Abstract:

This contribution presents the exploratory project Human permaculture, whose objective is to examine how the principles derived from permaculture could inspire new pedagogical approaches in managerial training. Our approach aimed in particular to determine whether the use of metaphors drawn from the living and, potentially, an experiential approach in the garden can facilitate the acquisition and appropriation of management principles. It was also a question of identifying whether the literature or existing practices in tertiary education already use a garden as a learning medium, which had never been documented before.

The project is based on an in-depth literature review as well as on the analysis of existing projects, including an exchange with the European Permalabs initiative. All the results show that if some analogies between permaculture and management appear in academic work, they are mobilized mainly in a conceptual way. Management training does not seem to make use of a natural environment as a pedagogical tool, nor of structured experiential devices that make it possible to transpose the principles of permaculture into an active learning framework.

However, a review of the literature highlights the potential interest of a pedagogy that integrates experiential and reflective dimensions. These approaches would allow learners to link concepts, professional practices and their own meaning-building process more closely. Based on the twelve founding principles of permaculture, an initial correlation with key managerial skills has been developed, providing a conceptual basis for considering a more systemic future framework.

The results thus underline the existence of a field that is still relatively unexplored but promising. They indicate the need to design, at a later stage, a pedagogical model to empirically test the impact of garden immersion on the understanding and integration of management principles. This preliminary work lays the foundations for a structured reflection on the potential contribution of a living environment to enrich learning, develop transversal skills and promote a more systemic reading of organizations.

By establishing a clear inventory, identifying current limits and formulating concrete avenues for the future, the Human permaculture project contributes to opening new avenues for pedagogical innovation in management. It is fully in line with the current orientations of higher education, which are committed to promoting more sustainable, interdisciplinary, experiential and meaningful learning.

Keywords:

Management, Permaculture, Experiential approach.