Building Capacity to Live and Work Together at an Ecovillage in Support of Sustainable Community: A Case Study

Ecovillages are important models of sustainable community and reflective of an alternative lived paradigm that values collectivism over individualism and cooperation over competition, in pursuit of bio-regionally-based, shared prosperity. In the face of growing threats to the predominant social and economic models of individualism, globalization, and unfettered growth (e.g. the decline of cheap oil), some experts have postulated that the greatest contribution that ecovillages can make is to help us understand of how to live ― smaller, slower and closer (Litfin 2013) - in other words, how to organize socially and economically in a post-carbon world. Through a qualitative case study of Whole Village ecovillage in Caledon, Ontario, this thesis explores the structures and processes through which ecovillagers build capacity for living and working together, and reveals the complex interplay between elements of community building, community dynamics and capacity building, which can either support or undermine the development of sustainable community.M.A