Molly Wallace (editor) - Perma/Culture: Imagining Alternatives in an Age of Crisis

In the face of what seems like a concerted effort to destroy the only planet that can sustain us, critique is an important tool. It is in this vein that most scholars have approached environmental crisis. While there are numerous texts that chronicle contemporary issues in environmental ills, there are relatively few that explore the possibilities and practices which work to avoid collapse and build alternatives.

The keyword of this books full title, Perma/Culture, alludes to and plays on permaculture, an international movement that can provide a framework for navigating the multiple other worlds within a broader environmental ethic. This edited collection brings together essays from an international team of scholars, activists and artists in order to provide a critical introduction to the ethico-political and cultural elements around the concept of Perma/Culture. These multidisciplinary essays include a varied landscape of sites and practices, from readings from ecotopian literature to an analysis of the intersection of agricultre and art; from an account of the rewards and difficulties of building community in Transition Towns to a description of the ad hoc infrastructure of a fracking protest camp.

Offering a number of constructive models in response to current global environmental challenges, this book makes a significant contribution to current ecoliterature and will be of great interest to students and researchers in Environmental Humanities, Environmental Studies, Sociology and Communication Studies.

Molly Wallace is Associate Professor of English at Queens University, Canada. She writes about and teaches contemporary literature and ecocultural studies.

David Carruthers is a PhD candidate in English at Queens University, Canada. His recent work appears in Mosaic: Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature.

Routledge Environmental Humanities

Series editors: Iain McCalman and Libby Robin

Editorial Board

Christina Alt, St Andrews University, UK

Alison Bashford, University of Cambridge, UK

Peter Coates, University of Bristol, UK

Thom van Dooren, University of New South Wales, Australia

Georgina Endfield, University of Nottingham, UK

Jodi Frawley, University of Sydney, Australia

Andrea Gaynor, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Tom Lynch, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA

Jennifer Newell, American Museum of Natural History, New York, US

Simon Pooley, Imperial College London, UK

Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Ann Waltner, University of Minnesota, US

Paul Warde, University of East Anglia, UK

Jessica Weir, University of Western Sydney, Australia

International Advisory Board

William Beinart, University of Oxford, UK

Sarah Buie, Clark University, USA

Jane Carruthers, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, USA

Paul Holm, Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland

Shen Hou, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

Rob Nixon, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA

Pauline Phemister, Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, UK

Deborah Bird Rose, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Sverker Sorlin, KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich and Co-Director, Rachel Carson Centre, Ludwig-Maxilimilians-Universitt, Germany

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, USA

Kirsten Wehner, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia

The Routledge Environmental Humanities series is an original and inspiring venture recognising that todays world agricultural and water crises, ocean pollution and resource depletion, global warming from greenhouse gases, urban sprawl, overpopulation, food insecurity and environmental justice are all crises of culture.

The reality of understanding and finding adaptive solutions to our present and future environmental challenges has shifted the epicenter of environmental studies away from an exclusively scientific and technological framework to one that depends on the human-focused disciplines and ideas of the humanities and allied social sciences.

We thus welcome book proposals from all humanities and social sciences disciplines for an inclusive and interdisciplinary series. We favour manuscripts aimed at an international readership and written in a lively and accessible style. The readership comprises scholars and students from the humanities and social sciences and thoughtful readers concerned about the human dimensions of environmental change.

Imagining Alternatives in an Age of Crisis

Edited by Molly Wallace
and David Carruthers

First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2018 selection and editorial matter, Molly Wallace and David Carruthers; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wallace, Molly, editor. | Carruthers, David V., editor.Title: Perma/
culture : imagining alternatives in an age of crisis / edited by Molly Wallace
and David Carruthers.Other titles: PermacultureDescription: Abingdon, Oxon ;
New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge environmental humanities |
Includes bibliographical references.Identifiers: LCCN 2017006137|
ISBN 9781138284845 (hbk) | ISBN 9781138400429 (ebk)Subjects: LCSH:
Permaculture. | Sustainable agriculture--Social aspects.Classification: LCC S494.5.P47
P46 2017 | DDC 631.5/8--dc23LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006137

ISBN: 978-1-138-28484-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-40042-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Fish Books Ltd.

TIFFANY HIGGINS

MOLLY WALLACE AND DAVID CARRUTHERS

PART I
Pattern languages

ANDREA MOST

STEPHEN ZAVESTOSKI AND ANDREW WEIGERT

PATRICK JONES

CAMILLE ROULIRE

DOMINIQUE FERRATON

PART II
Transitions in practice