Self in Practice in an Ecological Community

This book examines the motives and experiences of
members of an ecovillage community as they strive to
develop a redefined sense of self-world relations.
The ecovillage movement has arisen as an attempt to
define the parameters of a new social paradigm, in
response to the dominant social paradigm that is seen
to have had disastrous consequences on the social,
ecological, and personal fabric of our lives. This
paradigm has, through 300 years of history,
constructed a consumer landscape over the original empty space of the American continent which binds
up our psychic attention, alienating us from the
holistic and ecological ground of our lives.
Residents of the Ecovillage at Ithaca came together
to give concrete expression to a new set of ideals in
a unique form of domestic protest. The book explores
the processes of the first years as residents began
to react and adapt to competing demands against a
review of literature from diverse sources that
examines the nature and conceptions of the self. The
result is a vision of a newly emerging
sense-of-self-through-practice that seeks
reconstitution on personal, social, and ecological
levels.

Autorentext

After many years in the furniture business in Scotland the author
studied for his Ph.D. in Environmental Psychology in New York,
completing the current work as his doctoral dissertation.
Currently he is a founder and Executive Director of Yanapuma
Foundation in Ecuador, working to promote sustainable development
in marginalized communities.

Klappentext

This book examines the motives and experiences of
members of an ecovillage community as they strive to
develop a redefined sense of self-world relations.
The ecovillage movement has arisen as an attempt to
define the parameters of a new social paradigm, in
response to the dominant social paradigm that is seen
to have had disastrous consequences on the social,
ecological, and personal fabric of our lives. This
paradigm has, through 300 years of history,
constructed a "consumer landscape" over the original
"empty space" of the American continent which binds
up our psychic attention, alienating us from the
holistic and ecological ground of our lives.
Residents of the Ecovillage at Ithaca came together
to give concrete expression to a new set of ideals in
a unique form of domestic protest. The book explores
the processes of the first years as residents began
to react and adapt to competing demands against a
review of literature from diverse sources that
examines the nature and conceptions of the self. The
result is a vision of a newly emerging
sense-of-self-through-practice that seeks
reconstitution on personal, social, and ecological
levels.