Ecovillages as spaces of place-based transformative learning

Bibliographic Data

ID5832077
AuthorsSiri Renée Pister (0000-0002-7345-3997, Wageningen University & Research, corresponding author)
Year2022
Publication date2022-10-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeTHESIS
PublisherWageningen University and Research (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.18174/578258
OpenAlexW4307689806
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited138

Chapter 6 "We learned the language of the tree" Ecovillages as spaces of place-based transformative learning List of boxesBox 1.The inner dimension of sustainability Box 2. Defining an ecological consciousness Box 3. Defining a modern consciousness 'Only by giving primary value to the full-bodied world of our face-to-face, and faceto -place encounters, do we have a chance of manoeuvring wisely, and well, among the many other worlds that now claim our attention.Only by being deeply here, in and of this place, am I palpably connected to every other place.' (Abram (2017) in Spell of the Sensuous, p. 284) Towards a research (quest)ionTurning inwards to go onwards: from personal revelation to an academic understanding of transformationIn the autumn of 2015, I wrote a position paper to apply for an early-stage research position on 'Ecovillages and Sustainable Living' within the project 'Sustainable Place Shaping'.About two years before, I had started to immerse myself in books, therapy and meditation practices to learn about and experience the value of, amongst other things, (self )compassion.Apart from the benefits I experienced personally, I was intellectually triggered by the theories behind, and the 'promises' made about the cultivation of compassion and self-compassion though contemplative practices including meditation.Numerous studies indicated that compassion for one-self and others make individuals capable of seeing themselves more clearly and making needed changes (Neff, 2011).Compassion and self-compassion have furthermore been related to increased caring for oneself but also others (Jazaieri et al., 2016; Neff & Pommier, 2013; Welp & Brown, 2014), cultivating a sense of connectedness with others (Neff, 2003), successful and sustainable leadership (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005) and pro-environmental values, intentions and donations (Pfattheicher et al., 2016).'The techno-scientific (outward) focus of a significant part of the discourse around transitions needs to be enriched and complemented with the psychological and spiritual dimensions of life (inward focus) and its future possibilities (p.2). ... We argue, that a transition to more sustainable societies, to a more sustainable world, can only succeed through fundamental transformations at the personal and collective levels (p.5).'Additionally, they pose that an increasing number of, in this case urban, grassroot initiatives, engage with the inner dimension of change (ibid).As Hathaway (2015: 8) argues, our imaginations of the future are constrained by our particular understanding of reality, our 'cosmovision or worldview'.They go on arguing that we need a new form of cognition rooted in a new vision of reality to be able to address the problems related to sustainability, to be able to see and imagine the path towards a sustainable world.They then add that we might even need 'a different mode of consciousness' for this (ibid).Others describe it as 'a cultural pathology' that requires 'cultural therapy' (O'Sullivan, 1999: 3) or stress the necessity of spiritual renewal in order to understand ourselves to be capable of being more than a 'plague' (Orr, 2002) or 'upright mammalian weed' (Margulis, 1998: 149) on this planet.'other economies'. The need to address context and learning in sustainability transformationsApart from the need to shed light on the inner dimension while not losing sight of structural dynamics underlying unsustainable societies, two other gaps in research and practice on sustainability transformations have been identified.They have to do with the lack of case-and context-specific concerns, and theoretical tools to structure the associated learning processes.First of all, the lack of spatial/temporal considerations, in other words the lack of a placebased approach.As Singh, Keitsch and Shrestha (2019) argue, many interventions around 'sustainability' lack spatial and temporal considerations resulting in a lack of case-and context-specific concerns, objectives, priorities and possibilities as well as a short term vision. Box 1. The inner dimension of sustainabilityThe inner dimension of sustainability: culture, values, mindsets, worldviews and consciousness Many different concepts have been used to refer to (parts of ) the inner dimension of sustainability including mindsets, culture, values, worldviews and consciousness.This research focuses on consciousness, which it understands as slightly different from the related concept of worldviews.Worldviews often still reside in the domain of culture and values, while consciousness goes yet a level deeper, to the very essence of how we 'are' in this world, consciousness is about a different way of 'being' altogether (Daloz, 2004) which includes not only our cognitive perspective of the world we live in, but also the way we inhabit it through our embodied experiences.Consciousness as understood in this thesis is dynamic and constantly created in the space between self, social and material (Newman, 2012(Newman, , 2014) ) and the spiritual or metaphysical, even though this spiritual dimension can also be understood as an intrinsic part of all three dimensions, including the physical/material world, as is often found in indigenous ontologies (Abram, 1996).Consciousness in this understanding is thus relational, which means that changes in our material environment influence our consciousness and vice versa.As Hathaway (2015) argues, ''The destruction of the Earth's life-sustaining systems, then, has repercussions for human consciousness.At the same time, both our mode of cognition and our way of perceiving the world contribute to the perpetuation of the crisis.''(p.2).In some cases, I still refer to worldviews if drawing from a particular scholar or theoretical perspective that uses the concept 'worldview'.Chapter 1 20Chapter seven is the last empirical chapter of this thesis and reflects upon the learning processes of myself as a researcher engaging with theory and practices of transformation in collaboration with ecovillages.This chapter is a retrospective auto-ethnographic account of my personal experiences discussed through the theoretical lens of the PBTL framework.Chapter eight discusses the main findings of this thesis, including those concerning the individual learning journeys of community members, learning as community, learning as researcher and the conceptualization of PBTL as a four dimensional process.The chapter continues with the theoretical as well as practical contributions of this research and reflects upon the methodological approach before concluding with the answers to the three research questions

Pedagogy · Sociology · Transformative learning · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Outdoor and Experiential Education

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