Self in Practice in an Ecological Community

This book examines the motives and experiences ofmembers of an ecovillage community as they strive todevelop a redefined sense of self-world relations.The ecovillage movement has arisen as an attempt todefine the parameters of a new social paradigm inresponse to the dominant social paradigm that is seento have had disastrous consequences on the socialecological and personal fabric of our lives. Thisparadigm has through 300 years of historyconstructed a consumer landscape over the originalempty space of the American continent which bindsup our psychic attention alienating us from theholistic and ecological ground of our lives.Residents of the Ecovillage at Ithaca came togetherto give concrete expression to a new set of ideals ina unique form of domestic protest. The book exploresthe processes of the first years as residents beganto react and adapt to competing demands against areview of literature from diverse sources thatexamines the nature and conceptions of the self. Theresult is a vision of a newly emergingsense-of-self-through-practice that seeksreconstitution on personal social and ecologicallevels.