Becoming Part of an Eco-Community : Social and Environmental Activism or Livelihood Strategy?
Escribano, Paula (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Antropologia Social i Cultural)
Lubbers, Miranda J.. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Antropologia Social i Cultural)
Molina, José Luis (Molina González) (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Antropologia Social i Cultural)

Date:	2017
Abstract:	Studying grassroots initiatives which aim to respond to environmental and social crisis is of renewed importance nowadays, in the aftermath of the 2008-9 financial crisis in southern Europe. This paper studies people's motivations for becoming part of an eco-community in Catalonia, Spain, through interviews with 29 informants. The research is part of a larger study, based on ethnographic data collected between 2013 and 2015 in 27 eco-communities. The paper shows the extent to which people who joined an eco-community were driven by ideological reasons, adopting a livelihood strategy, or by a combination of both factors in the years following the crisis. We argue that the social and economic crisis has had an impact on the factors motivating people to join these communities, with an increase in the number of people driven by materialistic motives, relative to those who joined for ideological reasons.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Eco-community ; Rurality ; Livelihood strategy ; Social and economic crisis ; Catalonia
Published in:	Social sciences, Vol. 6, núm. 4 (2017) , p. 1-16, ISSN 2076-0760

DOI: 10.3390/socsci6040148

16 p, 1017.0 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Research Group on Fundamental and Oriented Anthropology (GRAFO)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles