Page 27 - C.A.L.L. #47 - Winter 2020/2021

challenges also generate new sets of practices and understandings about the environment,

and the ways that human communities might live well within them.

Research on ecovillages has tended to focus on a number of well-known case studies –
including Damanhur, Auroville, Findhorn, Sieben Linden – which are largely (but not
exclusively) located in the Global North. But what do alternatives from countries like Mexico,
uniquely positioned at the boundaries of the Global North and South, look like? Mexico is an
enormously diverse country – not only is it one of the most biodiverse countries on the
planet, but is also home to one of the largest indigenous populations in the Americas. It is
also a country of extremes – poverty, corruption, and violence from organized crime
organizations are widespread, while small enclaves of elites enjoy much of the results of

economic development. In 2019, the year I conducted my dissertation fieldwork, Mexico set
a new record for (reported) homicides, despite newly-elected president Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador’s campaign promises to address the issue. Frustration with the status quo,
and deep mistrust of the capacity of local authorities to address social problems, have
worked to activate and encourage grassroots community initiatives across the country.
Here, I explore a few takeaways from the Mexican ecovillage movement that can challenge
more general understandings of sustainable community initiatives.

First, the process of designing community systems is deeply rooted in place, both ecologically
and culturally. While some research has suggested that the ecovillage “model” could be
translated and applied to different geographical regions, much of this discussion doesn’t
leave so much room for examining the importance of social and environmental context.

Moreover, although the term ecovillage also belongs to a global network of related
initiatives, it’s important to note that ecovillages don’t all look, act, or operate in the same
way. The Council of Sustainable Settlements of the Americas (CASA), a division of the
broader Global Ecovillage Network focused on Latin America, recognizes a wide variety of
projects and grassroots initiatives as interrelated parts of a broader sustainable community
movement, of which ecovillages constitute only a small part.

Different communities across the country subscribe to different styles of landscape
management and design strategies, and have distinct underlying ideologies and networks of
social relationships. Some communities experience a high turnover of visitors on a regular

basis, allowing long-term backpackers a place to stay in exchange for light labor and a small
contribution, while others are completely closed to all but invited guests. For example, one
community in Yucatan was largely vegetarian, and cultivated complex agroforestry systems to
support diverse diets; another in Veracruz insisted that cultivating livestock through careful
rotation was the most effective way of building regenerative soils.

The language of growth and “scaling up” a model, then, doesn’t really apply here. Rather than
fitting these different approaches into a singular sustainability rubric, I think instead we
could be talking about communities as place-based, collaboratively defined sets of ethics and
ways of relating with the natural world. “Scaling” a solution requires a model that can be
stripped down and transferred to other ecological and social contexts. Shifting away from
the language of growth to describe grassroots sustainability initiatives – especially ones that

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