Negotiating Ideology and Practice: Perspectives on Permaculture from Vermont

This ethnography of permaculture in Vermont explores the hegemonic negotiation through which permaculture practitioners situate their movement as an alternative to industrial agriculture and mass consumerism. This work is... [ view full abstract ]

This ethnography of permaculture in Vermont explores the hegemonic negotiation through which permaculture practitioners situate their movement as an alternative to industrial agriculture and mass consumerism. This work is based on the published literature of permaculture authors as well as interviews the author conducted with practitioners in Vermont. I explore relationships between permaculture and mainstream society along two dimensions. First, using Bourdieu’s notions of heterodox discourse, I explore the ideology of permaculture, as its adherents critique and pose alternatives. I identify three themes within their critique: redefining progress and success, redrawing the boundaries between humans and the natural world, and challenging the inevitability of scarcity. Second, I use interview data to explore the reflections of practitioners on their experiences realizing and embodying their heterodox ideology within the constraints of mainstream consumer society. Here, my consultants report minimal constraint imposed by laws and regulations, but identify as problematic cultural norms of individualism and conditions of the market economy. In the end, I argue that while permaculture practitioners in Vermont are able to embody many of the alternatives that they propose; they also find themselves caught up in reproducing some of the market conditions and norms of individualism that they critique.