For The Wild - GUY RITANI and TOAD ANDREW DELL on Queering Permaculture ⧸246

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00:00:30.000 Hey, for the wild community, it's Ayanna here.

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00:01:27.720 hello and welcome to for the wild podcast i'm ayana young today i'm speaking with

00:01:36.280 guy ritani and toad andrew dell of permaqueer and it's the culmination of all of the iterations

00:01:46.500 and failures that creates a good system and so the most beautiful thing about permaculture is

00:01:53.160 it's about getting it wrong it's about getting it wrong and having that curious compassionate

00:01:57.500 openness to trying again. Permaqueer is an ecological education project that focuses

00:02:04.860 on accessibility to LGBTQIA and BIPOC folks. Toad and Guy who run Permaqueer teach permaculture

00:02:13.060 through a queer lens with attention to the decolonization of its practices with more

00:02:18.640 inclusion and access to marginal demographics. To them permaculture provides a method of accessing

00:02:24.980 and managing resources that care for communities' needs with relatively small financial inputs. 0.99

00:02:32.220 Permaqueer actively apply a critical lens to the inherent heteronormative, colonial, patriarchal, 0.94

00:02:37.940 and capitalist white supremacy systems entwined in a lot of sustainability movements. 0.74

00:02:43.240 well thank you both so much for joining me on this really beautiful day here at cougar mountain and i

00:02:55.500 will just mention i am doing this interview outside so you might hear the rustle of the wind

00:03:03.440 in the redwood bows and potentially my cat row coming up and nuzzling me at times so

00:03:11.760 yeah I love being able to speak to you both from the garden direct to source so thank you so much

00:03:21.400 for being with me today. Thank you for having us Ayanna. My name is Toad Andrew Dell like you said

00:03:28.360 and I come from Primaqueer. My pronouns are they them and it and I'm speaking to you here from

00:03:34.880 unceded, stolen country of the Yongeba Nation in so-called Australia. 0.99

00:03:40.360 And my name is Guy Ritani. My pronouns are they, them, and I'm calling in from our Wurundjeri 0.99

00:03:46.780 country, so-called Melbourne, on stolen lands as well.

00:03:51.340 Thank you for grounding us in that way. Well, I feel that many of our listeners are familiar

00:04:01.460 with permaculture as a framework for ecological design. But to begin our conversation, I'm

00:04:08.720 wondering if you can share why you co-created Permaqueer and what teaching permaculture

00:04:15.000 through a queer lens means to you. Thank you for that question. Yeah, why did we start Permaqueer? 0.50

00:04:22.860 It was actually at the end of our PDC that we did together in our final assignment,

00:04:27.300 and I kind of put my hand up and I realized the people that I was seeing perform permaculture

00:04:31.980 were often kind of wealthy white landowners. And I was hearing all this amazing work about people

00:04:37.660 doing it in the suburbs, squats, in all kinds of different and unusual ways. But I wasn't seeing

00:04:44.040 that in my communities. I also saw how the benefits of permaculture could really uplift

00:04:49.880 and enrich a group of people. And I was seeing in how my kind of queer spaces, we weren't exactly

00:04:54.660 having good access to food or community. And for me, I started it as kind of a means to

00:05:01.040 bring permaculture and make it more accessible to queer folk as well as BIPOC communities as well.

00:05:08.040 And I think as well, you know, being part of the beautiful queer community that we are in,

00:05:13.980 and seeing the sort of the impact that permaculture can have, it was necessary for us to create a safe

00:05:22.340 space and initially it came out of creating a safe environment for our community but with you

00:05:28.940 know queer theory and gender fullness and this concept that you know everything can be full of

00:05:35.720 light and love and difference and change and transformation um the sort of venn diagram of

00:05:42.120 of queer lens and permaculture started creating these fantastic environments fantastic designs

00:05:47.920 And I think the way that the true benefit of permaculture through a queer lens has yet to fully unfold, but I feel so grateful that we get to be in this environment and get to design in this way with our community as well.

00:06:06.760 one of the um really beautiful questions that we got asked when we were um starting to run some

00:06:13.780 events uh we were asking for some collaboration with Tyson Jungapoda was he asked um us are you 0.80

00:06:19.600 a bunch of queers doing permaculture or are you queering permaculture it was actually a really

00:06:24.680 great prompt for us to sit back and assess um are we just a bunch of queers doing permaculture or

00:06:29.940 how do we actually queer and bring our culture into our into these spaces and this is still

00:06:35.100 iterative and things that we're working on and sinking into as well. Thank you both so much. And

00:06:42.720 I interviewed Tyson a few months ago now, and I could imagine him asking you that question.

00:06:52.820 But yeah, I think more and more folks are meaningfully coming to the understanding that

00:07:00.400 queerness is not just about individual identity, the physical body, gender, or sexuality alone.

00:07:08.860 And so it makes sense that we see a rise in the call to queer many different spaces that have been

00:07:15.460 inherently heteronormative as a byproduct of society. But at the same time, I think about

00:07:22.500 how this also means there is a risk for co-optation into practices that are shallow and marketable.

00:07:29.420 I'm curious to ask for those of us who want to continue uplifting queerness, how discerning do we need to be as well to ensure that this change in paradigm is truly something that is meaningful and long lasting?

00:07:43.700 I think, you know, one of the big things that can happen, especially in organizations and businesses, when we try to have inclusivity and, you know, diversity training, this whole concept of how do we bridge these things, it's important to make sure that the voices that currently exist in these environments are the ones being listened to.

00:08:09.760 so you know you can have as many queer people or you know gender diverse or you know depends

00:08:16.560 whatever kind of diversity they're trying to integrate but if they're on on these boards

00:08:23.880 or on these decision panels um to just be there um that's that's not enough and we find this

00:08:32.140 happening more often than not because you know queerness and and these perspectives they go

00:08:37.800 against a lot of the foundational thinking that a lot of people are conditioned to so we need to

00:08:43.000 understand that it's not enough just to be in community with these people we have to be asking

00:08:48.660 what is their opinion of it what is what would they do differently how would we integrate their

00:08:55.560 lens into a culture that we can both have and not have fear or frustration or any kind of

00:09:03.700 pre-existing prejudice that we may not even know that we have that for some reason we're not going

00:09:10.120 to to benefit from this collaboration of diversity and I think it's a it's an interesting

00:09:19.160 line to walk especially in organizations when when things can be co-opted and sort of brutalized

00:09:27.440 in a in a inauthentic way i think you really hit a lot of it on the head there um you need to be

00:09:34.380 able to bring your culture into it it's it's you know uh and this kind of this brings up to me the

00:09:40.000 idea of liberation versus equality uh equality is um i as a queer person can be just as violent or

00:09:46.900 appropriate or extractive as the over-cultural uh kind of cishet white maleness of it all

00:09:53.580 uh whereas liberation for me is taking my queer culture and making it something that doesn't it 0.55

00:09:59.660 isn't just oh i'm equal to you we're the same it's actually i am different to you and that is

00:10:03.820 beautiful diversity there that is different culture and experience and kind of integrating

00:10:09.100 that in these spaces to avoid co-option would be to me bringing my culture into that space

00:10:14.380 uh not just oh look i am just like you except i you know am queer on the weekends it's queer for

00:10:22.340 is a way of of being and I think we've seen a lot of co-opting um which is a really complex thing

00:10:29.200 because we had queer liberation and then we um a lot of we lost a lot of our kind of our teeth

00:10:34.580 and our nails uh in the gay rights movement where we saw a lot of us uh a lot of the way that we

00:10:39.980 were marketing ourselves to be more accessible and less scary was the whole we're just like you

00:10:44.800 we're just like whatever and for me queerness is kind of inherently anti-colonial because I see um

00:10:51.240 One of the big kind of principles of colonialism is homogeneity.

00:10:56.900 And queerness is personal.

00:11:00.000 Gender is personal.

00:11:00.980 Sexuality is personal.

00:11:02.560 It can't be often coined into these tiny little boxes that exist purely to be kind of in a

00:11:10.340 reductionist lens.

00:11:11.680 And it exists like my queerness is contextual as well.

00:11:14.920 It's based upon the context of my community, the land I'm living on and like where I am

00:11:19.860 in my life.

00:11:20.440 so I see a lot of it being reduced down to uh like marketable ways and so I have to ask I went

00:11:27.440 in that space always have to ask are we appealing to our oppressors and making ourselves more

00:11:33.240 appealing to them by making ourselves less frightening and kind of falling in line with

00:11:37.940 colonial violence and if we are that's not very queer to me sorry that's a bit of a roundabout

00:11:43.160 way to answer that and also on that notion of heteronormativity like that's it's it's it's

00:11:49.380 incredibly pervasive and and another sort of misunderstanding that can happen is the belief

00:11:56.560 that you know if someone is gay they fall under the lgbtqa umbrella and therefore they are an

00:12:02.560 appropriate representative of all things that are queer but it's it's so much more complex than that

00:12:08.480 we have you know huge issues of heteronormativity that's just re-disguised in primarily cis white

00:12:17.940 gay spaces and that affords these spaces the privileges and the power structures that come

00:12:26.220 along with heteronormativity but often it's misguided in in believing that because we have

00:12:35.060 you know this difference in sexuality that somehow radically changed the ideology behind it

00:12:41.500 but we see time and time again heteronormativity just repackaging itself in a different way and

00:12:48.840 we have to constantly be critical about it so to the to the aspect of you know how do we

00:12:55.380 make sure that this new paradigm is meaningful and long-lasting the same with permaculture you

00:13:00.860 know you when you start your journey in permaculture you just learn more and more

00:13:04.960 context you learn more and more tools you learn more and more understandings that's in a different

00:13:10.960 way similar to queerness as well because it takes more understanding more education more community

00:13:18.880 to understand what what is it that we're getting at here what does it mean what does your own

00:13:25.880 relationship with queerness mean and that doesn't have to be you you know dressing a certain way or

00:13:31.900 changing your sexuality or changing your identity what queer looks like for you and what queer

00:13:38.700 looks like for someone else is completely different things and when we start thinking

00:13:43.500 about queerness as a verb and everyday actions and behaviors this idea of questioning in a

00:13:50.700 beautiful loving way how could something be different how could something be unique how can

00:13:57.060 we adjust things and how can we transform things for me that's the act of the verbing of of queer

00:14:04.140 of queerness and I think everyone figuring out what that means for them and and learning more

00:14:11.920 about it from the queer community can only benefit everyone and I believe that's a huge

00:14:17.940 part in ensuring that this paradigm shift is is meaningful and long-lasting because people get 0.64

00:14:23.120 their own relationship to what it is and it doesn't belong to me doesn't belong to it doesn't

00:14:28.360 belong to permaqueer it belongs to everyone yeah like queerness is so personal and um diverse

00:14:36.700 that i'm sure that there will be people who will listen to this and think well that's not my

00:14:41.160 queerness uh queerness we manifest like this and that's valid uh and that's part of the complexity

00:14:46.580 of it all and i think in colonial culture we really like to kind of fit it into these little

00:14:50.440 boxes and like i was saying just being either homosexual pansexual bisexual any or any kind

00:14:57.280 of gender divergence doesn't also inherently queer you uh historically to be queer was in our cult

00:15:03.900 in western culture was to be extremely ostracized it was often radicalized you considering the fact

00:15:10.040 that you no longer had access to um you know uh community health care safety uh resources so our

00:15:19.440 community had to basically create community and challenge things and this was predominantly led

00:15:24.900 by people of color and by trans women. And this is unfortunately like and often still the most 0.92

00:15:30.940 queer. These are often the people that we see attacked the most, both within quote unquote

00:15:36.680 queer communities and outside of queer communities as well. Thank you both for that. And I know that

00:15:44.900 you're very vocal about the ways in which ecological sustainability movements continue

00:15:50.980 to perpetuate white supremacy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and capitalism. And for so long,

00:15:59.980 environmental movements have negated this charge because they argue that their pursuits and causes

00:16:06.320 are objectively positive because they're on behalf of the so-called natural world. But we have to

00:16:14.060 recognize that there is a direct relationship between these movements and colonization and

00:16:19.260 capitalism in fact in some ways we could think of these movements as a direct byproduct and it's a

00:16:27.300 big inquiry to take on because we know that so many folks come to permaculture because

00:16:32.120 they're really disenchanted with capitalism and supremacy but that isn't enough so i wonder if

00:16:40.640 you could elaborate a bit more on how you see sustainability movements perpetuating inequality

00:16:46.760 And what are some examples of how this remodeling happens?

00:16:53.760 Gosh, I mean, you know, greenwashing is rampant.

00:16:57.000 When under, in Western colonial civilizations and cities and countries, when from the moment you're born till now, the model of existence exists all around you.

00:17:13.780 and that that's capitalism and that's colonialism and that's white supremacy when the only models

00:17:20.260 of existence exist under those power structures no matter how hard you try to step outside of them

00:17:29.120 they are so central to how you think and this is something we have to be critically aware of

00:17:36.420 and we see this happen time and time again in permaculture spaces where you know exorbitant

00:17:42.920 charges and fees are put upon a course that is you know how can we liberate ourselves from these

00:17:49.420 systems but it's only accessible to upper-class affluent individuals and these are people that

00:17:56.820 don't need necessarily need help in this system and so when when we have these insidious sort of

00:18:04.920 roots of capitalism and colonialism come through that actually shunt out the people that are

00:18:11.600 already being oppressed and ostracized and you know disadvantaged by this system there's no

00:18:19.000 actual feedback to correct that system and we have this happen time and time again where the people

00:18:25.100 who are at the bottom who are don't have access to housing or funding or health care if they can't

00:18:34.100 make any structural change and they don't get allowed the space then it's just the same

00:18:40.920 remodeling of this violence so it's not radical if you don't have accessibility to people who

00:18:46.080 don't have time and who don't have money and so that's an issue because it's like well you know

00:18:51.300 as a permaculture teacher or as someone you know you have to be compensated for your labor but that

00:18:59.580 in and of itself is has colonial and white supremacist tendrils within it and so we really

00:19:07.300 have to sit back and at every single point examine what are we doing and where is the

00:19:13.240 core of it and unfortunately we don't have the answers for that but we do have a commitment

00:19:17.180 to constantly bringing up that question and we also have a commitment to constantly bring

00:19:22.620 up that question more and that's what we're trying to do here in permaqueer and we're

00:19:27.640 still on our journey everyone's on the anti-racism journey but it's about making sure we start

00:19:32.840 getting onto that we start educating each other and we start working as a community to move through

00:19:37.560 that but i'll pass that to you now toad if you want to speak to yeah i think um we see some

00:19:44.360 really insidious things even have i'll speak to permaculture specifically uh i was given these

00:19:49.500 words by our permaculture grandmother tomorrow griffith uh one of these two words are spermaculture

00:19:55.280 and permacolonialism spermaculture is we see a lot of uh gatekeeping in our communities by

00:20:01.820 wealthy old white men who are landowners and kind of directing the narrative of what permaculture is

00:20:09.160 and this will this inherently ties into permacolonialism as well I think because a lot of

00:20:15.440 what people are teaching sometimes as permaculture is indigenous technologies around land use being

00:20:22.360 marketed as permaculture you know come to my land and I'll show you how to dig swales and do these

00:20:27.520 these specific land texts that's permaculture when actually it's a systems thinking approach

00:20:32.480 and sometimes maybe these technologies are you know are relevant if with the right people in

00:20:38.060 collaboration uh if it's done well but a lot of the time it's just like i said it's repackaged

00:20:44.420 repurposed indigenous technologies being sold by old wealthy white men who are landowners on

00:20:50.920 another tendril of this is people who have access to this information in a traditional sense so

00:21:00.560 indigenous people um first nations they don't necessarily always operate to the same degree

00:21:07.960 as white people in white systems and this is this is a structural inequality here because

00:21:14.300 all of a sudden you have you know some farmer in you know southeast asia who's been practicing

00:21:20.540 this technique their entire life they don't know how you know some youtube or tiktok or or all of

00:21:29.020 this this framework works they don't have an editing system they don't have the whole network

00:21:33.940 of you know creatives in western culture and so thus they can't produce this gigantic purely

00:21:41.940 marketable pristine ready to ready to sell you know package thing in the same capacity that someone

00:21:49.660 who knows systems of white supremacy knows systems of financial flow and knows how to tap within that

00:21:56.880 white market and so therefore someone who knows this and practices this information does not have

00:22:03.540 the same access to financially bankroll this technique in the same way that white people do

00:22:08.940 and we see this happening a lot you know this what was that this banana leaf something

00:22:14.500 soil building technique that this person on youtube created and it just became this big

00:22:19.940 hole all this is this technique this is mine meanwhile farmers for time and millennium have

00:22:24.900 been doing this they just haven't packaged it and put it onto the market in the same way that

00:22:28.580 this person had access to so questioning constantly sorry i jumped in and hijacked that off you but

00:22:35.300 i'll pass it back to you no worries thank you yeah that sums it up pretty well with that kind

00:22:40.320 of aspect of spermaculture, permacolonialism. And then we also see, you know, green missionary

00:22:44.980 work in permaculture. Some work, I've seen some really incredible work by people like

00:22:50.000 Moray Gamble and Rosemary Morrow, who have done really beautiful work with refugees and

00:22:55.400 displaced people. And have always like, I think, in talking with them, they've both

00:23:00.480 always said, like, I'm always questioning, how am I doing this? Am I doing it in my

00:23:04.020 relationship? And just, I really have faith in those people. And then I've also seen people

00:23:08.580 who have come from a historically quite upper class have gone to, I think this person went

00:23:15.380 to Papua New Guinea, pumped a huge amount of family money into it, and basically created

00:23:22.180 like a mini food forest, but didn't actually educate the locals on how to do it. So they

00:23:26.680 became reliant upon this outside man's influence to become quote unquote self-sufficient. Yeah.

00:23:33.600 And that was, that was a really complex thing to hear and be in dialogue with this person about.

00:23:38.580 And then, of course, they were also taking photos of, you know, the quote unquote poor

00:23:42.180 brown people and then selling those photos in galleries to make money, to raise money

00:23:46.240 for them.

00:23:46.660 So it's a lot of well-meaning white people kind of taking advantage of marginalized people

00:23:52.700 without even realizing it.

00:23:54.400 And that's a complex thing to unpack as well, particularly because like you have these people

00:23:58.980 who are thinking that they're doing well and can be taking advantage.

00:24:04.680 And that is often a hard dialogue to have with someone.

00:24:08.580 And I think a really important thing to mention as well is what is the objective of what we're

00:24:14.860 trying to do? And that's something that we have to keep on popping back in. And that's something

00:24:17.860 that capitalism and colonialism doesn't tell you. It just like subtly conditions you. And

00:24:26.180 when it comes to land rights and land ownership, we, you know, in so many spaces, we see this

00:24:34.740 acknowledgement to indigenous people we see this like attempt at rectifying or asking for a treaty

00:24:43.200 or whatever it looks like in a cultural context but that doesn't get followed up with pragmatic

00:24:49.240 giving back of land and we need to really question in which part of our whole system and strategy

00:24:57.580 are we planning on doing that in our minds is this something that we're saying we're doing

00:25:02.340 we're signaling that we believe in but we don't actually know how because we

00:25:06.760 don't view it as a possibility and that happens a lot and we really need to be

00:25:11.760 looking at the reality that in a lot of these spaces specifically here

00:25:15.600 specifically here in Naam you know the first nations people

00:25:21.580 aboriginals of this land lived in harmony with our environment for 60,000

00:25:27.220 years time immemorial this context that we live in this climate crisis that we have has happened

00:25:34.520 within the last 100 200 years and still for some reason the even in a lot of sort of permaculture 0.88

00:25:44.360 and queer spaces we don't we don't have that core understanding that we need to shift land

00:25:53.180 ownership land right land leadership back to the people who know culturally this landscape

00:26:00.640 how to manage it and and the structural aspect of that is buried within conversation it's buried

00:26:07.840 within plans it's buried within you know agendas and meetings and we need to constantly stop these

00:26:14.660 these these instances and have a conversation about what is our objective here and realign

00:26:24.820 that objective to giving land back to recognizing where capitalism and colonialism exists

00:26:31.440 in all of our behaviors and acknowledge that it does and it it it will always inform

00:26:40.080 and and once we come from that perspective from there on the decision making we makes that that

00:26:47.200 and the implications of our behavior actually starts to deal with it and this is something

00:26:53.520 that i'm not seeing i'm seeing tokenistic you know virtue signaling about a desire to you know

00:27:03.160 stop capitalism colonialism and white supremacy but it's not actually backed up by behavior

00:27:09.460 and on top of that capitalism and colonialism has this toxic positivity that makes it uncomfortable

00:27:18.740 for people to deal with the reality of this and one of the most insidious things about

00:27:26.460 white supremacy is it's it's kind of created this weird notion that being uncomfortable

00:27:33.860 is wrong and no one should either be uncomfortable because that that doesn't allow conversations to

00:27:41.220 be had that means when people within systems of white supremacy and white privilege feel

00:27:46.360 uncomfortable they don't respond in it in a useful and pragmatic way it's push away it's

00:27:52.960 erase and it's not deal with it and and that's a pattern that must stop

00:28:03.860 I lay down in a garden of sound

00:28:12.580 And I remembered, I remembered

00:28:19.240 Inside of you is a place that has never been wounded

00:28:31.420 don't you remember don't you remember

00:28:37.640 and when the fall comes all the crimson and crocuses

00:28:49.560 yeah both of you said really powerful

00:28:58.940 things in this last response and there's a lot there to sit with and unpack and analyze

00:29:07.740 for all of us listening our own personal attachments to these systems and what is

00:29:15.740 just for show to make ourselves feel better about ourselves and what's real and tangible and

00:29:23.580 i wanted to bring up a post titled responding as a community to climate change and guy you write

00:29:31.100 quote we know the edge is where it's at and to value the marginal our desire is to integrate

00:29:38.040 all the deep pools of knowledge and open up other areas of humanity's realm of acceptance

00:29:43.080 so we can create this new future we're entering an era of science fiction at the moment

00:29:49.680 in that we don't have a rule book anymore for what's going to happen and the outcome will be

00:29:55.540 only what we make it. Now is the time to open up all our borders and collaborate with people,

00:30:02.340 ideas, identities, cultures, and get as creative as possible, end quote.

00:30:08.720 And I'd like to now move into a conversation on how you are taking a nuanced approach to looking

00:30:16.380 at the spaces and intersections of permaculture that provide really fruitful knowledge as folks

00:30:23.260 begin to map out different lifestyles. Because I do think there is something to be said that

00:30:29.920 or about the ways that environmental movements can be co-opted and used against people to further

00:30:36.340 nationalism and the closures of borders and how with this in mind now is a really critical time

00:30:43.420 to be making these interventions

00:30:46.040 and taking a sort of DIY approach.

00:30:49.940 So what intersections of permaculture

00:30:52.300 are you most excited about working with

00:30:54.820 at this point in time?

00:30:57.600 Well, I think right now,

00:31:00.040 my biggest excitement in combating

00:31:02.940 these issues that we have

00:31:06.100 and implementing the true power of permaculture

00:31:09.220 and queerness starts from building

00:31:11.960 a point of resilience.

00:31:13.420 having a just recovery and what that looks like is on a very small community household and

00:31:20.540 individual scale what does this you know decolonizing or recreating or creating

00:31:27.100 sustainable systems what does that look like in the most micro environment so we're seeing surges

00:31:33.580 of you know community restorative and transformative justice accountability protocols

00:31:40.780 and and these things coming into play and we're seeing what it looks like to fill up our own cup

00:31:47.980 and so you know the areas of social justice of community development of emotional understanding

00:31:55.340 and emotional intelligence development and also dealing with traumas and healing as communities

00:32:00.760 these sort of ways that we build fat and very very small household community levels is how we

00:32:10.700 build the capacity to actually collaborate on a larger scale and so for me it's so so so exciting

00:32:18.660 seeing all of these little initiatives and little networks pop up here in the neighborhood systems

00:32:24.180 you know food network systems or little trading bartering systems and I'm starting to see this 0.98

00:32:30.880 redness this fat that allows people to actually have the energy to collaborate with each other

00:32:37.980 and so for me i'm seeing a whole lot of push towards introspection and what does it mean

00:32:45.460 for us to shift um a huge part especially along the continuum of you know colonialism capitalism

00:32:54.040 i mean for me i mean it's not really a linear thing but somewhere along there there's you know

00:33:01.520 culture and its capacity to transition and then we have re-indigenization and indigenous ways of

00:33:07.720 living and somewhere along the spectrum we we we connect to what it means to be in community with

00:33:15.740 ourselves what it means to love ourselves what it means to love our uh community and our family

00:33:21.240 and then also what it also means to be ourselves so when we're shifting from colonial western

00:33:27.460 over culture that we know has a pattern of degeneration and that's why we're in this

00:33:31.740 climate crisis at the moment um and shifting into healthier cultures that are in reciprocity

00:33:38.220 with our environment that some of us have connection through through being you know

00:33:42.860 indigenous or by park or have connection to place and some of us don't and what that looks like is

00:33:49.480 figuring out what right relationship is with you and the environment and a really awesome place to

00:33:56.120 are in some places we're seeing a lot is finding out ancestrally where where do you exist in this

00:34:04.720 world how do you exist in this world and what would look like what would that look like in

00:34:09.640 right relationship and so we're seeing this really fantastic intersection of people connecting to

00:34:16.340 what it historically meant ancestrally meant to be them be that a land practice or a location

00:34:23.500 geographically on the world where they you know feel they belong because a lot of you know a lot

00:34:30.460 of our societies are just displaced people deeply displaced people and when we see people

00:34:36.840 colliding with a sense of self and a sense of place on the environment on on the planet earth

00:34:46.200 um all of a sudden the reason we use permaculture principles become a whole lot more valuable

00:34:54.140 the reason we decide to live in reciprocity becomes more personal than it was before

00:35:02.160 and when we're coming from these cities of you know concrete and exhaust fumes when we know

00:35:12.340 where our feet belong in the soil is on the other side of the planet or we've never even

00:35:20.080 been there before if you're able to connect to that culture in some way shape or form

00:35:24.760 it's profound it's been profound for me i've witnessed it being profound profound for a lot

00:35:29.840 of people and it makes me so excited to work in this space and so as permaqueer we are trying to

00:35:37.400 develop pdc that can be culturally relevant to you and we that's not us teaching you a culture

00:35:45.460 that doesn't belong to us it's how do we network between all of the amazing teachers that we have

00:35:51.260 all over the world and this is an issue that we're having in permaculture is you know we have

00:35:55.980 amazing bipoc teachers everywhere they just don't get the same mic time as everyone else and so what

00:36:02.940 would that look like in a way of collaborating so I don't even know I think I just ran right off

00:36:08.760 from the question but I get really excited when permaculture collides with what your identity is

00:36:15.060 and what your identity means to you in terms of place I hope I answered that question no it's good

00:36:23.420 I love runaway responses because you're being present with where you're at and what the question

00:36:31.380 sparks in you. And that's what the questions are for. They're diving boards into the deep end.

00:36:36.780 So I appreciated it. And I'll say something that continues to come up for me, especially for those

00:36:44.500 of us who are living in societies where rapid consumption is really pushed to uphold the

00:36:51.300 economic system, is the revitalization around ethics of frugality. And I'd love to hear how

00:36:58.320 this personally shows up in your own designing ethics and lifestyle?

00:37:02.980 I think frugality and how it kind of comes into everything is when we begin to think about

00:37:08.320 in this culture, we value the more and the more and the more, and we all know this and we all

00:37:13.500 kind of know how this can negatively affect us to kind of just expecting and entitlement and

00:37:19.400 things like that. And frugality, I think for me, a lot of it is learning how to step outside of the

00:37:27.260 kind of exponential growth model and it's not just that it's not getting my dopamine and serotonin

00:37:33.920 kicks from from buying the new thing that will soon be outdated it's learning how to rewire a

00:37:39.080 lot of my engage in neuroplasticity even of being able to change how I relate to landscape and my

00:37:46.040 community suddenly I'm not looking to get that dopamine hit from buying something I'm looking at

00:37:51.420 to being able to to make olives or do this or do that and it's basically it for me it's changing

00:37:59.160 world view almost it becomes more experiential it becomes more personal everything we do

00:38:05.480 it has meaning and importance everything becomes ceremony and ritual even and I find that that's

00:38:13.040 a really beautiful process and I know at the moment I when I was living down in Nam so-called

00:38:19.580 melbourne we had these really beautiful food systems in place everything worked well everything

00:38:24.220 felt delightful to do and uh i've moved up north um i'm in the process of resetting my systems and

00:38:31.760 getting that all sorted all my food systems but i don't have that at the moment i'm not able to live

00:38:37.080 uh in the in a lot of the frugal ways that i wanted to um i am isolated on a mountain which

00:38:43.220 requires fossil fuels to get anywhere. And I really feel how quickly everything becomes

00:38:50.020 impersonal. My food supply, my pleasure, my everything, it becomes a streamlined process,

00:38:57.460 which I don't even begin to question and I feel entitled towards. So for me, a lot of it is

00:39:02.660 it's anchoring it back in the slow and steady solutions that really enrich us in a way that

00:39:08.500 isn't just a quick hit uh do you have anything you want to add to that guy one part of that is

00:39:14.460 the agency and i think this is the most important part of frugality and and and thrifting is not

00:39:21.560 the money you save is the agency in life that you have you realize that this pressure this

00:39:32.840 preordained you know need to have things or wanting to buy dinner or wanting to get a coffee

00:39:41.460 or whatever it looks like this weird process happens when you resist that urge like you said

00:39:51.400 that dopamine hit or whatever it looks like and then you're suspended in this place where you

00:39:57.100 don't get what you thought you want but then you realize you still have agency outside of that

00:40:03.080 and you know consumer habits are a huge and powerful and very very insidious way that capitalism

00:40:15.980 conditions us and so not only is frugality and and and thrifting about you know valuing

00:40:25.620 you know sustainable sources of where our products come from or ensuring that we're not

00:40:32.600 spending things money or resources that we don't necessarily need to but we're also not

00:40:38.080 constantly engaging in conditioning conditioning of capitalism conditioning of white supremacy

00:40:47.220 conditioning of materialistic us versus them and by us versus them i mean us versus objects

00:40:54.340 and this idea of us versus objects is othering us from our environment and anything in this

00:41:02.400 current crisis that we we're in that constantly others us from living in reciprocity

00:41:10.600 and upholding the manner of all things around us is damaging and it's a part of the problem

00:41:17.760 and when we you know have these ethics and are frugal we realize okay what do we actually need

00:41:26.220 all right this is what i what i actually need and then you still come through on those ethics and

00:41:31.160 you realize are there sustainable sources for me to get there and then all of a sudden with systems

00:41:36.980 thinking about how we can override these damaging systems to our environment and the real importance

00:41:45.160 of frugality and thrifting ethics is the systemic change

00:41:48.680 that it has the capacity of when we stop engaging

00:41:51.960 with these systems, when we realise that we're not reliant

00:41:56.300 on them and we actually don't need to be and we never needed

00:41:58.960 to be and how do we start prioritising sustainable systems

00:42:03.360 that care about the environment, that care about minorities,

00:42:07.300 that realise the world doesn't have to be in this, you know,

00:42:11.640 top-down hierarchical someone has to lose relationship because that's not natural

00:42:17.960 but we believe it is and the reason we believe it is is because we keep on having these micro

00:42:23.820 conditions of how we need to objectify things and I believe that that is perpetuated through

00:42:32.660 stray runaway consumer habits and so while frugality and thrift engaging in in these

00:42:40.800 ways of spending or relating allows you to have more resources and engage in things in a more

00:42:48.560 meaningful and transformative way it also cuts you off from that constant conditioning

00:42:53.420 in this culture in this crisis that's it's crucial it's crucial for our transformation as a society

00:43:10.800 When the fire is never ending and the ember is turning blue

00:43:18.220 What am I to do when the house begins to crumble

00:43:27.340 And all I've got is glue

00:43:30.380 What am I to do

00:43:35.200 When the lying dandelion says it's only half past two

00:43:43.520 What am I to do

00:43:47.700 When they promise endless safety

00:43:52.360 If I stay inside the zoo

00:43:55.360 you've both done a lot of organizing around permaculture in response to climate change

00:44:08.660 and this is such a big topic but I always like to bring this up when I talk to folks

00:44:14.680 involved with permaculture because I remember when I was in the process of learning these practices

00:44:19.740 such a big part of that journey was reading and studying about weather and frost times and

00:44:25.120 than planning around that. And now we find ourselves living in a world where we can't

00:44:31.400 rely on this information to the extent that it was relied upon in the past. So how are you all

00:44:38.680 thinking about this facet of permaculture and our capacity to plan and develop and cultivate

00:44:45.400 resilience when climate change is so very inconsistent? I think what we largely need to do

00:44:53.040 is kind of obviously look to and be in collaboration,

00:44:56.700 not appropriation with what people are doing

00:44:58.620 already traditionally in the land.

00:45:00.540 And that can be through dialogue

00:45:02.240 and kind of whatever work that needs to be.

00:45:05.080 But also not taking that fixed white anthropological gaze,

00:45:10.620 knowing that cultures have migrated,

00:45:12.620 cultures have changed how they relate to landscape.

00:45:16.140 And it's kind of, you know,

00:45:17.300 it's one of those permaculture principles

00:45:19.220 of creatively responding to change.

00:45:21.960 and to be honest I don't have a lot of the answers uh there's some really amazing people

00:45:27.620 who are headlining this work uh Daryl Taylor has really been focusing a lot of his life's work

00:45:32.720 on us in Australia entering the pyrocene because we are starting to see out of control bushfires

00:45:39.180 uh like every year or every couple of years like like things we haven't ever seen before

00:45:44.860 and so there are people pioneering this work I mean you need to kind of get behind them

00:45:49.700 and um yeah do you have anything you wanted to add to that guy yeah I think um this whole idea

00:45:55.720 of you know unknown walking into these you know crazy unpredictable environments it's really

00:46:02.200 making us realize that a we need to like you said develop resilience um and b we don't have much time

00:46:11.180 to do that and so we really need to think about you know even off the back of that concept of

00:46:16.360 frugality you know how do we create sustainable food network systems how do we create sustainable

00:46:24.500 communities what does that even look like and there's many many examples of of this working

00:46:29.840 incredibly successfully all over the world so it's not something that's impossible but it's

00:46:34.740 something that we need to tune into and so you know with changes in seasons changes in environment

00:46:41.600 obviously there's a need for diversity of I mean taking it into a food perspective we need to have

00:46:48.800 a diversity of plants we need to have a diversity of you know heirloom you know climatically

00:46:55.920 developed plants that are conditioned to and acclimatized to specific environments and they

00:47:02.720 are developing and reseeding every single year and you know re-acclimatizing to that specific

00:47:09.780 context now if we don't have a diverse range of of farms and a diverse range of plants and you

00:47:17.400 know responding biologically to the environment as it is changing that's cutting off resilience

00:47:24.020 so you know to answer the question we need to be realizing the systems we depend on our food

00:47:33.340 systems our community systems definitely our water systems are all our own responsibility

00:47:39.720 and if you're listening and you're buying your groceries from a supermarket and all of your

00:47:45.460 water comes from a town tap supply this is for you these systems that these come from

00:47:51.340 are not sustainable they're giant giant systems integrated and some of them are fantastic

00:47:57.540 but with the calamities that we are facing and with the uncertainties that we are facing

00:48:02.780 unfortunately it's not actually secure look at what happened in johannesburg with the whole

00:48:08.640 day zero when they're running out of water fortunately that shows the power of human

00:48:12.700 transformation but it also shows some things that we believe are given some things we believe we're

00:48:18.960 entitled to are not and these are things that we're going to be dawning on when we when we

00:48:24.560 face the reality of climate change and so you know there's there's infinite ways that we can

00:48:30.460 build resilience i you know we could go through a whole bunch of them but realistically it's about

00:48:36.260 what's what's contextually specific and culturally specific to you and that's actually your

00:48:42.020 responsibility and so if we have more people realizing what does it mean to be responsible

00:48:48.340 for feeding myself what does it mean for being responsible for my environment obviously privilege

00:48:54.540 comes in hugely to that and and that's an ongoing conversation that we continue to have but you know

00:49:01.100 in the likes of the engine we're having you know guerrilla gardening reclaiming government land so

00:49:06.720 that we can have community gardens and you know that's an option there are options and it's

00:49:14.080 difficult but unfortunately the opportunity cost of having to problem solve this difficulty

00:49:20.120 is not problem solving it and the cost of that is just dealing with the fact that food systems

00:49:27.540 might run out water systems might run out and either you're waiting around for that to happen

00:49:33.940 or you're pragmatically thinking ahead and using what you can and what you have to make change

00:49:39.660 and that's a huge thing for me to say and a huge thing to say you have to do it because obviously

00:49:44.040 with so many complexities in and around that but until we realize that it is our responsibility

00:49:51.100 and our government bodies and our corporate bodies are not and will not take responsibility for this

00:49:58.280 we garner something called agency and I think that's one of the biggest things that our agency

00:50:06.480 is to realize we have a responsibility to building resilience we have a responsibility to understanding

00:50:12.900 what that looks like in our community and our culture and our landscape and we have a responsibility

00:50:18.020 to demand that and i don't know what that specifically looks like but i believe that

00:50:23.360 that's how you know i don't i don't know what's coming with with this unpredictable weather

00:50:28.720 patterns and i can't say what will happen all around the world but it's our responsibility

00:50:34.600 to try and prepare ourselves well thank you for that response to a very complex question

00:50:42.120 that none of us can fully answer. So as we come to a close, I just have two final questions,

00:50:50.380 and they are very much inspired by some of Permaqueer's reflections on the disconnection

00:50:56.660 between solutions and actions. So I wonder if you could each share a piece of advice for folks who

00:51:03.260 are just beginning to dip their toes in the world of permaculture, and then a second piece of advice

00:51:09.820 for folks who are a little bit more embedded in permaculture, perhaps some wisdom that you wish

00:51:16.080 you'd known in the past. And I know the advice can't be too specific because we're all listening

00:51:22.560 in from such varying bioregions, but you're more than welcome to make this as practical as you'd

00:51:29.260 like. I think for people who are getting into permaculture for the first time, it's exciting.

00:51:35.880 it really is and it feels like the whole world is opening up before you and i think it's important

00:51:42.500 to kind of try and embody a sense of curiosity around it all and also being critical i don't

00:51:48.460 think that these two things can be mutually exclusive uh we always need to be questioning

00:51:53.440 is this in is this in service of the people who are living on this land is it in service of the

00:51:59.760 community? Is it in service of the actual land itself? Oh, it is. That's fantastic. And just

00:52:05.560 approaching everything with a really curious desire to learn more and understand that we are

00:52:11.720 all in iteration. This entire process that we call permaculture is in iteration. So it's good

00:52:17.640 to challenge things. It's good to question things. And that isn't an attack. That is that can only

00:52:23.260 enrich us by questioning things and asking sometimes difficult questions. And I think,

00:52:29.480 you know uh it's often in the people who come with the freshest eyes that turn things up the most

00:52:35.360 that challenge old guards challenge old ideals that should be challenged and when you're in a

00:52:40.880 culture for a really long time sometimes you can't see them so i think our one of permaculture's

00:52:46.260 greatest assets are the people who are coming to it for the first time who still hold that really

00:52:51.540 deep curiosity and joy that you know we try and foster as we learn more and more but that fresh

00:52:57.480 eyes are actually so valuable. And I think to people who've been embroiled in permaculture

00:53:03.800 for a longer time, I think I would say one of the things that we forget the most is that the

00:53:10.380 social ecology is as complex and nuanced and requires as much skill to work with as the actual

00:53:17.320 landscape-based ecology. With the traditional permaculture dream of we're all going to buy

00:53:24.060 land and start an eco village people do that and it's not that they can't get the crops to grow

00:53:28.680 it's that they can't get along we need to be more trauma informed we need to be able to relate

00:53:34.240 better we need to have skills and conflict resolution um how do we deal with harm how do

00:53:39.920 we deal with abuse how do we how do we receive and give critique these are all things that we

00:53:44.940 really need to kind of sink into and be able to to hold better i believe would you want to speak

00:53:51.240 now okay yeah i'd say to people joining permaculture permaculture looks like so many

00:53:57.080 different things permaculture is a tool set a design system that helps you think about things

00:54:05.020 in a way that is truly sustainable and what permaculture might look like for you

00:54:11.240 is completely different for somebody else and know that whatever your passions are there's a

00:54:16.560 way that you can fit permaculture into that so in in one sense you know don't constrict your idea 0.77

00:54:25.180 of what permaculture can be to anything because that there stops you from being able to queer

00:54:32.680 the capacity of how you use permaculture in terms of design and secondly the biggest forgiveness

00:54:38.500 that's given by permaculture i believe is the concept of iterations and in societies that we

00:54:46.860 come from especially when you're just learning about what permaculture is you know chances are

00:54:52.380 you may be coming from a colonial western you know capitalist background and one of the biggest

00:55:00.980 things that's imposed on us in this in this space is that things kind of have to be perfect things

00:55:07.820 have to have to be ready they have to be on time they have to be this in product and that's not how

00:55:17.580 nature works that's not how permaculture works and it's the culmination of all of the iterations

00:55:24.780 and failures that creates a good system and so the most beautiful thing about permaculture is

00:55:31.440 it's about getting it wrong it's about getting it wrong and having that curious compassionate

00:55:35.780 openness to trying again i'll tell you now your systems will fail and the the test of whether or

00:55:44.540 not you can become good at at designing things is how you can listen to that failure and how that

00:55:50.380 failure can inform moving forward just the same way we're watching the failure of all of these

00:55:54.900 systems around the world and how well are we going to listen to that and what i'd say to people

00:55:59.980 already embedded in permaculture is that you have a responsibility you have access and practice in

00:56:08.700 a fantastic realm of design that has a huge amount of transformational capacity and I want people to

00:56:18.160 know what that responsibility looks like when we're further along in our journey you know we

00:56:23.480 we have more understanding we have more capacity and i don't want people to ever forget that

00:56:30.400 things are new things can always be created and if you've been here for a while know that you have

00:56:36.960 more of a capacity to have an impact and whatever that means for you i i challenge you to enjoy that

00:56:46.220 and i challenge you to lean into that because we need more of that in the world

00:56:51.380 absolutely well thank you yeah and before we say goodbye i'm wondering how folks can engage

00:57:01.280 with and support permaqueer um so we have uh permaqueer on facebook it's just permaqueer so

00:57:07.800 p-i-m-i-q-u-e-r and we're also on instagram perma.queer uh currently we are developing our

00:57:15.660 open source network website but that's not up yet so um those two just those socials for now

00:57:21.960 and we'll probably give you our contacts to put in a link or something yeah yeah that's it and um

00:57:29.500 thank you so much for having us on this podcast ayana it was really

00:57:32.880 really lovely to be able to speak and share kind of our experience of permaqueer

00:57:36.320 thank you for listening to another episode of for the wild podcast 0.80

00:57:44.480 The music you heard today was by Eliza Edens and India Blue and Joshu.

00:57:49.820 For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young, Erica Ekrem, and Francesca Glassbell.

For The Wild - August 11, 2021

GUY RITANI and TOAD ANDREW DELL on Queering Permaculture ⧸246

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