Finding Arcadia : ecological agriculture and the art of being in community

Humanity’s future is dismal as long as it continues to exist devoid of community with each other and with Nature as a whole. To better observe being-in-community, this study analyzed ecological agriculture, a practice in which the well-being of the farmer is reciprocally tied to that of the land, as analogous to the more comprehensive relationship between humans and Nature. This study used photo elicitation, a method which integrates photographs by and interviews of the five participating ecological farmers, and a phenomenological lens to discern the convivially physiological art of being-in-community: listening to all voices as equal and possessing value and contribution; making room for chaos, the unexpected; learning, from a place of not-knowing; where the inevitability of impermanence is embraced, incorporated, reconstituted as a simultaneity of what was, what is, and what will be; where the quintessence, self, reconciles paradox, crystallizing diversity into the unity of community.

Author dc:creator

• Cheatham, Walter

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dale, Ann

• Being-in-community
• Community
• Death
• Ecological Agriculture
• Self

Identifier URI

http://dx.doi.org/10.25316/IR-17481

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.viurrspace.ca/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Anull%3A10613%2F25705