Fostering sustainability in Brazilian agrarian reform: insights from assentamentos and ecovillages

3.5 | Ecovillages: a source of insights for sustainability in small rural communities

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Ecovillages—the contrast case in our research design—can be introduced as human settlements that are intentionally designed and organized with the purpose of achieving sustainability across social, ecological and economic dimensions. It is hard to say when the first ecovillages were created, but the oldest communities presently recognized by GEN (the Global Ecovillage Network—an umbrella network of ecovillages and related organizations) date back to the 1960s. GEN was founded in the early 1990s with the support of Gaia Trust, a charitable Danish organization that continues to fund it today. GEN provides visibility to its members and organizes events to disseminate know-how about sustainable living in community. Gaia Trust also funds Gaia Education, another well-known NGO in the field, responsible for creating the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) curriculum, the most popular educational program in the field.


There is no “official” census of ecovillages, despite significant attempts to map and collect information on communities that self-identify as such (eurotopia, 2014; GEN, 2014). In May 2015, GEN had registered about 720 communities and projects that were “established” or “under construction”. Among them, 240 report to be located in rural areas (although many more may actually be in distinctly rural environments). Although the presence of ecovillages seems to be particularly dense in Northern Europe, the United States and Australia, in recent years many ecovillages have been founded in countries across the global South, especially in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.[1]

All ecovillages share the principle of being intentional communities, i.e. groups of people that intentionally live together to pursue goals beyond the mere living together, collectively taking responsibility for designing and managing common structures and ways of living (eurotopia, 2014; Jackson, 1998, p. 1; Wagner, 2012, p. 82). In intentional communities, “community is not just about living together, but about the reasons for doing so” (Christian, 2003, p. xvi).

Although communities that identify themselves as ecovillages share an explicit focus on sustainability, in practice they exhibit very diverse characteristics, partially reflecting different interpretations of this concept. Importantly, even though ecovillages strive to have a significant degree of self-sufficiency (in energy and resource production for example), they do not aspire to be completely isolated from the external world. They rather seek to interact with the surrounding environment in mutually beneficial ways. As stated by an interviewee, most ecovillagers don't want to live in a bubble:

​“You shouldn't just live in Sieben Linden and just lose the point of view of what's outside, that's not the right way… you have to be in the flow, of what is really going on outside” [5:13].

Joining an ecovillage

Although we found people from all ages living in ecovillages, there was a relatively high percentage of young people—especially when compared to assentamentos. Most residents in the ecovillages visited used to live in urban contexts, until they decided to explore an alternative way of living. The specific reasons vary, but all of them shared a sense of dissatisfaction with the ‘mainstream’ world. Most of them have also attained high educational levels, and come from relatively privileged socio-economic backgrounds. In addition, most reported not identifying with the left (nor any other position in a left-right political spectrum), and tended to reject the idea of direct government support for their communities.

One can either join an existing ecovillage or create, together with others, a new one. Usually, those interested in joining an existing ecovillage need to go through a pre-established admission process, frequently including a period of “mutual acquaintance” through working as a volunteer. This volunteering phase is regarded as essential for both parties (the prospective resident/volunteer and the community) to experience life among each other and see if it works [43:10].


Those who wish to create new ecovillages usually also work as volunteers, visiting different communities and sometimes taking an Ecovillage Design Education course. The steps taken in the creation of an ecovillage include:
  1. developing a common vision within a group;
  2. finding land that satisfies expectations (location, price, resources, ‘feel’);
  3. if unavailable, progressively building basic infrastructure.

 

Ecological concerns: permaculture and traditional technologies

Concerns about ecological impact were present in all visited ecovillages. In some cases (such as IPEC and Sieben Linden), methods and technology to reduce ecological footprint played predominant roles in inhabitants’ daily lives and in their collective plans for future development. These ecovillages incorporate the diffusion of green technologies as a core aim. They do not only teach those technologies for those who can afford to participate in their paid courses, but also by testing, developing and disseminating their experiences through varied means. Bioconstruction, for instance, is a central facet of IPEC; they built most of their buildings themselves, using only clay and other natural resources available in their own grounds. Compost toilets—relatively simple devices/buildings that allow the transformation of human excretions into compost—are widely prevalent in ecovillages and even perceived as potentially revolutionary [39:25].
 


However, the degree of practical involvement with ecological concerns varies across cases. In Sieben Linden, for example, the ecological dimension of sustainability was present as a core concern since its inception, in part because founding members were affiliated with strong environmentalist movements in the 1970s and 80s, and thus pushed for a more radical focus [49:5]. Other ecovillages are relatively more relaxed in this sense, but implement eco-friendly practices when they see them as compatible with their interests, means and constraints. Like an interviewee said.

“yes, that is a point that unites us [...] but ‘Am I going to remodel the world?’ or ‘Are we going to be sustainable and ecological to save the world?’ No. I do that to have a better life now, today”[29:30].

A system of principles, methods and technologies known as “permaculture” is a key reference in many ecovillages, inspiring not just relationships with the environment, but also with the structuring of social relationships [41:85]. According to Mollison, who coined the term and whose contributions are seminal in the field, “permaculture (from permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way” (1988, p. ix). A main principle behind permaculture is the so-called principle of cooperation: “cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of existing life systems and of future survival” (Mollison, 1988, p. 2). Indeed, an understanding of cooperation as an essential guiding concept for sustainable living was observed in all ecovillages, with, however, different strategies to implement the concept in practice.

Social dynamics, relationships and communication

Ecovillagers attempt to maintain strong cooperative communities in which they can feel “pleased to live” and personally fulfilled—and this means dealing with conflict: “you have to deal with conflict, or you cannot live together” [51:39]. In ecovillages, dealing with conflicts does not only mean taking collective decisions consensually (as far as that is possible) and avoiding factions, but also allowing space and opportunities for members to work on their emotional side. There is a clear purpose of enabling some sort of self-development, which is usually linked with the social foundation upon which the community is built.

“It's not about suffering from the other, but it's about learning, and about being curious, about shaking the conflict and really learning. Conflict is really helpful when, after it, both parts are stronger.” [51:39].

In consequence, ecovillagers frequently experiment on alternative ways for creating community, usually by employing innovative interpersonal communication tools learned from external sources (such as “non-violent communication”, Dragon Dreaming or “Expand the Box”, among others) or developed by themselves (notoriously “Forum”, developed in Zegg but widely used elsewhere). Even when concrete tools for communicating are not used, there is a permanent concern about the sustainability of human interaction, associated with more fluid and honest communication.

Ecovillagers often report that living in community is hard (e.g., “it's really exhausting and it's a lot of contact with people here, and lots of things to do, lots of things to work…" [43:33]), but that this is precisely what they were looking for when they joined, and something they continue to find fulfilling along time. As reported by a interviewee,

“Where I lived, I felt I didn't have too much interaction with the people around me, with my neighbors, and I wanted to have that back” [29:2].

Economic activities

Ecovillagers intend to obtain enough income to fulfill their present needs without counting on governmental support. Interestingly, although most ecovillages are located in rural areas, agrarian production does not usually represent their main source of income. Rather than seeing food as a commercial good, its production is mostly meant for self-consumption and closely aligned with their own values and interests (e.g., consuming as organically and locally as possible).

The main source of income for ecovillages is the provision of services. Most ecovillages visited obtain income from hosting guests, offering courses and seminars, and disseminating technologies and know-how used and developed in their own communities. An interviewee from IPEC expressed:

"What we do here is to produce technology, to produce more information, it is knowledge; we do experiments, learn… we rescue certain traditional knowledge, ancient building methods, and we also integrate knowledge from other parts of the world” [39:48].

Almost all ecovillages have a formal organizational structure allowing them to provide those services and manage collective resources. Associations, cooperatives and even limited liability corporations are some of the legal entities used to provide services and organize property and labor.

Ecovillagers’ income is complemented with economic activities developed with the communities surrounding them. They often provide specialized services like consultancy, dance classes, legal and psychological advice, among others; or obtain income through the Internet, for example via e-commerce websites (Aldeia).


Importantly, ecovillagers not only provide services for the communities around them, but also consume their products and services. Ecovillages visited often hire locals to help them in construction or maintenance. Beyond the economic dimension, they also exchange knowledge about alternative construction materials and techniques for sustainability, for example.

Volunteering opportunities are also common in ecovillages. Volunteers typically come in order to learn by doing and end up helping to build and maintain an ecovillage without, or with very little, financial gains: “they come to donate their time, energy, intelligence and work” [39:27]. However, volunteering programs have indirect costs and require effort from the community to provide the conditions necessary to attract and receive volunteers. Although volunteers can bring important contributions, they can sometimes be of little help or even an element of disturbance in communities [29:107, 39:28].
 

Worldview and experimentation

The creation process of an ecovillage usually stems from the construction of a common collective vision.

“The vision is like the vision what you want in life. The mission is what is the task of the community or company or whatever group to complete the mission, to reach the vision” [51:41].

The vision varies among cases, and sometimes, particular understandings of that vision may vary within the same community, but commonly within broad consistency with shared underlying principles or attitudes. In all cases, ecovillagers seemed to adopt an ideal of finding personal fulfillment while living in conditions that are created with a shared concern for sustainability. As stated by one interviewee:

“I think that each person has individual reasons, but everyone is concerned not only with creating a pleasant place to live, but one that is sustainable [...] the simple fact that we gave up a series of comforts to come to the middle of the bushes [meio do mato] is already an attitude from those seeking another quality of life. [...] I think that is something that unites us." [29:26].

In many ecovillages, the development of the common vision occurs within a general worldview where spirituality plays a key role—not necessarily in a religious sense, but more in the sense of emphasizing self-reflection about each individual’s role in the world. This is associated with the story that ecovillagers share: a negative evaluation or discontent with ‘mainstream’ modes of living that motivates them to explore different lifestyles together.

Because ecovillages are designed to facilitate “quests for alternative ways of life”, they become places for constant experimentation. Ecovillages can often be interpreted as live laboratories of sustainable living (in community). In all ecovillages visited, we observed that people tried to live a different life from those living in urban areas. The degree of experimentation can be more radical, such as in ZEGG, an ecovillage whose founding members embedded the concept in the name: Center for Experimental Cultural and Social Design (Zentrum für experimentelle Gesellschaftsgestaltung). One resident summarized their attitude as follows:

“ZEGG really has this experimental idea since the beginning, and the idea is to make experiments with ourselves, so we try and we see if the energy gets higher or lower. If the energy gets lower, the energy gets stuck, then it's not good. But if you can change something and the energy rises again and you see there's life, more force, more power, then it's good.” [51:15][2]

An open attitude to experimentation was also evident in Sieben Linden. One of its residents brought up the following example:

“there was one woman who raised the idea of having a very very extreme ecologic group, with no electricity, no machines, being only vegan, stuff like this, and there were people who liked this idea and they became part of that group, or, more likely, they came to Sieben Linden to join that group directly.” [41:9].

That group, which became known as Club99, eventually dissolved, but their experience became widely known among environmentalist and ecovillage circles (Würfel, 2012).

In a nutshell, ecovillagers spend large amounts of effort and time trying out alternative ways of living in community with an explicit focus on sustainability, especially in the social and ecological dimensions of the concept. Because life in ecovillages involves frequent daily interactions within a smaller group, sharing spaces and undertaking numerous collective initiatives, a significant portion of that effort is dedicated to solving conflicts while keeping (or updating) their common vision. This constitutes the basis for the knowledge-related services that are central in ecovillages’ economic activities.

>>> 3.6 | Synthesis: assentamentos and ecovillages side-by-side
 
[2] The use of the term “energy” clearly denotes the type of vocabulary that can be found in ecovillages. Here, it seems to express a rather intuitive, non-fixed approach to the evaluation of particular ‘experiments’. How the “lowering or rising of energy” is operationalized for each ‘experiment’ is unclear, but our field experience revealed that there is a constant striving to achieve consensus in these sorts of decisions. 

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