This is a revision of an earlier essay I published on DailyKos.com, in preparation for its republication in the Environmental Analysis journal (and perhaps elsewhere). Its major premise is as follows:
Sustainability is nowhere to be found, and so we appear to be groping in the dark when looking for it. One of the ways in which we can proceed to build knowledge about sustainability, however, is in the community garden. A conceptual guide to the idea of sustainability is located in the concept of prefiguration (as described by Joel Kovel in his book The Enemy of Nature), which describes the sense in which social institutions point to the possibility of a global, ecologically sustainable, society. Community gardens have important prefigurative qualities, too. The bulk of this diary, then, will be about one such community garden, one located on the campus of a college: the Pomona College Natural Farm. The Pomona College Natural Farm will be presented as a place where sustainability, both in social and ecological terms, can be studied. Its conclusion will attempt to speculate about the significance of the Farm and of community gardens as “prefigurations.”