Participatory Research

Action research process
Post Growth Institute

It turns out that participatory research is not such an easy task.

All the investigations we do are expressly done to benefit the community and biodiversity - to work collaboratively with local healers and wild collectors and to produce outcomes which directly benefit them; offer tools and methods for the conservation of biodiversity and traditional practices; empower the people to tell about the role they play in conservation.

We are just there to interpret the story of the people an their relationship to nature. We look at it with researchers eyes, trained to be systematic and attempting to be as objective as possible. - (In-cognito?)

The interpreter has a role to play in the subject though. 'Any half-awake materialist well knows - that which you hold holds you.'

Here is another poem by Walt Whitnam 'When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer' - It speaks volumes to the issue of speaking about and trying to do 'science' with people.

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

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Here is a regularly updated list of other things Cory writes

Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology Occupy Your Life Manifesto

I have just returned from the Toward Organic Asia workshop 'Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology' on the Tha Thang Organic farm in Pakse Laos.

During the workshop young farmers from Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam collected their thoughts for a collective vision for agriculture and we drafted it into the following 'Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology Occupy Your Life Manifesto':

We are the Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology. We write this manifesto in support of happiness in a system of agriculture, which includes healthy and abundant nature, healthy communities and a thriving economy.

Occupy Your Life follows the general principles of the Occupy Wall Street movement but focuses on the regaining of livelihoods of young farmers. Taking back responsibility and reclaiming our role in food production, instead of outsourcing to supermarkets grow our own food and get close to our food source. We should reclaim our health and consume healthy food rather than relying on hospitals and medicine.

Innovative, young, small-scale, diversified farmers are the future of agriculture. In order to secure our agricultural future we need to preserve biodiversity and manage the landscape in harmony with nature, use waste wisely and ensure fair access to fresh and clean water, offer respect for people to work with dignity.

We need to build on the creative potential of youth to solve global crises. Small-scale farms that work in harmony with nature and are run by young farmers are the solution to many global crises in that they offer climate change adaptation and mitigation, stop erosion, create sustainable and healthy local food systems, keep young people in rural areas and prevent urbanization and stop the loss of cultural diversity and traditions. These small farms help to change the course of things for rural people by alleviating poverty and creating food sovereignty.

Nature

Nature is beautiful, that has a value in itself.

Forests are a source of food they are the mothers of rivers and they form the foundation of watersheds. They are an important source of medicine, culture, and spiritual fulfillment.

We need integrated holistic thinking and philosophy in farm design, utilizing synergistic relationships within farming systems and in harmony with nature.

Our health, and the health of our communities, depends on healthy soil. Farming should work toward building soil organic matter, preventing and controlling erosion, preserving soil biodiversity and respecting soil life. We should practice farming with a long term focus, using more permanent crops and poly cultivation.

We need to preserve the genetic diversity of seed and livestock through building and supporting regional connections for small-scale diversified farms.

Economy

Young farmers are redefining economy with respect toward the values of nature and society. We need to change the way we think about economy. We are part of an interconnected web of life - exchanges are more than just monetary units. We need to work together, focusing on cooperation and friendliness rather than competition.

We should strengthen networks and offer support for grassroots actions for farming with dignity, integrity and self-reliance and to promote a pro-farming society that makes wise use of resources including wastes.

We envision a world wherein the producer and consumer choose health and happiness; they should feel a kinship. People should eat healthy local food and get to know their farmer. Farmers should care for consumers and produce wholesome food. Mindful marketing community supported agriculture, and farmer's markets can support the relationship between the producer and consumer.

Small-scale farms should have access to fair and reliable funding, building up wealth for their families and in the farming landscape in the form of healthy communities and abundant biological resources.

Society

Viable agricultural systems require strong communities, grassroots movements and young farmer networks. These communities form their own agreements based on self-regulation and open systems of management according to tradition and local knowledge. They agree on clear and pertinent rules to follow that help guide community actions and serve as a fundamental building block for food security and access to healthy living.

Traditional belief and wisdom gives meaning to life offering insights for living together with nature and creating ecological farming practices. Farming systems should have respect for culture and traditional belief and thereby see an intrinsic value in the landscape.

We need clear information sharing and transparency in education. Schools should serve to support and increase traditional agricultural knowledge. Young people should have access to information and training about farming sustainably.

Education is a fundamental aspect of small-scale diversified farming. It provides young people with opportunities for growth and personal development, cultivating not just food but people. These farms operate within a participatory learning process where farmers share methodologies and skills and help to convey the mindset of an occupied and active life.

There is an intrinsic value in animals. They deserve to be treated as friends and with respect and care. Food from animals is a gift. They deserve fair treatment, good health, and good living conditions. We need localized closed systems where healthy feed comes from a diverse farm and local community.

Happiness

We should promote happiness as a fundamental pillar of life. Our lives are dependent on all other life forms, when eating we should be aware and thankful for the hard work of farmers and to the web of life and society that brought us the food. Farmers are amazing people in that they work so hard to grow our food and get so little in return. We need to create agricultural chains and systems that support and acknowledge the hard work that farmers are doing and help create good conditions for them to work with dignity. Through their hard work farmers bring others happiness while fostering their own contentment like roots in the soil.

We should take care of people in need and 'share the abundance' through fair resource distribution.

Conclusion

We support happiness in farming, including healthy and vibrant systems of nature, community and economy. We need to take back the roles of young farmers in food production, reclaiming right livelihood.

Young farmers are the future of agriculture, which preserves biodiversity and an occupied life. They practice natural harmonious farming and offer respect and dignity for communities.

We need small and slow solutions in agricultural development and design in order to deal with the global challenges we are facing. Innovative young farmers offer those solutions we should support them.

In a world where resources are dwindling young farmers offer an abundant agricultural future and wish to share in the bounty.

Rain and Poetry

Sitting now in a serious rain storm in the mountains of Luang Prabang, The thunder and lightning seems to be carving new mountains and the rain is turning the streets to rivers.

I'm sitting here reading poems and thinking about the amazing chance we have here in all this mess of life, all the happiness and sadness, to see and to hear.

Here is a poem I am spending some time with from Philip Whalen, another vagabond American moving through Asia.

Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

I praise those ancient Chinamen

Who left me a few words,

Usually a pointless joke or a silly question
A line of poetry 
drunkenly scrawled on the margin 
of a quick                        
splashed picture- bug, leaf,                        
caricature of Teacher            
on paper held together now by little more than ink            
& their own strength brushed momentarily over it
Their world & several others sinceGone to hell in a handbasket, 
they knew it- 
Cheered as it whizzed by- 
& conked out among the busted spring rain 
cherryblossom winejars
Happy to have saved us all.

October

News from the Common Ground Country Fair and the rich harvest from a good summer brings me spinning back to New England this morning. - It is October there and everything has changed, the chimneys blow smoke into the salt air and the leaves blow past. It is also October here but the place seems hardly to have noticed. - There is no morning chill, no smell of pumpkin pie, no cold hands digging the potatoes from the damp and frosted morning soil. Yet somehow we can all still feel the October-ness on our sunburned skin. - In the swell of the passion fruit and the bounty of the rice harvest. 

Here is Robert Frost's poem October:


O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

To-morrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know;

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes' sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--

For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Crossing the Mekong and Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem'

by Cory Whitney

When we look up the river we can see patches in the mountains, now new upland rice fields or seedlings for rubber or teak. The river bubbles and rages below our little cracked long boat. - The engine sputters and chokes.

We look downstream at the tall forests and the healthy green mountains and we hope that the engine will keep running - and we hope that the forests will remain - and we hope that the people will find a way to be full and healthy here.

Photo of Leonard
Rolling Stone 

Meanwhile, as researchers we try to grasp all the complexities of the situation and try to wrap our minds around the dynamics of it.

How can we know what is happening or why? - We are taking out boddhisatva vows to try and find some solutions in an endless sea of delusion and confusion. We attempt draw out some possible answers from the chaos of information and complex human and nature interactions. - Never saying we are certain and attempting to prove that we are wrong before saying anything.






This song came to mind as I was sorting through all the data:


The birds they sang

at the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what

has passed away

or what is yet to be.

Ah the wars they will

be fought again

The holy dove

She will be caught again

bought and sold

and bought again

the dove is never free.



Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.



We asked for signs

the signs were sent:

the birth betrayed

the marriage spent

Yeah the widowhood

of every government --

signs for all to see.



I can't run no more

with that lawless crowd

while the killers in high places

say their prayers out loud.

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

a thundercloud

and they're going to hear from me.



Ring the bells that still can ring ...



You can add up the parts

but you won't have the sum

You can strike up the march,

there is no drum

Every heart, every heart

to love will come

but like a refugee.



Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.



Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

Buddhism meets Animism

Bo Ton Mai ceremony for Ficus tree

The elders of a small village here were having troubles with illegal logging and over-harvesting in the communal forests - they took direct action to save the trees.

They organized a Bo Ton Mai ceremony and ordained all the trees as monks. The local pagoda and the most famous monks from the region came along with all the villagers and nearby people. The offenders who had been cutting trees and damaging the forests even took part in the ceremony and acknowledged the sacredness of the forest and the trees.

The problems with forest mis-use did not continue.

Read Susan Darlington's story about Buddhist Ecology in Thailand: http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/susan.htm

Rain and Janis Joplin's Deepest Heart

Janis Joplin
Morrison Hotel Gallery

It is the rainy season here and I am sitting in the rain in the nostalgic early morning. - Thinking about a quiet saturday afternoon in the late summer. My father and I had just gone for a long walk in the forest and were rained out and made it back to his wood paneled ford station wagon. It smelled of woodworking and cigarettes.

He put on this tape by Janis Joplin and we listened to her speech a few times through while we sat in the dryness of the car with the rain drawing a curtain between us and the rest of the world. Just my Dad and me and Janis Joplin, she was totally hopped-up on some kind of crazy drugs and energy and sharing her heart.

Here is the poem that she shared on stage in the middle of a song. It might be titled 'You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow'.



I don't understand how come you're gone

I don't understand why half the world is still crying

when the other half of the world is still crying too, man
and it can't get it together.

I mean,
if you got a cat for one day
I mean, if you, say, say...
maybe you want a cat for 365 days, right?
You ain't got him for 365 days
you got him for one day, man.
Well I tell you that one day, better be your life.
Because, you know
you can say, oh man
you can cry about the other 364
but you're gonna lose that one day,
and that's all you've got.
You gotta call that love, man.


That's what it is, man.


If you got it today you don't want it tomorrow, man,
'cause you don't need it,
'cause as a matter of fact, as we discovered on the train, tomorrow never happens, man.
It's all the same fucking day, man.
  

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Here is a regularly updated list of other things Cory writes