Embodying the permaculture story : Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Overcoming the imagined separation between humanity and nature is critical for enabling a biospheric civilization and reconceptualizing humankind as an integral part of the biosphere. In this chapter, I examine the Tiffany Aching series as Pratchett’s attempt to confront the modern concept of the self as distinct and detached from nature in favor of symbiotic coexistence of these two realms. The series is analyzed from the perspective of permaculture ethics, in which individual elements of any process are regarded as separate entities only relatively, based on their current role and relation to other elements. Drawing on the three essential permaculture ethics - care for the earth, care for people, set limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus – I argue that by challenging the separation of the self from nature, Pratchett stumbles into articulations of a position that aligns with the principles of permaculture. Subsequently, I focus on how the unwritten witches’ codex in the series encourages a sustainable lifestyle and firmly roots human beings into the biosphere. |
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