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Scientific article
Open access
English

Empowerment in an ecovillage: unveiling the role of power relations in social practices

Published inCommunity Development, p. 1-15
Publication date2021
Abstract

Living in an ecovillage requires that people reinvent everyday practices. It involves new forms of production, consumption, social organization, and subjective constitution, aiming toward the normative goal of achieving greater “sustainability.” Based on ethnographic research in Western Switzerland, this paper focuses on uncovering the nexus of power relations, social practices, and empowerment in daily life in an ecovillage. We find that power relations and social practices are intertwined, leading to different outcomes regarding empowerment. Procedures, understandings, and forms of engagement constitute social practices; however, power relations can either cause or constrain the rearrangement of practices toward different forms of individual and community empowerment, whereby some practices “orchestrate” others.

Keywords
  • Ecovillages
  • Social practices
  • Power relations
  • Empowerment
Citation (ISO format)
MAFLE FERREIRA DUARTE, Luiz Guilherme, SAHAKIAN, Marlyne, FERREIRA NETO, João Leite. Empowerment in an ecovillage: unveiling the role of power relations in social practices. In: Community Development, 2021, p. 1–15. doi: 10.1080/15575330.2021.1923045
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Identifiers
ISSN of the journal1944-7485
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