Eco-communities
Surviving Well Together
Published on 10. July 2025
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-350-52815-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book critically explores the aims and practices of eco-communities worldwide.
Eco-communities can inspire, provoke, and challenge us to live more environmentally harmonious and collective lives. They are practical, ongoing experimentations in how we might survive well together - humans and all living beings on this planet. Eco-communities are examples of grassroot efforts at socio-ecological transformation - self-organised practices, infrastructures and spaces that seek to transform ways of being, living and working. This book answers four critical questions: Can eco-communities generate socio-ecological transformations, and if so how and in what form?; Who lives in eco-communities and what are the implications of this demographic composition?; What does it entail to organise via collective governance practices?; and how do eco-communities operate financially and generate money and livelihoods? While many eco-communities attempt to transform all elements of their daily lives (a holistic and interconnected reworking of how we dwell, eat, work, educate, reproduce, age, etc.) these processes as always incomplete, in-the-making, unfinished and messy. This book explores the ongoing processes of navigating these tensions and contradictions that none-the-less create hope that we might be able to live otherwise and be involved in world-making projects.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
Eco-communities can inspire, provoke, and challenge us to live more environmentally harmonious and collective lives. They are practical, ongoing experimentations in how we might survive well together - humans and all living beings on this planet. Eco-communities are examples of grassroot efforts at socio-ecological transformation - self-organised practices, infrastructures and spaces that seek to transform ways of being, living and working. This book answers four critical questions: Can eco-communities generate socio-ecological transformations, and if so how and in what form?; Who lives in eco-communities and what are the implications of this demographic composition?; What does it entail to organise via collective governance practices?; and how do eco-communities operate financially and generate money and livelihoods? While many eco-communities attempt to transform all elements of their daily lives (a holistic and interconnected reworking of how we dwell, eat, work, educate, reproduce, age, etc.) these processes as always incomplete, in-the-making, unfinished and messy. This book explores the ongoing processes of navigating these tensions and contradictions that none-the-less create hope that we might be able to live otherwise and be involved in world-making projects.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
Reviews / Votes
Jenny Pickerill's edited volume makes a critical contribution to the vibrant, interdisciplinary study of eco-communities, intentional communities, and real utopias. Bringing a feminist, decolonial, and intersectional perspective to these prefigurative initiatives is essential-not only for understanding their inescapable entanglement in the techno-patriarchal-racist dynamics of contemporary capitalism-but also for providing activists and practitioners with rigorous scholarly reflections that can spark politically honest (and sometimes uncomfortable) conversations on the ground. Eco-communities and other communal "real utopias" are often criticized for reproducing the same inequalities found in mainstream society. This volume serves as an essential starting point for engaging with this debate, offering nuance, insight, and, ultimately, a much-needed sense of hope and openness to the reader. * Lara Monticelli, University College London, UK * Based on transdisciplinary empirical research, this important book offers detailed insights into the living realities of eco-communities. Discussing the realization of their utopian approaches, including major critical issues such as power dynamics, exclusivity, and resource management, the authors offer an extraordinary nuanced perspective on the complexity of these socio-ecological experiments for societal transformation. * Iris Kunze, PhD. * Eco-communities are not just a nice addition - they are essential parts of safe future. In this edited collection, Jenny Pickerill skillfully and joyfully takes us on a journey through an abundance of exciting experiments that challenge us all to live more fulfilling community lives. * Paul Chatterton, University of Leeds, UK * A wonderful exploration of the importance and challenges of eco-community habitats. This book brings nuance, understanding, and empathy to the difficulties of living against the grain of mainstream life while remaining ever attentive to the reasons why people experiment with environmentally responsible, collective forms of living. Empirically rich and analytically insightful * Davina Cooper, King's College London, UK *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
687 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-52815-4 (9781350528154)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jenny Pickerill is a Professor of Environmental Geography at University of Sheffield, UK.
Content
Dedication
World map of Eco-communities
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1 - Collective dynamic environmental experiments
Jenny Pickerill
Living Ecologically: Generating socio-ecological transformations
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 2 - Does living sustainably suck? Reduced consumption and quality of life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage during the Anthropocene
Joshua Lockyer and Brooke Jones
Chapter 3 - Understanding consumption reduction through the social practices of an Australian Eco-community
Matthew Daly
Chapter 4 - Reconfiguring more-than-human relations in Eco-communities: skillsets, empowerment, and discomfort
Elisa Schramm
Chapter 5 - Peopled environments: Eco-communities and their reconfigurations of nature
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 6 - Eco-communities and outsiders: Opportunities and obstacles to transforming the world
Jon Anderson
Negotiating Questions of Inclusion
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 7 - Towards Inclusive Eco-communities: socially and environmentally just sustainable futures
Tendai Chitewere
Chapter 8 - Settling in colonial ways? Eco-communities' uncomfortable settler colonial practices
Adam Barker and Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 9 - Eco-communities and Feminism(s): Who cares? An ethnographic study of social practices in three French Eco-communities
Nadine Gerner
Chapter 10 - Uneven equity and sustainability in intentional communities in the USA: A national-level exploratory analysis
Christina Lopez and Russell Weaver
Chapter 11: Confronting Racial Privilege: Questioning whiteness in Eco-communities
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 12 - In defence of Eco-Collaborative housing communities: Porous boundaries and scaling out
Anitra Nelson
Doing it Together: Collective governance
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 13 - Contingent, contested, political: learning from processes of environmental governance in the Global South to understand Eco-communities
Natasha Cornea
Chapter 14 - Organising together: coexisting, time economies, money and scale in Barcelona Eco-communities
Marc Gavalda and Claudio Cattaneo
Chapter 15 - How Eco-communities grow through social learning, social permaculture, and group transformation
Helen Jarvis
Chapter 16 - Prompting spiritually prefigurative political practice: Collective decision-making in Auroville, India
Suryamayi Aswini Clarence-Smith
Building Diverse Economies
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 17 - Escaping capitalism? Time, quality of life and hybrid economies
Kirsten Stevens-Wood
Chapter 18 - Workshops and liberation in Freetown Christiania: Tensions in a post-growth community economy
Thomas S.J. Smith and Nadia Johanisova
Chapter 19 - Community economies in Eco-communities: spaces of collaboration, opportunities and dilemmas
Jan Maly Blazek
Conclusions
Chapter 20 - Being collectively transformational?
Jenny Pickerill
Author biographies
Index
World map of Eco-communities
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1 - Collective dynamic environmental experiments
Jenny Pickerill
Living Ecologically: Generating socio-ecological transformations
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 2 - Does living sustainably suck? Reduced consumption and quality of life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage during the Anthropocene
Joshua Lockyer and Brooke Jones
Chapter 3 - Understanding consumption reduction through the social practices of an Australian Eco-community
Matthew Daly
Chapter 4 - Reconfiguring more-than-human relations in Eco-communities: skillsets, empowerment, and discomfort
Elisa Schramm
Chapter 5 - Peopled environments: Eco-communities and their reconfigurations of nature
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 6 - Eco-communities and outsiders: Opportunities and obstacles to transforming the world
Jon Anderson
Negotiating Questions of Inclusion
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 7 - Towards Inclusive Eco-communities: socially and environmentally just sustainable futures
Tendai Chitewere
Chapter 8 - Settling in colonial ways? Eco-communities' uncomfortable settler colonial practices
Adam Barker and Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 9 - Eco-communities and Feminism(s): Who cares? An ethnographic study of social practices in three French Eco-communities
Nadine Gerner
Chapter 10 - Uneven equity and sustainability in intentional communities in the USA: A national-level exploratory analysis
Christina Lopez and Russell Weaver
Chapter 11: Confronting Racial Privilege: Questioning whiteness in Eco-communities
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 12 - In defence of Eco-Collaborative housing communities: Porous boundaries and scaling out
Anitra Nelson
Doing it Together: Collective governance
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 13 - Contingent, contested, political: learning from processes of environmental governance in the Global South to understand Eco-communities
Natasha Cornea
Chapter 14 - Organising together: coexisting, time economies, money and scale in Barcelona Eco-communities
Marc Gavalda and Claudio Cattaneo
Chapter 15 - How Eco-communities grow through social learning, social permaculture, and group transformation
Helen Jarvis
Chapter 16 - Prompting spiritually prefigurative political practice: Collective decision-making in Auroville, India
Suryamayi Aswini Clarence-Smith
Building Diverse Economies
Theme Introduction
Jenny Pickerill
Chapter 17 - Escaping capitalism? Time, quality of life and hybrid economies
Kirsten Stevens-Wood
Chapter 18 - Workshops and liberation in Freetown Christiania: Tensions in a post-growth community economy
Thomas S.J. Smith and Nadia Johanisova
Chapter 19 - Community economies in Eco-communities: spaces of collaboration, opportunities and dilemmas
Jan Maly Blazek
Conclusions
Chapter 20 - Being collectively transformational?
Jenny Pickerill
Author biographies
Index