Practices of the self and pro-environmental behavior in ecovillages: ethnographic study in Brazil and Switzerland

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the relationship between practices of the self and pro-environmental behavior in the daily life of ecovillages. We rely on Foucault's notion of practices of the self to understand the changes in the behavior of the inhabitants of ecovillages regarding the environment. We made participant observations in two ecovillages in Switzerland and one in Brazil. The analyses show that the presence or absence of practices of the self in each ecovillage led to different pro-environmental subjectivation: passive-structural, active-individual, and active-structural. From these different positions, each community achieved different degrees of preservation of the environment. The results provide evidence that practices of the self are relevant factors for the inhabitants of ecovillages to develop pro-environmental behaviors.