This is the first blog in a three-part series by Niall Leahy SJ entitled “Who are the Localists?” Localism is both a reality and a countervailing idea challenging the globalist extractivist paradigm and its adherents.
Introduction
When I told people that JCFJ had recruited me as their Advocate for Localism, many looked slightly puzzled and asked me to explain localism. So giving a brief introduction to localism seemed like a good way for me to ramp onto this blog. Localism is not just an idea—it is a reality in the world, one that has been around for far longer than the global extractivist paradigm that governs the “developed” world today. It is enjoying a mini-revival at present, and is increasingly the subject of academic and middle-brow reflection. As we accelerate towards climate chaos, more and more people are looking to ramp off the globalist superhighway and make their way through life more slowly and simply on winding localist trails.
To keep things personal, instead of trying to explain what localism is, I am going to write about who the localists are, or who some of the more noteworthy ones are anyway. They come in many varieties and that lack of homogeneity in their ranks is certainly something they would all celebrate. I have grouped them into three, and will devote one blog post to each: the agrarians, the urban and “worldwide” localists, and localists in the Christian tradition.
My hope for this series is that you will be drawn into the worlds and words of those who know a lot more about it than I do. You might do so by getting involved in a localist initiative near you, listening to a new podcast, or by buying a book from your local book shop rather than from one of the richest men in the world.
The Agrarian Localists
The agrarians who I present here don’t just talk about agrarianism—they do it. And by that I mean that they are all engaged in the work of growing and producing good quality food at home or locally, while conserving rural community and culture. They start with a little patch of land and aim to cultivate it without pumping it full of artificial fertilisers and pesticides. And some of them write about it in their spare time.
Continuing in threes, here are three types of agrarians: the literary farmer, the scientific farmer, and the activist farmer.
The Poet Farmer: Wendell Berry
At a critical juncture in his life, Wendell Berry turned his back on a blossoming academic career in English literature and went home to Kentucky to raise his family on a small farm. He made a fundamental decision to live in and from that place. Moreover, he committed to using the traditional farming methods of his forbears, e.g. no tractor. He also began writing very popular essays and poetry about life on the farm and the virtues of agrarianism, earning the accolade of the poet laureate of America’s farmland. He also critiques modern US American political economy and the paradigm of “industrialism” which brings “Big Ideas, Big Money, and Big Technology into small rural communities, economies, and ecosystems.” Wendell Berry writes very personally and lyrically about life on the farm and in the community. His anecdotes and observations evoke warm sentiments for the land and all that goes with it, without ever losing sight of the costs and inevitable hardships. In Art of the Commonplace, he notes:
“Now I began to see the real abundance and richness of it. It is, I saw, inexhaustible in its history, in the details of its life, in its possibilities. I walked over it, looking, listening, smelling, touching, alive to it as never before. I listened to the talk of my kinsmen and neighbours as I had never done before, alert to their knowledge of the place, and to the qualities and energies of their speech. I began more seriously than ever to learn the names of things — the wild plants and animals, the natural processes, the local places — and to articulate my observations and memories. My language increased and strengthened, and sent my mind into the place like a live root system.”
Reading recommendation: The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry.
In the same mould: Hadden Turner
The Scientist Farmer: Chris Smaje
Before he started farming, Chris Smaje was a social scientist. In his first book A Small Farm Future, he outlines ten interlocking crises that are probably insoluble through business as usual politics, economics and technology. His basic argument is that since the present political economy cannot sustain our resource-intensive urban societies, we will inevitably return to having significantly more small-scale low-energy labour-intensive farms, gardens, and smallholdings. This may happen voluntarily and by design, or involuntarily and forcibly when the present system ceases to function, the former being the less traumatic option. The book is an attempt to trace out the voluntary option.
Smaje is extremely pragmatic, empirical and hard-nosed. He won’t entertain romantic notions, even agrarian ones:
“Notions of the agrarian good life are commonplace around the world, but often they figure as little more than bucolic symbols, empty of pragmatic content.”
He is equally critical of those who are naively optimistic about futures that are predominantly urban, high-tech, high-growth and resource intensive. For Smaje, these people (most people) are also living in a fantasy world, divorced from geophysical realities. Instead, he lays out a vision and pathway towards an agrarian society that lives within the limits of the planet by organising around local autonomies and finding a reasonable and sustainable balance between rural and urban life.
Reading recommendations: A Small Farm Future (2020); Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future (2023); Finding Lights in a Dark Age (forthcoming, 2025); Blog – www.chrissmaje.com.
Podcast recommendation: Doomer Optimism, Episode 73.
In the same mould: Vandana Shiva.
The Activist Farmers: An Talamh Beo
An Talamh Beo (Irish for “The Living Land”) is an Irish movement with the goal of reconnecting land, people and community. They consist of practitioners, activists and academics who are committed to agroecology and the systems that support it. This is how they describe their vision on their website:
“We want to create a better food system in Ireland, where all people have access to healthy, nutritious and affordable local food.”
This vision of the future will realise the following benefits for Irish society:
- Food, fuel and fibre sovereignty;
- Land use which improves social, economic and environmental conditions;
- Resilient rural and farming communities;
- Direct access to culturally appropriate, nutrient dense, quality and local food;
- Every citizen having access to healthy, regionally produced, affordable food from farmers they can trust.
We wish them every success! Go n-eirí an t-ádh leo!
Reading recommendation: www.talamhbeo.ie
In the same mould: La Via Campesina
