ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802

“The Indefinite Future”: Ideas, Ideals, and Idealized Ideology in the Global Eco-Village Robert Kozinets, York University, Canada Frank-Martin Belz, Technische Universität München, Germany

We ethnographically studied three ecovillages in three countries. Relocation of production is a common theme, along with other reconnections—people with food, people with land, people with indigenous practices, and people with other people. Our ethnographic ecovillage encounter provides provisional answers to questions about transitions to a sustainable post-consumer culture.

[to cite]: Robert Kozinets and Frank-Martin Belz (2011) ,"“The Indefinite Future”: Ideas, Ideals, and Idealized Ideology in the Global Eco-Village", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 39, eds. Rohini Ahluwalia, Tanya L. Chartrand, and Rebecca K. Ratner, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 67-68.

[url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1009434/volumes/v39/NA-39

[copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 39) / 67 tension arises on the non-profit nature of the system. While no of- We begin with an overview of the core notions of intentional ficial policy exists on reselling goods, participants express conflict- community. We develop our understanding of ecovillages as a con- ing views about the appropriateness of this practice. This divergence cept and a movement. We then introduce our research that was con- highlights the varying motives consumers have for participation in ducted at three different eco-villages, speaking three different lan- contrast to the institutionalized mission. guages, in three different countries (Germany, Scotland, and French Finally, we argue that the institutional framing of Freecycling Canada). We undertook an ethnographic exploration of eco-village as a “gift economy” is oversimplified since it ignores the hybridized life and conducted (and are in the process of conducting) over one form of exchange. Similar to Eckhardt and Bardhi’s work (2010) dozen interviews, as well as using participant-observational tech- that found that not all consumers who used car-sharing services were niques. Data collection and analysis at two sites has been completed, motivated by environmental concerns, we suggest that a gift-based with a second wave possible before the October presentation. Initial positioning does not fully capture the experiences participants have data collection in the third site is planned for June, and full analysis while engaging in the redistribution of goods. We further argue that will be completed by October. As of February, we have more than institutionalized emphasis on efficiency and impersonalization im- enough data collected and analyzed to present, even without the third pairs the community building potential that some participants value. site. As with the other presentations in this session, the members of “The Indefinite Future”: eco-villages are concerned with sharing, capacity building, and the Ideas, Ideals, and Idealized Ideology wise use of the planet’s limited resources. However, the levels and in the Global Eco-Village depths of commitment, and the range of ideological engagement is more pronounced and perhaps profound. At the Findhorn ecovillage EXTENDED ABSTRACT in Scotland that we studied, the ecological footprint per person is Intentional communities have a long and checkered history as a bit over half of the UK average, which is the lowest footprint re- wellsprings of social experimentation and innovative new cultural corded for any settlement in the industrial world. forms (Brown 2002; Sargisson and Sargent 2004). In contemporary Perhaps even more interesting than the achievement of low en- parlance, intentional communities include not only such specific and ergy usage is the means for its accomplishment. Most of the energy- relatively temporary (anti) consumption-related happenings as the saving activities also are credited with increasing the well being of Burning Man project (e.g., Kozinets 2002) and the Rainbow Family eco-village members. For example, the decision by eco-villages to Gathering (Niman 1997), but also more lasting manifestations such grow a significant amount of their own food creates a social situa- as ecovillages, cohousing communities, residential land trusts, com- tion where community members must work together cooperatively. munes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives, intentional liv- Similarly, living together necessitates new social forms of engage- ing, alternative communities, and cooperative living. Each of these is ment. The net effect, as with other types of intentional community considered to be a quasi-experimental “project” where people strive both temporary and permanent, is that economic activity becomes to live out a common vision in their everyday lives. Oftentimes, this local and thus ideologically linked to the immediately social. This vision is one that combines the environmental with the communitar- powerful relocation of production is a common theme of the eco- ian and which seeks to question in a collective setting the base of val- village experience, along with a series of other reconnections—re- ues underlying contemporary consumer culture and simultaneously connecting people with their food, reconnecting people with their to explore what could or should replace it (Dawson 2010). land, reconnecting people with indigenous people and practices, and In this cross-cultural, longitudinally-oriented, multi-sited re- reconnecting people with other people with whom they live. Add search, we seek to deepen our knowledge of the ideologies of con- to this an educational and experiential ethos, and you have a potent sumption that support and underlie participation in one particular and potential for social change. ecologically-oriented form of intentional community: eco-villages. What is the net effect with our encounter with the distant The commonly accepted and value-laden definition of ecovillages is boundaries of living as an ecovillage embedded consumer and con- that they are “human-scale, full-featured settlements in which human sumer researcher? It is nothing short of informing our understanding activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way of connection, disconnection, and reconnection. There are answers that is supportive of healthy human development and can be success- to our questions about new transitional forms of living that can lead fully continued into the indefinite future” (Gilman 1991, quoted in the way to a more ecologically sustainable post-consumer culture. Dawson 2006, p. 13). 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