Sustainability and Resilience of Alternative Lifestyles: An Ethnography of Self-organizing Communities in South China

Abstract

As a manifestation of sustainability, self-organizing communities (SOCs) have been proven to be increasingly related to the environmental issues and living space crisis in the urban areas. Many social groups regard self-organizing communities as an ideal alternative to the problems of rapid urbanization since they challenge unsustainable materialism and consumerism. To penetrate this idea into a wider range of socio-cultural, economic, and political activities, such communities are moving towards becoming economically cooperative social entities and are usually characterized by small scale, co-construction, and co-creation. Community studies further point out that contemporary communities are somewhat decentralized, giving members a good sustainable mix of freedom and togetherness. This means that, compared to traditional communes, individualized differences within self-organizing communities are more prominent. They are susceptible to different cultural and political contexts, which have received little attention from Chinese scholars. To fill this gap, this study adopts ethnographic approaches to explore the lifestyle experiments of a self-organizing community (AnotherLand) in South China. It reviews the difficulties associated with identifying and characterizing SOCs. It examines how this self-organizing community maintains its sustainability by experimenting with specific lifestyles (internal factors) and building extensive social networks (external factors). It further suggests that sustainability should be taken as an essential conceptual framework for embodying the success or failure of self-organizing communities.

Re-conceptualizing the ideal homes in rural China: an actor-network theory approach

“…It enabled urban-rural migrants to "modify their past dispositions and to form new values" in their rural lives (Sweetman, 2003). In other words, migrants were able to incorporate the idea of ecological sustainability into their daily practices by participating in the circulation process of subsistence, rather than falling into a trap of treating rural idylls as romantic and unrealistic portrayals of premodern societies known as the "Golden Age" (Wang, 2020).…”

“…Specifically, farmland showed very different functions and meanings for migrants and villagers. Their differentiated humanland relationship led to diversification in farming methods, conservation strategies, and development patterns (Wang, 2020). The most representative boundaries were reflected in land ownership and use rights.…”

“…Fujian is a distinctive province along the southeast coast of China. Its advantageous location and natural resources have attracted several ecological farms and communities to settle there and have become one of the most popular destinations for urban-rural migrants to explore a sustainable way of life and build an ideal home (Wang, 2020). Among the seven regions of Fujian Province, Minhou County opened to trade and commerce earlier than the others and underwent in-depth urbanization (Qiu and Liang, 2018).…”

Social innovation laboratories for the social construction of knowledge

“…The challenges of sustainability focus, among other aspects, on competitiveness in production, the use of megatrends, flexible solutions adaptable to various people, and environmentally friendly lifestyles. In this sense, Wang (2020) and Peduzzi et al (2020) insist on the creation of interdisciplinary social networks to achieve a balanced impact on the environment but also on science, politics and economy, through the sustainability of self-organized communities and in some cases measured by technology (MIKHAK et al, 2002). The theme of the environment is constantly being studied, while Zambrano-Monserrate, Ruano, and Sanchez-Alcalde (2020), Castro-Buitrago (2020) and Estevez-Alvarez (2020) state that although there are regulations on activities that affect the environment, the earth continues to show drastic changes in the climate in response to the deterioration caused by human impact on the environment.…”