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the 1970s and a wider social activism. The aforementioned precursors of the eco¬
village movement are part of this process.
The change was also reflected in the changing contemporary perception of risk,
which in a nutshell is as follows: modernity was characterized by confidence in
science and technology, the above-mentioned technological optimism and the
security based on it were the main value of welfare societies. A fundamental turn
in this view was caused by problems such as nuclear power, chemicals and ecological
hazards becoming increasingly visible. Postmodernity has brought with it new
risks and it is science and technology, among other things, that are the cause of
these new risks: the opaque risks and consequences of new technologies and the
development of science, which has also become non-transparent and uncontrollable
(Szijarté 2008: 37-38; Castells 2009: 227-228). These processes, in the view of
those involved in the movement, are leading the world, in combination with the
global capitalist economic system, to the destruction of the natural environment
and resources, unequal distribution and social injustice, and thereby to eventual
collapse. (For the culturally determined nature of risk, see Beck 2003; Douglas
— Wildavsky 1982; Douglas 1986. We can see, then, that the ecovillage movement
was not alone in its thinking about the world even in its early stages, but instead
formed part of a broader set of views (which, however, still did not form a significant
part of society’s worldview on the whole; that was to come with the crises of the
20205).
The cause and most important characteristic of the crises of the 20th and 21st
centuries is therefore the highly complex risk systems that have developed, with
an increasingly wide impact, covering all aspects of human and social life. Many
contemporary scholars agree that in the 21st century, we need to rethink the scale
of crises and increasingly think in global terms, i.e. to understand that we
increasingly have to deal with global crises rather than local ones (see O’Brien —
Lousley 2017). Joseph Masco adds that: “all of this raises fundamental questions
about human perception, memory and the conditions of vision for a planetary-scale
problem” (Masco 2017: S70). That is, are we able to understand our world in its
larger (global) context and — by shifting scale — prepare for the future?
Ecovillages are working to realize such a radically new vision. The response of
ecovillagers to this sense of uncertainty and risk is a new experiment in lifestyle
—an alternative to managing risk through the concept of the ecovillage, its lifestyle
elements, and its community concept.
Although so far ecovillages have been interpreted here as a preparation for a
complex crisis, we must not forget that the people who move here want to live a
healthy life in harmony with nature, not only for themselves but also for future
generations. An orientation towards the future is therefore an important feature
of the ecovillage concept.
Characteristics of eco-farms
As we have seen in the introductory part of this chapter, an ecovillage is an
established, intentional community created as a conscious effort of a group (for
intentional communities, see Manzella 2010; Meijering 2006; Miller 2010; Shenker
1986; Todd 2013). The members of the group are not primarily related to each