Becoming Part of an Eco-Community: Social and Environmental Activism or Livelihood Strategy?

Paula Escribano, Miranda Jessica Lubbers and José Luis Molina
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Paula Escribano: Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, GRAFO (Research Group on Fundamental and Oriented Anthropology), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Edifici B- Facultat de Lletres, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
Miranda Jessica Lubbers: Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, GRAFO (Research Group on Fundamental and Oriented Anthropology), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Edifici B- Facultat de Lletres, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
José Luis Molina: Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, GRAFO (Research Group on Fundamental and Oriented Anthropology), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Edifici B- Facultat de Lletres, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain

Social Sciences, 2017, vol. 6, issue 4, 1-16

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.

Keywords: eco-community; rurality; livelihood strategy; social and economic crisis; Catalonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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