In search of an "ecological creation of space": questioning the permaculture as an alternative to the capitalist production of space

Abstract

Originated from the counterculture movements and from the environmentalist’s discussions of the beginning of the decade of 1970, the permaculture has been developed by the Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, with the aim to serve as base to the construction of self-managed and sustainable human settlements. The present article tries to present a general picture and to analyze critically some of the central aspects of the permaculture, specifically those that form the "permacultural creation of the space", discussing both his limits and his potential in steadying itself as viable and possible alternatives to the capitalist production of the space. It is, in fact, a brief systematization of some of the questions that have arisen during the completion of the doctoral thesis entitled Ilusão concreta, utopia possível: contraculturas espaciais e permacultura (uma mirada desde o cone sul), defended in July 2013 in the Program of Human Geography. Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo – FFLCH-USP.