Peace education for the Anthropocene? The contribution of regenerative ecology and the ecovillages movement

ABSTRACT

The security risks posed by the Anthropocene requires peace education strategies aimed at developing the skills necessary for the emergence of regenerative social forms, based on sustainable synergies between humans and nature. This article explores how community-building and regenerative ecology frameworks developed in ecovillages can contribute to that goal, through the case study analysis of the peace education initiative carried out in Israel and the West Bank by Tamera – Healing Biotope I, an ecovillage located in southern Portugal. The findings illustrate the difficulty of creating regenerative social forms through the reproduction of whole system ideal models for sustainable human settlements, due to the vulnerability of intentional communities to the internal reproduction of ethnopolitical loyalties and conflicts. They also illustrate how a combination of local embeddedness and transnational connections contribute to the diffusion of social innovations produced in ecovillages. However, local ethnopolitical organizations and movements tend to promote resistance to the adoption of externally produced frameworks for the development of competences of collaborative sociability and non-violent conflict resolution. The article concludes with an appeal to a transdisciplinary collaboration among scholars, practitioners and public institutions in the development of synergistic models of peace education that are multipliable, but context-sensitive.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecovillages
• regenerative ecology
• non-formal education
• prefigurative politics
• Middle East

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude for the comments made on previous drafts of this article by Britta Baumgarten (in memoriam), Spencer Campbell, Giulia Daniele, Timea Pal, Inês Marques Ribeiro, Pedro Neto, Ferdoos Al-Issa, Abeer Musleh, Maria Fernandes-Jesus, Guya Acornero, Majed Abusalama, Uri Ayalon and two anonymous reviewers. I would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Bolsa SFRH/BPD/94495/2013) which enabled my affiliation to the Centro de Estudos Internacionais ISCTE-IUL (UID/CPO/03122/2013) and allowed me to conduct this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. https://www.tamera.org .

2. According to the author, ‘Policity is an artificial word, which we coined for the primordial human awareness of our existence in physical time and space, the precondition for the mental understanding of ourselves as social beings and any idea about social organization.’ (51).

3. Term originally referring to ‘permanent agriculture’.

4. https://www.context.org .

5. http://gaia.org .

6. https://gaiaeducation.org .

7. https://www.tamera.org/global-campus/.

8. Due to work scheduling and funding constraints, it was the only period in which I had the chance to conduct fieldwork in the West Bank.

9. https://www.tamera.org/the-institute-for-global-peacework/.

10. The peace camp also attracted the attention of community leaders and peace projects from other crisis areas. This includes Gloria Cuartas, former mayor of Apartadó, in Colombia, who mediated a relationship between Tamera and the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. This community, inspired by Liberation Theology, aims to be a model for peaceful and autonomous living at the heart of the routes of drug and weapons trade, as well as paramilitary activity, in the heart of the Colombian jungle. Such relationship was developed in reciprocal visits that led to the organizational strengthening of the Peace Community through the transfer of technologies for non-violent conflict resolution and, since the late 00’s, water management and renewable energy autonomy.

11. https://www.tamera.org/energy-technology/.

12. http://www.bsrsolar.com .

13. Thomas H. Culhane is the founder of Solar CITIES, a non-profit organization that works on capacity building in developing countries through the development of low-cost, high-efficiency biogas systems and system integration training for ‘food-waste-to-fuel-and-fertilizer’ biodigesters at the household and community level: http://solarcities.blogspot.pt/p/what-is- solar-cities-and-how-can-you.html .

14. https://www.tamera.org/water-retention-landscape/.

15. An example is the implementation of these technologies by Favela da Paz (https://www.tamera.org/favela-da-paz-brazil/).

16. https://www.tamera.org/israel-palestine-peace/.

17. http://prvme.org .

18. https://womenwagepeace.org.il/en/about-eng/.

19. These journeys gathered Jews, Arab Israeli citizens, internationals and, after crossing the West Bank border, Palestinians. The aim was to educate the participants about the impact of the Israeli-Arab conflict in the everyday lives of local people and their landscape, as well as develop competences for non-violent conflict resolution and intercultural communication, by facilitating interactions with participants and locals beyond stereotypes and inherited narratives. The process was based on the observation of social and ecological conditions in the field, visits to refugee camps, and community-based peace education projects, as well as on the inclusion of participants in SD Forum.

20. In 2015, Tamera community members took part in the RefuGEN team of volunteers at the Moria refugee camp in the Greek Island of Lesvos (https://gen-europe.org/news-events/archive/latest-news/refugen/index.htm).

21. This did not imply the construction of a Water Retention Landscape.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [SFRH/BPD/94495/2013]; Centro de Estudos Internacionais, ISCTE-IUL [UID/CPO/03122/2013];

Notes on contributors

Ana Margarida Esteves

Ana Margarida Esteves is a Senior Researcher at the Center for International Studies of the University Institute of Lisbon, ISCTE-IUL and Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Economy of the same institution. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University (Providence, RI, USA). Her research and teaching focus on the intersection between the Social Solidarity Economy, the Commons and the Transition Movement, as well as the application of critical pedagogies and strategies of non-formal education to social mobilization and the promotion of participatory democracy. She is a founder and member of the International Editorial Committee of the journal “Interface: A journal for and about social movements” (www.interfacejournal.net). She is also a member of the RC47: Social Classes and Social Movements of ISA - International Sociological Association and part of its editorial platform Open Movements / Open Democracy (https://www.opendemocracy.net/openmovements).