This is a CTP of initiative: Ecovillage Bergen (Netherlands)
The first critical turning point in the history of Ecovillage Bergen took place in 2011, two years before it was founded. It consisted of the co-founders discovering other ecovillages and the existence of a global ecovillage movement.
Co-founder 1 participated in the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) conference held at Tamera in 201, indicating that s/he had “really learned a lot” and that it had been a an important experience. It was encouraging to discover that “there are many more idiots like me, I am not at all the only one (…) When I saw that it very international, this made me even happier. I also learned a lot from the experiences of others” (co-founder 1). The other co-founders also confirmed that they learned a lot from other ecovillages. Besides the attendance at the conference, they also visited other ecovillages: two co-founders spent a month in ecovillage SiebenLinden (Germany) and were inspired by the way of living there.
In the following years, the founders of Ecovillage Bergen have played and continue to play an active role in the ecovillage movement. Soon after Ecovillage Bergen was founded, it was the first Dutch ecovillage to become a member of GEN. All three co-founders have participated in several GEN conferences in the past years. They are also active in activating GEN at a national level, as co-founder 1 was directly involved in setting up the Dutch ecovillage network (Ecodorpennetwerk Nederland) and is still one of its board members. The first Dutch ecovillage festival was organised in Ecovillage Bergen in 2013, and has been organised there two more times in the years after.
The discovery of other ecovillages could not have happened if it was not for those other ecovillage initiatives, and for the Global Ecovillage Network bringing them together, financially supported by the Gaia Trust. The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) describes itself as “a growing network of sustainable communities and initiatives that bridges different cultures, countries, and continents. GEN serves as umbrella organization for ecovillages, transition town initiatives, intentional communities, and ecologically-minded individuals worldwide” (GEN website 2015). GEN is a platform for exchange, discussion, information and further development of the ecovillage concept and “has been a driving force in spreading the ecovillage movement across the globe” (Bagadzinski, 2002: 16*). It not only supports and facilitates ecovillages, but also organises education and demonstration programs, and represents ecovillages at international institutions such as the UN, EU and several NGOs. The official definition of an ecovillage, agreed upon by the GEN board and used by GEN today is: “An ecovillage is an intentional or traditional community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes to regenerate social and natural environments. The four dimensions of sustainability (ecology, economy, the social and the cultural) are all integrated into a holistic approach.” (GEN int. board 2012 – see Kunze & Avelino 2015)
GEN today lists more than 1000 local ecovillage projects and networks worldwide, among them approximately 130 in Europe. The Eurotopia-Directory on communities 2014 lists 430 different kinds of community projects in Europe. GEN started off with three sub-networks: Ecovillages of the Americas (ENA), GEN Asia, and GEN Europe. Today there are two additional networks of Northern (GEN-NA) and Latin America (CASA), GEN Africa plus NextGEN (the youth network of GEN). Moreover, additional regional and national networks of GEN have been emerging in the past few years (including the Dutch ecovillage network).
Besides the annual GEN conferences, ecovillages also interact with one another via other interim events, ecovillage residents visiting other ecovillages, and online platforms. In the case of Ecovillage Bergen, the co-founders visited ecovillage SiebenLinden. Also, a resident of SiebenLinden visited the co-founders of Ecovillage Bergen and was involved in a group process of visioning the ecovillage.
Both at the international and national level, the ecovillage movement strongly cooperates with the Transition Towns movement and the permaculture movement. For instance, these movements together with other organisations founded ECOLISE – the European Community-Led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability. Also in the Dutch context, ecovillage initiatives cooperate with Transition Town initiatives. This is also manifested in the fact that the representative of Transition Towns Netherlands is a founding board member of the Dutch ecovillage network.
*Bagadzinski, W. (2002) “The Ecovillage Movement: A Discussion of Crystal Waters and the Global Ecovillage Network, and their relation to social movement theory”, in: Social Movements in Action 2002 Conference Papers, Research Initiative in International Activism University of Technology Sydney, p. 12- 20
While the original discovery of and encounter with the ecovillage movement occurred in 2011, there has been a whole series of events before and after, which represents a process of continued discovery and interactions with other ecovillages. Listing all interactions between (people of) Ecovillage Bergen and other ecovillages is beyond the scope of this database, but the list below provides a few highlights:
Operating in a network of ecovillages is bound to involve several contestations, if only due to the fact that ecovillages are very different from one another, also in terms of their opinions on how decision-making is supposed to take place. Many ecovillages experiment with alternative forms of communication and decision-making (Kunze & Avelino 2015). These different methods represent different explicit views on how contestations are to be avoided and overcome.
One of the decision-making methods that is often referred to across the ecovillage movement is the method of sociocracy. Ecovillage Bergen also works with sociocracy, and co-founder 1 is an expert training in this method (see CTP IMPLEMENTING SOCIOCRACY). S/he is critical about GEN as an organisational network, for not (yet) being organised in a sociocratic way: “I have been working for a long time to integrate sociocracy in GEN (…) GEN is very weird about their decision-making, with councils and presidents. The job descriptions and the relations between the council, staff and assembly, are all very unclear (…). From a sociocratic perspective, it is not well organised, and conflict is inherent to that whole system. (…) I actually think that is very problematic when you propagate a new society, to not have your own organisation in good shape. In my eyes, it is not in good shape at all. Recently, national GEN networks have emerged in a bottom-up manner (…) But those are not integrated in GEN Europe. They have placed a network of networks in between, and nobody knows what that is. That is because those who started GEN do not want that those small ecovillages gain as much votes as the big ones. (…) But if you do this sociocratically, it is not about a majority of votes, it will be about consent. There is an increasing amount of people that have more of that sociocratic consciousness”. It seems that there is an increasing interest across the GEN network to work with alternative methods of decision-making, such as sociocracy. Co-founder 1 has been invited by GEN to implement sociocracy, as a way to overcome (or avoid) unproductive contestations during the decision-making process.
Also at the level of the Dutch ecovillage network, they are working with sociocracy, and hope that this can be an example for other international and national GEN organisations. However, it is difficult to promote and transform alternative modes of working from within, while being part of it. As co-founder 1 explains: “I initiated it and I am working on organising it sociocratically. But when you are inside of it, this is very difficult: it is better to be hired as an external advisor (…) I am happy that we as national GEN are organised in a sociocratic way, this can also be an example for other national GENs. But still, I am in a difficult position. It is like a salesman recommending his own product”.
The three co-founders all have backgrounds in alternative living and/or housing construction. One graduated in architecture in the 1980s, specialising in passive solar houses, and afterwards working in development for the United Nations and other organisations. Co-founder 2 has had life-long passion for (ecological housing) construction and carpenting, and co-founder 3 has a background in squatting and co-housing. For many years, long before Ecovillage Bergen was founded, or even before being acquainted with the very notion of an ‘ecovillage’, they were already looking for alternative ways of living together with other people.
Co-founder 3 recalls: “When I was 20, I already wanted to live on a farm with a lot of other people (…) That wish to live in community, albeit big or small, has always been there (…) I did live in squatted buildings for 10 years, but the ecological and spiritual aspect of ecovillages was new”.
The discovery of the ecovillage movement was experienced as critical in the sense that it confirmed a search for alternatives and a desire to live in community. It was also encouraging to discover that there were other like-minded individuals out there, that it would be possible to learn from the experiences of those others and that there even was an international movement of ecovillages.
There are three main learnings that co-founders mention regarding the encounter with other ecovillages: (1) the importance of the group process, (2) the need for a careful selection process, and (3) the precarious position of ecovillage founders.
All co-founders emphasise the inestimable importance of collectivity and ‘doing it together as a group’, and emphasise the group work that is necessary to achieve such collectivity. Also in the ecovillage initiative, they invested a lot of time on building and maintaining relations within the group, even before settling in a concrete place. Co-founder 3 explains that this has been partly inspired by other ecovillages: “We have learned that from other ecovillages: the social package is something that we definitely need to work on, even if we do not have the location yet. That was a good pre-work that we did”.
Co-founder 1 also stresses the issue of selecting new people to join, a challenge that every ecovillage faces: “Another thing that I have learned from other ecovillages is that it is important to carefully choose people. A trajectory in which you get to know people. We have been searching for a long time on how to do that”.
The position of founders and leaders in ecovillages is also a recurring topic in ecovillages and important lesson for Ecovillage Bergen. Co-founder 1 explains: “I have talked with founders of other ecovillages. The position that you have as founder is a special one, one that needs to be shared and made collective. You are only founder once, and the idea is that you do not continue to be the founder. This is why you often see founders leaving, when things go in a different direction than expected. I also feel that tension”.
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