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ECOVILLAGES 269
local resources either, such as IT specialists, but also psychologists, trainers and
translators working online, are borderline cases. Some commuters work in nearby
towns and cities on a daily commute, others in cities further afield on a weekly
commute. Many rely on social benefits, supplemented by casual work. Home¬
produced food is an important staple for most households.
At present, only Krishna Valley has its own school (where there are currently 50
children out of a population of around 130), but here the full spectrum (kindergarten,
primary school, secondary school, college) is available. In terms of the number of
children, it is also worth mentioning Visnyeszéplak, where half of the population
(around 100) are children. For a long time, the municipality had its own school,
until it was closed down a few years ago. The children of the other communities
(3-10 children per community) either attend educational institutions in nearby
municipalities and go to secondary school in more distant towns, or study privately.
Although ecovillagers (and indeed all those who move to the countryside on
ideological principles) are most often seen by mainstream society as outcasts and
the move as an escape, ecovillagers protest against these definitions and see
themselves as deeply embedded participants in the world’s socio-ecological system,
seeking viable alternatives to everyday life that lead to the wider social good. Most
of them want to lead by example: they see themselves as models for a more liveable,
humane and, above all, sustainable life in the long term. They seek to pass on their
knowledge in a variety of ways: through courses, training, volunteer programmes,
practical methods, and academic work. At the same time, most of them have no
illusions about the ecovillage concept’s chances of becoming widely adopted. As
one long-standing participant in the Hungarian ecovillage movement put it:
“I think we have a lot of results, but they are only useful for those who move from
one dimension to another. In the consumer dimension that people live in, nothing
that we do is useful. We have a marketable product, which is knowledge, for which
there is no demand. We are simply not competitive with our way of thinking in the
marketplace of culture. ... The fact that there are some deviant people, including
myself among the deviants, who are trying to do something, its not going to change
the course of the world” (L.T. 1998)."
A similar finding was made by Karen Bubna-Litic in a 2008 paper on an Australian
ecovillage: she argued that ecovillages remain peripheral to mainstream debates
on sustainability, generally seen as good and proper practices, but difficult to
implement (Bubna-Litic 2008: 93). The potential and limitations of ecovillages
have been discussed by Takis Fotopulos and Ted Trainer (Fotopoulos 2000, Trainer
2002). In 2011, Karen Litfin defined the place of ecovillages as follows: ”The
ecovillage is not the only answer to the sustainability crisis, it is just one of many
— and we need all the answers” (Litfin 2011: 139).
What, then, could be the significance of ecovillages? The fact that they have been
practicing and living for decades what others may just be beginning to do. As one
of my interlocutors, who knows these communities well, put it: “it is worth looking
at the problems that these communities, their inhabitants, have been struggling
with over the years” (M.K. 2021). These include: the quality, or rather the lack
"The abbreviation indicates the initials of the speaker and the date.