Learning sustainability through enterprise work in ecovillages

Abstract

ABSTRACT As experiments and models of participatory, sustainable living, ecovillages demonstrate how to enact just, cooperative, and regenerative economic and social constructs, as alternatives to ‘unsustainable’ capitalist economies and consumerist/individualistic lifestyles. Work is central to these enactments, which provides an opportunity to examine the learning that happens in these spaces, and how that learning may be applied for broader eco-social change. This paper reports on case studies of learning through enterprise work in two ecovillages in the USA. Analysis focuses on what is learned and how it is learned, the role of the learning environment and interactions within the ecovillage on learning outcomes and processes, as well as barriers to learning, and the transferability of learning outside the ecovillage context. Findings evidence a high degree of informal ‘on the job’ learning, resulting in both job-specific skills and knowledge, and general competencies in eco/ethical business management. Furthermore, participants imbue activities with shared values of ecology and equality, while interacting with oppositional broader market logics, and thus learn to ‘trade off’ – taking on some aspects of the mainstream economy (e.g. competitiveness, profitability, (self)exploitation), in exchange for ‘the greater good.’