Litfin - Ecovillages : lessons for sustainable community

For my teachers

It has literally taken a planetary village to write this book. First and foremost are the fourteen communities who invited a curious academic to live in their midst and the 140 ecovillagers who gave lengthy interviews. My research was greatly facilitated by the following people who served as community liaisons: Aly Mansare and Mariama Guldagger (Colufifa); Alan Corbett and Max Lindegger (Crystal Waters); Macaco Tamerice (Damanhur); Diana Leafe-Christian (Earthaven): Liz Walker (EcoVillage at Ithaca); Michiyo Furuhashi (Konohana); Lois Arkin (Los Angeles Ecovillage); Bandula Senadeera (Sarvodaya); Kosha Anja Joubert (Sieben Linden); Sigrid Niemer (UfaFabrik); Ina Meyer-Stoll (ZEGG). I also thank Bagnaia, the charming Italian ecovillage where I convalesced while too sick to travel. For consulting with me about the journey, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jonathan Dawson, Ross and Hildur Jackson, Kosha Anja Joubert, and Diana Leafe-Christian.

Each of the fourteen micro-societies I visited is like a world unto itself, with its own ethos and ambiance. As much as I endeavored to dive deeply into each one, what I could glean in a matter of weeks was necessarily shallow particularly because most interviews required English translation and only a small portion of that has found its way into the book. Moreover, my field is global environmental politics, not community development. Consequently, I have inevitably made mistakes and glossed over important aspects of each community. While a cast of thousands stands behind this book, I alone am responsible for the shortcomings. For these, I apologize with the hope that the overriding transformative message nonetheless shines through.

There were those who facilitated the journey and those who supported the writing. To the extent that you are now holding a lively and accessible book rather than an academic tome, Margaret Bendet is largely responsible. Not only is Margaret, with her keen sense of nuance and authenticity, my favorite writing teacher, but she also became a treasured friend. For our serendipitous Easter meeting at the Whidbey Institute, I thank my friend and colleague Johnny Palka.

To all those who read the manuscript, entirely or in parts, I owe a debt of gratitude: Sarah Ellison, Wendy Visconty, Anya Woestwin, Chris Uhl, Lauran Zmira, Leanne Do, Vicki Robin, Tim Richards, and David Marshak. For research assistance, I thank Mark Visconty, Julie Johnson, and David Wilkerson. For help with the index, I thank Catherine Quinn and Angela Gaffney. My thanks also to Stephen Dunne for computer assistance. I am especially grateful to my dear friend Donna Gregory for enlivening the early chapters and offering wise counsel throughout. For bringing this book to fruition, I thank my editorial team at Polity, especially Louise Knight, Pascal Porcheron, Clare Ansell, and Gail Ferguson. They have shepherded the project with good humor and the greatest of care.

To have the freedom to write this book a highly personal seven-year project is a great privilege. I acknowledge the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington for enabling this unconventional international relations scholar to fully engage her academic freedom. In particular, my sincere thanks go out to my chair Peter May and my colleagues Jamie Mayerfeld and Christine DiStefano for their encouragement, and to Aseem Prakash for challenging me to scale it up.

For helping me to begin thinking of myself as a writer, I thank the Mesa Refuge for a residency in a lovely cottage overlooking Tomales Bay. I will never forget the day the agricultural levees came down and the Pacific Ocean trickled up the tributaries, bringing new life to an old wetland. It was the perfect metaphor for this book. My thanks, as well, to Carroll Smith and Janice Giteck for their Whidbey Island guest cottage, where I organized more than two thousand pages of research notes.

This book would not have been possible without the loving support of my friends and family. I am especially grateful to Rand Hicks for grasping and emboldening my larger vision; to my dearest friend, Anya Woestwin, who sees my higher self and always finds a larger framework for the rest; to my daughter, Maya Jacobs, who inspires me every day and loves me no matter what; and to my mother, Kathleen Wilkinson, who believed in me even when she couldnt understand me. And theres no question that my journey was inspired by Laura, who lived the possibility and sent me on my way.