Reinhabiting. Eco-design, care and ecological transition in the permaculture movement

International audience; In this contribution, I develop some reflections on the forms currently taken by the permaculture movement in Italy. The environmental activism supported by permaculture rests on the aspiration to “care for the earth” and “care for people”. Permaculture care-based environmentalism focuses on practices and, specifically, on eco-design practices. There is, however, an important difference in practicing eco-design exclusively as the design of “permanent” ecosystems or instead as the design of places where to “reinhabit”, through repairing social and ecological relations. The study of Italian permaculture activists and initiatives shows that it is still a challenge for eco-design activism to combine “technical courage” and “political courage”. According to design thinker Tomás Maldonado, both of these forms of experimental courage are necessary for an ecological society to emerge out of struggles for socioenvironmental justice and emancipation.