The Village Anthropologist

I arrived in the Yarrow Ecovillage two months ago, unsure what to expect.  I'd spent about three years reading about ecovillages and intentional communities, for both personal interest and as preparation for a PhD in Social Anthropology.  I'd read books on communities all over the world and from various points in history.  I'd visited the website countless times, written research proposals, and spoken with community members over email and on Skype.  Yet, when I arrived in Yarrow after a 4400km drive out from Toronto, I felt like I had a pretty limited idea of what an ecovillage was.  I'd read about them, but I'd never lived in one.

I'm in the midst of what anthropologists call ethnographic fieldwork.  The idea behind ethnography is both comfortingly simple and dauntingly complex: learn about a different way of life by living it.  Anthropologists do this all over the world.  Classmates of mine are - at this moment - scattered across the globe, studying a wide range of topics from goat herding in Inner Mongolia to debt consulting practices in Southern England.  I chose to live in an ecovillage, in a community that practices cohousing, not only out of an academic interest, but also because the more I read, the more the idea appealed to me on a personal level.  What would it be like to live in a place where people are 'determined to live as neighbours'?  What does it mean to put the idea of 'community' so central in day-to-day life?  What does it feel like to know everyone on your street, to eat dinner with them, to work with them, to build something with them?  These were questions I wanted to explore in my own life.  

I had countless hypotheses.  I'm a social scientist, after all.  In social science, though, I've learned that some of the most plausible hypotheses fall by the wayside when confronted with experience.  Thinking about people is no substitute for spending time with people.  So I'm here.  Exploring.  Experiencing.  Living.  It may take a long time to get a good grasp of life here, but I've already learned that people at the Yarrow Ecovillage are a welcoming bunch.  In mid-August, they welcomed me.  In late September, they welcomed my partner Carolyn.  Perhaps we'll all be welcoming you soon!