Learning to live and work together in an ecovillage community of practice

Abstract

Ecovillages are citizen-organised residential communities that strive for a more sustainable way of life based on a culture of cooperation and sharing, as deemed necessary to support a shift to a post carbon world (Dawson, 2006; Lockyer & Veteto, 2013; Korten, 2006). While much can potentially be learned from the study of these experimental sustainable communities, perhaps their greatest contribution is to help us understand how to transition from individualism and competition in order to live ‘smaller, slower and closer (Litfin, 2014)’. Drawing on a social theory of practice (Wenger, 1998) and concept of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), this paper considers how one ecovillage is learning the social competencies necessary to live and work well "in community", and in doing so, it coconstructs and sustains a cooperative culture.