Paper Short Abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork among local permaculture gardeners and farmers in the Oresund Region, this paper examines permaculture practice as a framework for (un)dreaming and (re)imagining alternative futures.

Paper Abstract:

In response to the environmental and climate crisis and the urgent need to develop new understandings of what it means to live together on a damaged planet, this paper examines how local actors within the permaculture movement develop alternative ways of inhabiting the land and ideals to dream by. Guided by these methods and ideals, the informants create detailed plans and maps envisioning future landscapes – transforming degraded monocultural fields into thriving ecosystems of orchards, meadows, forests, gardens, and wilderness.

The maps serve as entry points into the informants’ hopes and dreams of a sustainable future. Drawing on Ruth Levitas’ concept of Utopia, the maps are understood as a materialisation of the informants’ imagining of the future – embodied examples of transformation that suggest alternative ways of inhabiting the land through permaculture practice. Central to this practice are notions of rootedness and connectedness emphasised in the informants’ continuous engagement with the surrounding landscape.

As American writer Elvia Wilk suggests, “rooting oneself and learning to become part of the landscape could be seen as a ferocious claim to life” – perhaps not life as we know it, but a reimagined, alternative form of life that shifts away from affluence, growth, and freedom through consumption toward temporal freedom and coexistence with the land.

Through their engagement, the informants confront prevailing ideals of “the good life” by undreaming past practices and imaginings. In response, they develop new meanings and expertise that enable them to dream of a “good life” within planetary boundaries.