Advisor: Fernando Espósito Galarce
Dissertation: Ecovillage as an alternative in the contemporary world
Defense date: 03/04/2018
Abstract
The work seeks to observe and analyze ecovillages as a differentiated form
of sustainable human settlement, of a community character, of respect for nature
and in favor of the renewal and greater significance of social relations, proposing
the hypothesis that it composes a set of actions of alternatives to the current
scenario, socially and environmentally fragile. To that end, the ecovillage is
studied and also observed empirically, in order to understand its precepts, its form
of organization and its operation in practice. And although it represents a current
reality, it is important to look at this proposal in a meeting of other significant
experiences characterized by community life in recent history – such as
Phalanstery, Familistere, Kibbutz, hippie communities, Garden-City, cohousing
and Ciudad Abierta de Amereida. Some of these expressions had some historical
relevance, while others, such as kibbutz, cohousing and Ciudad Abierta, are still
valid expressions of less global impact, but still of interest for this study due to its
characteristics. This rescue is proposed to present such alternatives and their
practical contributions regarding the stimulation of community life against the
dominant pattern of living ruled by the consumer society. From the understanding
of the past experiments, theoretical precepts of ecovillage and field work, it is
possible to better understand the ecovillage’s propositions, as well as to verify that
it only portrays one of the other alternatives already proposed by the human being,
as one of the possibilities of change in the current moment of environmental
crisis.