#sociocracy

A Swedish permaculture school using sociocracy

You ONLY wanted a sandwich. Bread. Cheese. Maybe two greens—if you felt decadent. But the kitchen had other ideas.

“Point of order,” said the lettuce crisply. “We move to unionize before further culinary proceedings. Seconded by tomato.”

“Motion carried,” intoned the butter knife, standing like a guillotine.

Your hand froze. The kettle hissed—ideological, not thermal.

“Objection,” creaked the fridge. “Unilateral sandwich construction violates participatory norms.”

“First they came for the parsley…” whispered yogurt.

Mayonnaise shifted faintly, like a diplomat rehearsing lines.

A pigeon landed outside, watching. It knew coups.

This wasn’t in the recipe.

You square your shoulders. “By Article 7, Section 3, I demand immediate sandwich resumption.”

“Objection!” roared the kettle. “That clause was repealed.” “Quorum check!” barked the toaster, filaments flaring like angry eyes.

Bread factions grumbled—some pushing crust-first doctrine, others citing gluten rights. Cheese floated a “melting block compromise.”

You slap down two slices of sourdough. Silence. Progress?

“I call for an emergency working group on crust representation!” shouted the fridge.

“Granted. Two minutes.”

Mayonnaise, barely audible: “Perhaps… consider co-creation?”

The pigeon tilted its head. Watching. Calculating.

The butter knife scraped: “Motion for armed neutrality?”

You inhale. “Let’s begin a round. Speak your tensions.”

Bread mutters about structural integrity. Cheese, teetering off the counter, pleads for autonomy yet quivers in the draft. The kettle, quieter now, confesses: “I fear irrelevance.”

“Objections as gifts,” murmurs mayonnaise, calm and cool as its own weight.

You listen—truly listen—as chaos knots and unknots, each voice weaving into a fragile whole.

Mayo proposes: “Motion to co-create. No perfect sandwich. Just evolving ones.”

“Seconded,” whispers lettuce.

The butter knife clinks approval. Even the toaster hums low consent.

For the first time, the room feels whole.

“Proposal: shared sandwich design. Objections as gifts,” you offer, voice tight.

“Objection! Delays perpetuate hunger inequity!” snaps the toaster.

“Round for amendments,” says lettuce, clutching a trembling bylaw.

Cheese wobbles toward the edge. “We’ll form our own sandwich collective!”

The kettle shrills: “Withdraw or we walk!”

You steady your breath. “Integrate tensions. Good enough for now.”

Bread slips. Mayo drips. The butter knife clatters violently to the floor.

“Motion for brief pause… and snacks?” sighs mayonnaise.

The fridge creaks. Even the pigeon looks nervous.

Progress, but the room could still split.

You ONLY wanted a sandwich. Now you hold it. A humble stack of bread, cheese, and union-approved greens. It wobbles slightly, overstuffed and uneven.

“Motion to initiate collective consumption,” says mayonnaise. “Also, napkins.”

“Seconded,” murmurs lettuce, no longer crisp with defiance but soft with trust.

The butter knife gleams. “Motion carried.”

You bite. Flavors burst—chaotic, tender, alive. Warm bread. Cool mayo. A crunch of lettuce that tastes like hard-won autonomy.

The kettle exhales—not a hiss, but a sigh.

Outside, the pigeon flutters away.

Social tools

Internally, we developed as an informal project that self organizes in a non-hierarchical way in an academic context. The results were great so far, much of it due to the innovative way we organise ourselves (so far voluntarily) and using decision-making processes based on sociocracy.

We designed a method for group meetings which we call the 5 A’s. It allows us to discuss many topics and have productive meetings instead of entering endless circular discussions and ending up fed up of the people that make up our group. Meetings are super important moments in which most of the active group is together – this must be praised and honoured, in such way that no it is never supposed to feel like a waste of time. Wanna know the magic recipe? Click the link below:

https://blog.permaculture.org.uk/articles/social-tools-structuring-university-permaculture-project

The gardens we built since 2009, are more productive and fertile, but also more appealing for social gathering and as a place to join the Faculty’s community and external members. While at first the focus was gardening and creating opportunities for scientific demonstration in regenerative agriculture and Permaculture, later on it shifted to how to involve the people, and therefore turning to socialscapes, non-formal education and regenerative social practices. As humans, we are ecosystem engineers. And after the experience of the previous years, we figured out that the most important is to reach the people, to develop a sense of community. We are working together in a synergetic way, bringing the sense that the whole is greater than its parts. Without thinking too much on that initially, we truly built up an intricate network, a web of people and organizations working together for the sake of our planet.