing for them. I am not necessarily against ‘evangelism’ for justice and peacemaking, but I tend to think that interpretability is what gives texts their life, and I tend to think that universality emerges from the plurality of particularity, not from an indistinct uniformity. Part of the irony is that many peacebuilders insist on abstract formulations like “the family of nations” or “the world community” (ibid, p. 266, 396) and then also posit human rights as the basis for all relationships. But healthy families and communities are not centered on rights; they are centered on responsibility to other members. In a way, solely rights-based approaches can devalue communal interdependence by operating on individualistic assumptions: instead of active and responsible participation, we get de-personalized laws of non-infringement. Some have argued that such laws were actually designed to dismantle social groups into more manageable individuals (Alexis-Baker, 2011). Again, I am certainly not rejecting the significant tool of human rights, and they may be transitionally necessary in a world of global economics and nation-states. But I am suggesting that they may not be all-sufficient. In the end, stories are all we have.
No system will ever be perfect, but are we able to even imagine alternatives such as bioregionalism? Bioregionalism is a political, economic, and cultural way of life defined by ecological boundaries such as watersheds and soil types, rather than arbitrary state lines. We are members of specific communities within specific ecosystems, not of some amorphous world community. However, these specific communities are irrevocably connected to other specific communities and require participation and cooperation and therefore preventing devolution into tiny isolate enclaves. Bioregionalism thus takes very seriously “post-structural concerns for local participation and human diversity” (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 267).
What might a cosmopolitan bioregionalism look like? The textbook authors are rightly committed to pluralism (ibid, p. 396-399), but for some reason think that global governance can deliver locally defined welfare for the most marginalized (ibid, p. 397). While perhaps possible, the authors don’t adequately explain how global governance, presumably under UN administration, would prevent homogenization and “top-down forces of militarist, market-driven, materialist globalization” (ibid, p. 398). The earth itself is capable of cultivating pluralism, witnessed in natural biodiversity, but it is also able to limit and ground it (Myers, 1994, p. 364). Theoretically, placing economics under the control of bioregional knowledge would foster cooperation because everyone would be dependent on resource stewardship of that place; however, abolishing centralized authority (whether the nation-state government or the UN), does not automatically instigate inter-regional warfare over territory. The textbook authors note that real commons did not predominantly end in tragedy because people mostly cooperated by regulating competition and restricting freedom (Ramsbotham, 2011, pp. 294-295). Bioregional governance requires a networked confederation of local groups to plan, cooperate, trade, mediate, and share knowledge (Myers, 1994, p. 366).
Bioregionalism is one imaginable alternative that can even be planted within the shell of existing structures. The chapter on environmental conflict resolution (Ramsbotham, 2011, pp. 293-304) introduces extremely important issues such as climate change, peak oil, resource competition, and the survival of the marginalized (ibid, p. 293). The authors relate important examples such as a Californian water conflict (ibid, p. 295), but they would have benefited significantly from discussing the potential of permaculture as a form of peacebuilding. Rooted in ecological science and systems theory (Holmgren, 2004, p. 4) as well as community research, religious traditions, and native cultures of place (ibid, p. 6), permaculture is a form of land and cultural design and management that stems from three interrelated ethical maxims: “Care for the earth (husband soil, forests and water)”; “Care for people (look after self, kin and community)”; and “Fair share (set limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus)” (ibid, p. 6). Furthermore, the word permaculture not only means permanent and sustainable agriculture but also permanent and sustainable culture (ibid, p. 1). A brief example is Bustan Qaraaqa, a community permaculture farm located in Beit Sahour, a village close to Bethlehem, Palestine. The farm addresses food insecurity and environmental degradation that result from infrastructural instability and a military occupation. Through education and demonstration, the farm models cheap and easy ways to live sustainably and produce food such as water conservation, aquaponics systems, tree planting, and will soon include waste management and fish farming.
On a final note, the authors could have strengthened their helpful survey (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 294) by mentioning Cuba. The Caribbean country plummeted into economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union (Rosset & Bourque, 2005, p. 363). Fossil fuel availability drastically decreased, as well as food imports which dropped by more than fifty percent; Cuban agriculture lost seventy percent of available fertilizers and pesticides (ibid, p. 364). Daily caloric intake in the early 1990s dropped by thirty percent from the 1980s (ibid, p. 364). Remarkably, Cuba survived and thrived in the aftermath of their initial catastrophe by employing alternative technologies, returning to animal instead of mechanical traction, remembering older techniques (such as intercropping, crop rotations, and composting), and supplementing limited synthetic fertilizers with agroecological practices such as biopesticides and biofertilizers, natural enemies, earthworms, green manures and cover crops, and integration of grazing animals (ibid, p. 364).
The government simultaneously converted almost all state farms into worker-owned cooperatives, acknowledging that farm managers’ must be “intimately familiar with the ecological heterogeneity” of the land (ibid, p. 365). Individual farms (ibid, p. 364) and these worker-owned cooperatives represent a fascinating synthesis of capitalism and socialism. Urban farming played a central role in overcoming food insecurity (ibid, pp. 365-366), flipping conventional wisdom on its back by proving that small countries can feed themselves, even without copious synthetic fertilizers and corporate-scale farms (ibid, p. 366). Cuban practices such as agroecology, fair prices, land redistribution, local production, and urban farming are very applicable elsewhere (ibid, p. 367). Cuba emerges as a key example of an alternative paradigm that addresses extreme environmental and social challenges (Ramsbotham, 2011, p. 293) and is a paradigm, along with bioregionalism, that has definite resonances with the important insights of cosmopolitan conflict resolution (ibid, p. 32).
References
Alexis-Baker, A. (2011). The myth of state as savior and elections as a confession of faith. Retrieved November 9, 2011, from Jesus Radicals.
site: http://www.jesusradicals.com/the-myth-of-the-state-as-savior-and-elections-as-confession-of-faith/
Caputo, J. (2006). Philosophy and theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Holmgren, D. (2004). Essence of permaculture. Retrieved June 30, 2011, from Holmgren
Design Services Website: http://www.holmgren.com.au/
Myers. C. (1994). Who will roll away the stone?: Discipleship queries for first world christians. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Ramsbotham, O., Woodhouse, T., and Miall, H. (2011). Contemporary conflict resolution (3rd ed.). Malden: Polity Press.
Rosset, P, & Bourque, M. (2005). Lessons of Cuban resistance. In J. Pretty (ed.), The Earthscan reader in sustainable agriculture (pp. 362-367). Sterling: Earthscan.
Monday, October 24, 2011
The Nature of Science in Sustainable Agriculture
Science inhabits an important niche in sustainable agriculture. This niche functions in several related ways.
Firstly, science produces measurements and provides demonstration. We may observe that carrots and tomatoes, squash and corn, lettuce and walnut husks, grow better together, or that polyculture is more productive than monoculture, but a scientific approach quantifies the increase in yield and the benefit to the system as a whole. In this way, science conducts tests in the particularity of each agroecosystem.
Secondly, science can offer credibility and argumentation. Many in Western societies, from skeptics to the disinterested, will more likely believe statistical analysis of a formal experiment than cultural tradition or experiential observation. By offering tested data, science serves to convince a public predisposed to quantification by illuminating the credibility of sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, accepted mainstream science has endorsed the agricultural status quo, so one role of science in sustainable agriculture is argumentation in the arena of hypotheses. Also, case studies from other countries in which sustainable practices have been employed for centuries are given credibility by measurements and demonstrations.
Thirdly, science deepens understandings and of ecological rhythms which sustainable agriculture strives to imitate. In this way, different fields of science establish a mosaic of knowledge which undergirds sustainable agricultural practices. Rather than preoccupation with universality, this deepened understanding focuses on the local context, therefore encouraging participation in bioregional processes. Science therefore enables the farmer to partner with the natural processes of a certain place in order to maximize yield and to preserve the place’s health into the foreseeable future.
As such, sustainable farmers practice numerous kinds of science, including (among many others) ecology, agronomy, biology, climatology, physiology, hydrology, and even nutrition. Extensive training in all these fields is not required for a farmer to be sustainable, but aspects and insights from each will be present in the work itself. Also, sustainable farmers will literally be involved in field work as opposed to laboratories and test-tube experiments: their work will be exposed to and incorporate natural disturbances. Because of this, sustainable farmers will not employ some universal step-by-step scientific method because each agroecosystem is distinct and requires intentional and contextual interaction that cannot be achieved through prepackaged methodologies. However, farmers will utilize different scientific methods depending on their context, even depending on different locations within their farms. An assortment of methods will emerge based on the needs and the gifts of the particular place. Observation and context are pivotal in scientific methods.
These methods of science in sustainable agriculture will be the same as the nature of science. Agricultural science will be empirical, based on observations of and experiences in the ecosystems on the farm and the ecosystems in which the farm is located. It will be inferential, which means it will make claims about those observations. For instance, a farmer may observe that certain crops are no longer wilted and may then infer that this is due to efficient distribution of rainwater collection or to the addition of mulching that retains moisture content in the topsoil. Agricultural science will also be theory-laden; nothing occurs in a vacuum and so farmers will be biased by values and training. A farmer with an agronomic background may posit everything as a soil management problem, while a farmer with education in physiology may first look to the individual plant as the most important factor. Because this is inevitable (and not altogether bad), diversifying the disciplines by recognizing their interdependence becomes vital. Additionally, agricultural will be socially and culturally conditioned. All scientists are partially determined by the values, practices, and perceptions of their own culture. Agricultural scientists will grow certain types of crops, employ certain types of technology, conduct certain types of experiments, and respond with certain types of native techniques depending on their culture’s standards and ethics. In another way, sustainable agricultural science will be socially bound by recognizing its connection to other social practices such as economics, politics, and religion. Agricultural science will also be socially and culturally conditioned because it will take seriously the health of human and nonhuman communities in that place, as well as learning from the folly and wisdom embedded in cultural traditions.
And agricultural science will be tentative and therefore subject to evolution. Ecosystems exhibit a dynamic equilibrium and so agricultural science must embrace and adapt to that dynamism. Agricultural science will also be tentative because it will be open to knowledge from the plurality of other places in the world.
Firstly, science produces measurements and provides demonstration. We may observe that carrots and tomatoes, squash and corn, lettuce and walnut husks, grow better together, or that polyculture is more productive than monoculture, but a scientific approach quantifies the increase in yield and the benefit to the system as a whole. In this way, science conducts tests in the particularity of each agroecosystem.
Secondly, science can offer credibility and argumentation. Many in Western societies, from skeptics to the disinterested, will more likely believe statistical analysis of a formal experiment than cultural tradition or experiential observation. By offering tested data, science serves to convince a public predisposed to quantification by illuminating the credibility of sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, accepted mainstream science has endorsed the agricultural status quo, so one role of science in sustainable agriculture is argumentation in the arena of hypotheses. Also, case studies from other countries in which sustainable practices have been employed for centuries are given credibility by measurements and demonstrations.
Thirdly, science deepens understandings and of ecological rhythms which sustainable agriculture strives to imitate. In this way, different fields of science establish a mosaic of knowledge which undergirds sustainable agricultural practices. Rather than preoccupation with universality, this deepened understanding focuses on the local context, therefore encouraging participation in bioregional processes. Science therefore enables the farmer to partner with the natural processes of a certain place in order to maximize yield and to preserve the place’s health into the foreseeable future.
As such, sustainable farmers practice numerous kinds of science, including (among many others) ecology, agronomy, biology, climatology, physiology, hydrology, and even nutrition. Extensive training in all these fields is not required for a farmer to be sustainable, but aspects and insights from each will be present in the work itself. Also, sustainable farmers will literally be involved in field work as opposed to laboratories and test-tube experiments: their work will be exposed to and incorporate natural disturbances. Because of this, sustainable farmers will not employ some universal step-by-step scientific method because each agroecosystem is distinct and requires intentional and contextual interaction that cannot be achieved through prepackaged methodologies. However, farmers will utilize different scientific methods depending on their context, even depending on different locations within their farms. An assortment of methods will emerge based on the needs and the gifts of the particular place. Observation and context are pivotal in scientific methods.
These methods of science in sustainable agriculture will be the same as the nature of science. Agricultural science will be empirical, based on observations of and experiences in the ecosystems on the farm and the ecosystems in which the farm is located. It will be inferential, which means it will make claims about those observations. For instance, a farmer may observe that certain crops are no longer wilted and may then infer that this is due to efficient distribution of rainwater collection or to the addition of mulching that retains moisture content in the topsoil. Agricultural science will also be theory-laden; nothing occurs in a vacuum and so farmers will be biased by values and training. A farmer with an agronomic background may posit everything as a soil management problem, while a farmer with education in physiology may first look to the individual plant as the most important factor. Because this is inevitable (and not altogether bad), diversifying the disciplines by recognizing their interdependence becomes vital. Additionally, agricultural will be socially and culturally conditioned. All scientists are partially determined by the values, practices, and perceptions of their own culture. Agricultural scientists will grow certain types of crops, employ certain types of technology, conduct certain types of experiments, and respond with certain types of native techniques depending on their culture’s standards and ethics. In another way, sustainable agricultural science will be socially bound by recognizing its connection to other social practices such as economics, politics, and religion. Agricultural science will also be socially and culturally conditioned because it will take seriously the health of human and nonhuman communities in that place, as well as learning from the folly and wisdom embedded in cultural traditions.
And agricultural science will be tentative and therefore subject to evolution. Ecosystems exhibit a dynamic equilibrium and so agricultural science must embrace and adapt to that dynamism. Agricultural science will also be tentative because it will be open to knowledge from the plurality of other places in the world.
Friday, October 21, 2011
The Body Politic: Gilligan's Preventing Violence
Most of my classmates cannot stop singing praises about James Gilligan’s Preventing Violence. To a large extent, I can relate. Gilligan’s exposition on the multi-determined nature of violence (Gilligan, 2001, p. 67) is captivating and compelling. Many of his conclusions in some way support my convictions of community, nonviolence, the convergence of interpersonal and structural transformation, and the inherent structural problems of our collective house. He puts the future as starkly as did MLK: either we learn to live, and want to live, together or we die (p. 9). I also related to Gilligan’s doubt: he makes clear that he is not at all optimistic that the United States will heed his theory and generate the political and economic will to restructure our lives (p. 26); charting out a course to prevent violence does not mean we will set sail. I do not feel much optimism or idealism at all anymore, but I cannot shake deep convictions and, in some ways, a sense of obligation. Now that I have seen and encountered, I cannot ignore.
Gilligan’s public health approach (p. 12) is tremendously helpful, attempting to explicate causes and responses from a phenomenological perspective rather than a strictly a priori theoretical basis. Because he recognizes the biological, psychological, and social determinants of violence, he also acknowledges different levels of prevention (p. 20), which correspond with John Paul Lederach’s levels of intervention in Building Peace. Both Lederach and Gilligan accept the necessity of a diversity of gifts and a multiplicity of engagement aimed at diving as deep as possible. Like Hercules fighting the Hydra monster, we can chop down destructive systems forever, but they will continually grow back like biting heads unless we tend to the root. In this etymological sense, Gilligan’s diagnosis and prognosis is subversively radical. Furthermore, he won me over with his strong references to literature, such as Woolf, Shakespeare, and Genesis (p. 57, 8). More peacebuilders must begin to take these deep reservoirs of human folly and wisdom much more seriously. Such cultural traditions, like the social sciences, are extremely important disciplines that we cannot ignore.
Upon critical reflection, I have my share of questions with some of Gilligan’s points and assumptions. Gilligan’s impressive theory is that violence revolves around shame (p. 29) and that the purpose of violence is to coerce respect from others (p. 35). I put on Gilligan’s glasses and was amazed to see how many acts of violence could indeed be traced to shame and the desire for respect. Even playful insults often result in a jocular retaliatory punch in order to save face. While extraordinarily insightful, Gilligan’s theory stems from studies limited to U.S. prisons, which are situated in a Western society. I wonder if his theory can be translated into every culture and every violent situation. For instance, I see a strong correlation between this theory and Israel/Palestine and the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but how does shame-based violence relate to U.S. incursions into Latin America, or funding rebel groups in Mozambique, or the first Gulf War? The danger of a fantastic theory is that it can become just another universal language, another meta-narrative. Interestingly, Gilligan critiques just such a tendency in the medieval concept of evil, which people viewed as an objective reality with an existence independent of subjective experience (p. 14). I think Gilligan has almost replaced “evil” with “shame.” He does not apply shame in the same way he claims medievalists did evil, but he seems to view it as the objective reality which lurks beneath every act of violence. I am hesitant to make such a statement, as possible as it may be.
Gilligan’s phrase “traditional moral and legal approach” (p. 7) is misleading. His prevailing argument is against the contemporary industrial criminal justice system, an argument with which I agree. But that system is not traditional. If, by traditional, he means “what we’ve had for awhile,” such explicitness would be understood and welcome, because equating this present system with the past four thousand years seems untenable. Indeed, he actually notes restorative justice as an alternative (p. 8), which is often inspired by ancient traditional practices, whether from Native Americans, Maoris, or Palestinian Jews.
While I also have problems with moralistic language, Gilligan’s definition of morality is overly negative (p. 18). He seems to think that empiricism is the right framework (p. 12) because it is somehow objective, which means divorced from morality. But observation does not occur without some value-claims. The binary opposition between morality and empiricism is somewhat unhelpful, and it is not necessarily true: our values shape our perceptions and perceptions shape our values. This is an inevitable cycle of mutualism that seems better to embrace than ignore, especially since Gilligan’s training as a psychiatrist illuminates his predisposition to a public health approach (p. 12). As I suggested earlier, his phenomenological lens, which utilizes the social sciences and recognizes “real consequences for real people” (p. 13), is important and resonates very deeply with me, but this is not a separate endeavor from philosophizing. Social sciences can be just as abstract as some philosophy; they contribute an essential voice, but if we take seriously our personal and societal biases we will not claim that they unveil the real perspective. Pitting empiricism against morality implicitly states that we can completely free ourselves from interpretive lenses and see things as they really are. While we cannot and should not reject phenomenology (something which I hold dear), we can and should accept our contingencies and the values that leaven our observations.
Gilligan offers a valid observation of militarism by sardonically suggesting that one murder leads to prison while thousands of murders earn the office of president or the emperor’s crown (p. 59); the highest honor given in the United States is the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is awarded to men for doing violence, for turning themselves and other men into objects of each other’s violence (p. 59). Gilligan in effect blunts this incisive critique by reframing military violence as necessary sacrifice for the sake of comrades and for the sake of all of us (p. 59). Gilligan therefore ends up supporting what he just exposed. Gilligan is very critical about the structural violence of American society, but he retreats from fully applying that critique to a major manifestation of socially-accepted, and socially-endorsed, violence. I am not at all interested in demonization, but if preventing violence is a prerequisite for human survival (p. 26), then militarism cannot be easily excused from the table. Intellectual honesty might require that people’s toes get stepped on at times.
I respectfully step on Gilligan’s toes when he addresses technology and economics. He actually makes an anarcho-primitivist critique when he claims that our hierarchical division of society did not exist before the dawn of the civilization (p. 104) in hunter-gatherer societies (p. 89). Indeed, one could argue that communities like the Hutterites (p. 86) and the kibbutzim (p. 87), examples of ways to create less violent societies, attempt to re-imagine a Paleolithic ethos in the modern world. Gilligan believes, however, that civilization no longer requires stratifications, such as slavery, because of progress (p. 104). Apparently, Gilligan thinks progress replaces human manual labor with robots so that we are free to engage in more productive endeavors (p. 105). I do think appropriate technologies have an important role, and I absolutely agree that we do not need economic stratifications, but I question that this will be achieved by producing more technology that eradicates human engagement. Gilligan’s faith in technological progression seems intimately tied to forms of violence: utter reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels and the violence to the earth and its human and nonhuman communities.
Perhaps this exposes another component of violence: the devaluation of the body and the alienation of work. I don’t think Europeans enslaved Africans because they were black; they enslaved Africans because Africans were economically expedient and militarily unimposing. They could be forced to do the work that Europeans did not want to do and racism justified everything. Replacing slaves with technology will not guarantee the end of resource wars, much less the end of violence. I don’t know exactly in what direction we should move, but I think ancient cultural wisdom might at least provide one interpretation of ways forward. The early monastic communities believed, as Gilligan seems to note, that the project of civilization is constructed on the centralization of exploitation and wealth; if that is the case, then communities should become as self-sufficient as possible (Myers, 1994, p. 182). Furthermore, they claimed that exploitation and wealth stratification stem from the alienation of human labor, which I think relate to a devaluation of the body; in order to restore dignity and respect (as opposed to humiliation and shame), they centered their communal lives around shared manual, and therefore unalienated, work (p. 182). Critical questions can be asked here, but I wonder if the dualism between body and soul plays a larger role in violence than is often credited. If it does, reclaiming the tangibility and localness of the body, and therefore the body’s interdependence with other bodies, is a way of preventing violence in an increasingly virtual age. Nonviolence is a part of this reclamation, because engaged nonviolence affirms the actual embodiment of humanity, recognizing the strategic and subversive placement of the political body within the body politic. The two are inextricably linked.
References
Gilligan, J. (2001). Preventing violence. New York: Thames & Hudson.
Myers, C. (1994). Who will roll away the stone?: Discipleship queries for first world Christians. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Gilligan’s public health approach (p. 12) is tremendously helpful, attempting to explicate causes and responses from a phenomenological perspective rather than a strictly a priori theoretical basis. Because he recognizes the biological, psychological, and social determinants of violence, he also acknowledges different levels of prevention (p. 20), which correspond with John Paul Lederach’s levels of intervention in Building Peace. Both Lederach and Gilligan accept the necessity of a diversity of gifts and a multiplicity of engagement aimed at diving as deep as possible. Like Hercules fighting the Hydra monster, we can chop down destructive systems forever, but they will continually grow back like biting heads unless we tend to the root. In this etymological sense, Gilligan’s diagnosis and prognosis is subversively radical. Furthermore, he won me over with his strong references to literature, such as Woolf, Shakespeare, and Genesis (p. 57, 8). More peacebuilders must begin to take these deep reservoirs of human folly and wisdom much more seriously. Such cultural traditions, like the social sciences, are extremely important disciplines that we cannot ignore.
Upon critical reflection, I have my share of questions with some of Gilligan’s points and assumptions. Gilligan’s impressive theory is that violence revolves around shame (p. 29) and that the purpose of violence is to coerce respect from others (p. 35). I put on Gilligan’s glasses and was amazed to see how many acts of violence could indeed be traced to shame and the desire for respect. Even playful insults often result in a jocular retaliatory punch in order to save face. While extraordinarily insightful, Gilligan’s theory stems from studies limited to U.S. prisons, which are situated in a Western society. I wonder if his theory can be translated into every culture and every violent situation. For instance, I see a strong correlation between this theory and Israel/Palestine and the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but how does shame-based violence relate to U.S. incursions into Latin America, or funding rebel groups in Mozambique, or the first Gulf War? The danger of a fantastic theory is that it can become just another universal language, another meta-narrative. Interestingly, Gilligan critiques just such a tendency in the medieval concept of evil, which people viewed as an objective reality with an existence independent of subjective experience (p. 14). I think Gilligan has almost replaced “evil” with “shame.” He does not apply shame in the same way he claims medievalists did evil, but he seems to view it as the objective reality which lurks beneath every act of violence. I am hesitant to make such a statement, as possible as it may be.
Gilligan’s phrase “traditional moral and legal approach” (p. 7) is misleading. His prevailing argument is against the contemporary industrial criminal justice system, an argument with which I agree. But that system is not traditional. If, by traditional, he means “what we’ve had for awhile,” such explicitness would be understood and welcome, because equating this present system with the past four thousand years seems untenable. Indeed, he actually notes restorative justice as an alternative (p. 8), which is often inspired by ancient traditional practices, whether from Native Americans, Maoris, or Palestinian Jews.
While I also have problems with moralistic language, Gilligan’s definition of morality is overly negative (p. 18). He seems to think that empiricism is the right framework (p. 12) because it is somehow objective, which means divorced from morality. But observation does not occur without some value-claims. The binary opposition between morality and empiricism is somewhat unhelpful, and it is not necessarily true: our values shape our perceptions and perceptions shape our values. This is an inevitable cycle of mutualism that seems better to embrace than ignore, especially since Gilligan’s training as a psychiatrist illuminates his predisposition to a public health approach (p. 12). As I suggested earlier, his phenomenological lens, which utilizes the social sciences and recognizes “real consequences for real people” (p. 13), is important and resonates very deeply with me, but this is not a separate endeavor from philosophizing. Social sciences can be just as abstract as some philosophy; they contribute an essential voice, but if we take seriously our personal and societal biases we will not claim that they unveil the real perspective. Pitting empiricism against morality implicitly states that we can completely free ourselves from interpretive lenses and see things as they really are. While we cannot and should not reject phenomenology (something which I hold dear), we can and should accept our contingencies and the values that leaven our observations.
Gilligan offers a valid observation of militarism by sardonically suggesting that one murder leads to prison while thousands of murders earn the office of president or the emperor’s crown (p. 59); the highest honor given in the United States is the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is awarded to men for doing violence, for turning themselves and other men into objects of each other’s violence (p. 59). Gilligan in effect blunts this incisive critique by reframing military violence as necessary sacrifice for the sake of comrades and for the sake of all of us (p. 59). Gilligan therefore ends up supporting what he just exposed. Gilligan is very critical about the structural violence of American society, but he retreats from fully applying that critique to a major manifestation of socially-accepted, and socially-endorsed, violence. I am not at all interested in demonization, but if preventing violence is a prerequisite for human survival (p. 26), then militarism cannot be easily excused from the table. Intellectual honesty might require that people’s toes get stepped on at times.
I respectfully step on Gilligan’s toes when he addresses technology and economics. He actually makes an anarcho-primitivist critique when he claims that our hierarchical division of society did not exist before the dawn of the civilization (p. 104) in hunter-gatherer societies (p. 89). Indeed, one could argue that communities like the Hutterites (p. 86) and the kibbutzim (p. 87), examples of ways to create less violent societies, attempt to re-imagine a Paleolithic ethos in the modern world. Gilligan believes, however, that civilization no longer requires stratifications, such as slavery, because of progress (p. 104). Apparently, Gilligan thinks progress replaces human manual labor with robots so that we are free to engage in more productive endeavors (p. 105). I do think appropriate technologies have an important role, and I absolutely agree that we do not need economic stratifications, but I question that this will be achieved by producing more technology that eradicates human engagement. Gilligan’s faith in technological progression seems intimately tied to forms of violence: utter reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels and the violence to the earth and its human and nonhuman communities.
Perhaps this exposes another component of violence: the devaluation of the body and the alienation of work. I don’t think Europeans enslaved Africans because they were black; they enslaved Africans because Africans were economically expedient and militarily unimposing. They could be forced to do the work that Europeans did not want to do and racism justified everything. Replacing slaves with technology will not guarantee the end of resource wars, much less the end of violence. I don’t know exactly in what direction we should move, but I think ancient cultural wisdom might at least provide one interpretation of ways forward. The early monastic communities believed, as Gilligan seems to note, that the project of civilization is constructed on the centralization of exploitation and wealth; if that is the case, then communities should become as self-sufficient as possible (Myers, 1994, p. 182). Furthermore, they claimed that exploitation and wealth stratification stem from the alienation of human labor, which I think relate to a devaluation of the body; in order to restore dignity and respect (as opposed to humiliation and shame), they centered their communal lives around shared manual, and therefore unalienated, work (p. 182). Critical questions can be asked here, but I wonder if the dualism between body and soul plays a larger role in violence than is often credited. If it does, reclaiming the tangibility and localness of the body, and therefore the body’s interdependence with other bodies, is a way of preventing violence in an increasingly virtual age. Nonviolence is a part of this reclamation, because engaged nonviolence affirms the actual embodiment of humanity, recognizing the strategic and subversive placement of the political body within the body politic. The two are inextricably linked.
References
Gilligan, J. (2001). Preventing violence. New York: Thames & Hudson.
Myers, C. (1994). Who will roll away the stone?: Discipleship queries for first world Christians. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Agricultural Sustainability
Sustainability is an extremely elusive concept: the more one tries to define it the more it slips through one’s fingers. The word seems, as a rule, more general than specific. But it is largely abstract because definitions are often place-less. Definitions have no particular place in mind in which sustainability can put roots down and stick around for awhile. Certainly some generality is necessary, but without particularity holding this generality down it will float away. Applicability is key.
The original Brundtland definition was too abstract and overly anthropocentric. To be fair, anthropocentrism is not necessarily bad: a jellyfish would be medusacentric. And Brundtland’s and Robert Solow’s neoliberal economics are not the only manifestation of anthropocentrism. Wendell Berry could be considered anthropocentric because he is endlessly passionate about the life and health of human communities. But he is also deeply biocentric because he realizes that human life and health cannot come at the expense of what sustains it and because it cannot come at the expense of the life and health of our home and our nonhuman neighbors, who surely have just as much, if not more, of a right to live on this planet as we do. This synthesis is fertile ground for defining sustainability
A good definition of agricultural sustainability will be so burdened with adjectives that any speaker will trip over it. Ecology, the study of the household, is vital in this discussion, because it connotes the complex relationships of mutuality between various parts to create the whole. Health does not exist in isolation, but in beneficial membership to the entire household. Any definition that is worth its salt will recognize the complex relatedness between social, political, economic, ecological, and cultural issues. If the house is divided against itself it will not stand.
Agricultural sustainability imitates the diverse patterns and relationships of local ecosystems in order to sustain human and nonhuman communities in a particular place for as long as possible. Imitation is an important distinction: agricultural sustainability does not necessarily seek to recreate local ecosystems, but instead seeks to emulate local ecosystems. As such, it makes ends and means as commensurate as possible: it will not impede the land’s inherent ability for renewal and it will reduce (and ultimately eliminate) dependence on non-renewable energy except as a rare supplement. Agricultural sustainability contextually emerges from the study and practice of the whole household, characterized by self-renewal and restoration, stability and mutability, rootedness and longevity. It conserves and preserves biodiversity, soil fertility, watershed integrity, and sociocultural equity while maintaining a sustaining yield. Agricultural sustainability is bioregional and organic, which means it fosters community and culture, respects the limitations and gifts of carrying capacity, and defects as much as possible from dependence on an exploitive economy. It necessitates revitalized communities to care for the land, which should be redistributed into more cooperative ownerships or so people have the opportunity to work productive land (which is not just a Jeffersonian vision, but also a biblical-prophetic one and a distributist-economic one). Urban farming and the gardening of cities must also play a key creative role. None of this will happen overnight with the flick of a magic wand. Agricultural sustainability is a dynamic conversion.
Agricultural sustainability requires storytelling, consciously and critically joining the wisdom of the past with concrete practices in the present to address the potential of the future. As such, it builds up local tradition and culture like topsoil that preserves wisdom but also invites, indeed requires, future inputs and improvements. Marginal places and people must be welcomed in reconstituted communities and restructured systems that also imitate ecosystems (balance, resilience, vitality, diversity, mutuality, etc.) and harmonize with local ecosystems. Neighborliness will be emphasized. Limits must be set on production and consumption, which means that the ratio of farmer to acreage must be decreased. Distribution of surplus will be important as well, because distribution of food poses a greater threat to sustainability than the production of food.
As humans, we must address our needs, but we must do so with the realization that we are not the only, or indeed the most important, species inhabiting this planet. Evolution (and some religious traditions) bears witness to our interconnectedness and interdependence with the earth and fellow creatures. This tension will be a tightrope that cannot be walked in the abstract but only in responsible concrete practices. Sustainable agriculture is the mediator between the health of human culture and the health of the earth because it depends on the permanent renewal of both.
The original Brundtland definition was too abstract and overly anthropocentric. To be fair, anthropocentrism is not necessarily bad: a jellyfish would be medusacentric. And Brundtland’s and Robert Solow’s neoliberal economics are not the only manifestation of anthropocentrism. Wendell Berry could be considered anthropocentric because he is endlessly passionate about the life and health of human communities. But he is also deeply biocentric because he realizes that human life and health cannot come at the expense of what sustains it and because it cannot come at the expense of the life and health of our home and our nonhuman neighbors, who surely have just as much, if not more, of a right to live on this planet as we do. This synthesis is fertile ground for defining sustainability
A good definition of agricultural sustainability will be so burdened with adjectives that any speaker will trip over it. Ecology, the study of the household, is vital in this discussion, because it connotes the complex relationships of mutuality between various parts to create the whole. Health does not exist in isolation, but in beneficial membership to the entire household. Any definition that is worth its salt will recognize the complex relatedness between social, political, economic, ecological, and cultural issues. If the house is divided against itself it will not stand.
Agricultural sustainability imitates the diverse patterns and relationships of local ecosystems in order to sustain human and nonhuman communities in a particular place for as long as possible. Imitation is an important distinction: agricultural sustainability does not necessarily seek to recreate local ecosystems, but instead seeks to emulate local ecosystems. As such, it makes ends and means as commensurate as possible: it will not impede the land’s inherent ability for renewal and it will reduce (and ultimately eliminate) dependence on non-renewable energy except as a rare supplement. Agricultural sustainability contextually emerges from the study and practice of the whole household, characterized by self-renewal and restoration, stability and mutability, rootedness and longevity. It conserves and preserves biodiversity, soil fertility, watershed integrity, and sociocultural equity while maintaining a sustaining yield. Agricultural sustainability is bioregional and organic, which means it fosters community and culture, respects the limitations and gifts of carrying capacity, and defects as much as possible from dependence on an exploitive economy. It necessitates revitalized communities to care for the land, which should be redistributed into more cooperative ownerships or so people have the opportunity to work productive land (which is not just a Jeffersonian vision, but also a biblical-prophetic one and a distributist-economic one). Urban farming and the gardening of cities must also play a key creative role. None of this will happen overnight with the flick of a magic wand. Agricultural sustainability is a dynamic conversion.
Agricultural sustainability requires storytelling, consciously and critically joining the wisdom of the past with concrete practices in the present to address the potential of the future. As such, it builds up local tradition and culture like topsoil that preserves wisdom but also invites, indeed requires, future inputs and improvements. Marginal places and people must be welcomed in reconstituted communities and restructured systems that also imitate ecosystems (balance, resilience, vitality, diversity, mutuality, etc.) and harmonize with local ecosystems. Neighborliness will be emphasized. Limits must be set on production and consumption, which means that the ratio of farmer to acreage must be decreased. Distribution of surplus will be important as well, because distribution of food poses a greater threat to sustainability than the production of food.
As humans, we must address our needs, but we must do so with the realization that we are not the only, or indeed the most important, species inhabiting this planet. Evolution (and some religious traditions) bears witness to our interconnectedness and interdependence with the earth and fellow creatures. This tension will be a tightrope that cannot be walked in the abstract but only in responsible concrete practices. Sustainable agriculture is the mediator between the health of human culture and the health of the earth because it depends on the permanent renewal of both.
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