“Permaculture,” Blair says, “is based in systems thinking. But it’s hard to understand systems in general unless you understand one system well that you can abstract from. Unfortunately, in communities that are disenfranchised or under-resourced, there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities to get experience with well-functioning systems. Everybody can get some tomato plants and some worms and some soil, though, and have an extraordinarily complex system to work with and then scale up from.”

Students at Kelso, as well as members of the surrounding community who learn, design, and build at Incite Focus, often begin their permaculture education, then, in the garden, where they first learn how to operate effectively within the natural environment.

“On the one hand, the gardening projects our students work on are deep and rich enough to allow them to really understand what permaculture means and why it’s useful,” Blair says. “On the other hand, we’re in an environment in Detroit where people in very large numbers have been displaced from the position in the economy they had previously occupied and planned on continuing to occupy, and that’s because of a structural shift, not a temporary change. So how can we use permaculture to imagine what the future of Detroit for Detroiters could look like?”

That’s where the fab lab comes in. Blair believes that advances in digital production technology have reached the point at which, with an ecological approach to design and building in mind, people are now truly capable of producing most of the things they need. “Shelter, water, food, energy — these are all things that we can actually harvest and produce. They’re all around us; we’re just not properly utilizing them.”

Economically displaced Detroiters, Blair believes, should not wait for new industries to come along and absorb them into the workforce. Even if that were to happen, which he thinks unlikely, it would only return them to the fundamentally unhealthy, imbalanced system from which they were ejected in the first place.

“In permaculture,” he says, “you’re not a slave to the process. You’re a participant in the process. Behind a lot of this work is the idea of allowing people to have the opportunity to actually spend a reasonable portion of their time, a third of it, producing the things they need to live (furniture, for example, tools, even houses) themselves. Then you can spend a third of your time using the same tools to produce things that are useful for other people: community-based enterprises. Then you have another third left to to do the things that make you want to get up in the morning, usually the things your high school guidance counselor talked you out of.”

“If you’re not engaged in the rituals that touch your passions,” he says, “you’re not in a position to bring the best of yourself to anything that you do. In a large sense, then, this all comes down to creating an environment and cultural context in which people in Detroit are able to truly maximize our capacity as people.”

Read the complete article here.

The post Blair Evans on the Synergy between Permaculture, Digital Fabrication and Autonomous Production by Disadvantaged Communities appeared first on P2P Foundation.

From the notes to the video:

There’s something amazing growing in the city of Detroit: healthy, accessible, delicious, fresh food. In a spirited talk, fearless farmer Devita Davison explains how features of Detroit’s decay actually make it an ideal spot for urban agriculture. Join Davison for a walk through neighborhoods in transformation as she shares stories of opportunity and hope. “These aren’t plots of land where we’re just growing tomatoes and carrots,” Davison says. “We’re building social cohesion as well as providing healthy, fresh food.”

The post How urban agriculture is transforming Detroit appeared first on P2P Foundation.

When it comes to the internet, our connections are generally controlled by telecom companies. But a group of people in Detroit is trying to change that. Motherboard met with the members of the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII), a group that is building their own wireless networks from the ground up in order to provide affordable and high-speed internet to prevent the creation of a digital class system.

Killer video about Detroit’s Equitable Internet Initiative. Also check out the Mesh Network project in Sarantaporo, Greece.

This video was originally published in Vice, but make some time to read the related article posted in Motherboard. Here’s an extract:

Jason Koebler: The Federal Communications Commission will announce a full repeal of net neutrality protections Wednesday, according to the New York Times and several other media outlets. It is possible that a committee of telecom industry plutocrats who have from the outset made it their mission to rollback regulations on the industry will bow to public pressure before Wednesday, but let’s not count on it.

It is time to take action, and that doesn’t mean signing an online petition, upvoting a Reddit post, or calling your member of Congress.

Net neutrality as a principle of the federal government will soon be dead, but the protections are wildly popular among the American people and are integral to the internet as we know it. Rather than putting such a core tenet of the internet in the hands of politicians, whose whims and interests change with their donors, net neutrality must be protected by a populist revolution in the ownership of internet infrastructure and networks.

In short, we must end our reliance on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure. The great news is this is currently possible in most parts of the United States.

Read the rest of the article in Motherboard.

The post To Save Net Neutrality, We Must Build Our Own Internet appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Get your ticket for the conference!

Time flies: it seems that while we weren’t looking Growfunding has already turned five! In the past five years, we have joined hands with thousands of people to build up Brussels from the bottom up. That means it’s high time for a celebration, but also to see if we’re doing things right. On Friday the 19th January we’re organising an international conference

Together with Brussels residents, city makers, academics, policy makers and six ‘partners in crime’ (La Ruche from Montreal, Patronicity from Detroit, Spacehive from London, Co-city from Paris, Goteo from Spain, Ideaginger from Bologna and Voor Je buurt from the Netherlands), we will be sharing our knowledge and experiences an all-day debate on ‘The Civic Crowdfunding City’.

What kind of city do we want to live in? And what role can civic crowdfunding play in building this city?

What kind of a city and society can we create through civic crowdfunding? And just how democratic will this be?

We’ll compare good practices from 8 world cities within four different themes:
>          The inclusive city: how can civic crowdfunding be used to include people that are otherwise excluded from urban life?

>          The pup-up city: which kind of urban spaces are created through civic crowdfunding and what are the characteristics?

>          The Arrival city: which social and cultural infrastructure is created for refugees, migrants and newcomers through civic crowdfunding?
>          The circular city: How can civic crowdfunding contribute to the creation of a circular economy?

Click here for the entire programme e-and the names of the speakers.

PRIX LIBRE / VRIJE BIJDRAGE / FREE DONATION

Tickets for the conference on Friday 19/01 will be available through this growfunding-campaign. Contact frederik@growfunding.be if you need an invoice.

It’s entirely up to you how much you (or your employer) want to pay to participate in the full-day ‘The Civic Crowdfunding City’ conference. The higher your contribution, the more tickets we will be able to make available free of charge to people unable to afford them. These tickets will be distributed through our partner organisations, such as Globe Aroma, Cinemaximiliaan, Article 27, samusocial and klein kasteeltje.

There is no admission fee for students, contact dennis@growfunding.be to reserve you place.

Everyone who has provided support for this event will be sent our digital publication on the Civic Crowdfunding City (estimated publication date: May 2018).

Oh, and by the way, we’re also looking for around twenty volunteers to help us ensure that the event runs smoothly. If you’re interested in participating, don’t hesitate to register as a volunteer via our brand-new Volunteer button;-)

PARTY ALONG?

You can find all info and the programme on www.growfunding.be/bazaar. Prepare for a fantastic line-up of Brussels artists: an ‘empty shop’, a fashion show by Tony Bland, a dance performance by The Slayers, concerts by Nawaris, Arumbo and Fanfakids, great beats from the 54Sound, and more. You can find a detailed programme: friday and saturday. Tickets for the concerts and performances can be purchased through the Beursschouwburg theatre. All income generated by this event will go to current growfunding projects.

(This text was translated by Ubiqus Belgium, Growfunding’s language service provider)

https://www.facebook.com/events/161683631093820/

Photo by Medialab Prado

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