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Urban Eco-Communities in Australia

Real Utopian Responses to the Ecological Crisis or Niche Markets?

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Liam Cooper

    1. Melbourne, Australia

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  2. Hans A. Baer

    1. School of Social Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

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  • Provides in-depth accounts of the inner working of two pioneering Australian inner urban eco-communities

  • Scrutinises urban eco-villages through the contextual lenses of utopianism and sustainability

  • Offers an anthropological perspective on urban eco-community building

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
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  2. Introduction

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 1-16

  3. Building the Future: Assaying Ecotopia in the Age of Climate Change

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 17-44

  4. Interstices of Sustainable Community

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 45-59

  5. Chasing Ecopolis: Positioning the City as an Engine for Survival

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 61-81

  6. Christie Walk: An Urban Eco-community in an Increasingly Hot City

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 83-123

  7. WestWyck EcoVillage: An Urban Eco-community in the World’s Putatively Most Liveable City

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 125-162

  8. Seeking to Enact Real Ecotopia in the City: Ontological and Ecological Characteristics and Contradictions

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 163-187

  9. Prefiguring Ecopolis: Ecotopian Cities or Niche Markets?

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 189-213

  10. Conclusion: Ecotopia in the Context of a Radical Vision

    • Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer
    Pages 215-225
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Keywords

About this book

This book offers one of the first detailed anthropological studies of emergent ecotopianism in urban contexts. Engaging directly with debates on urbanisation, sustainability and utopia, it presents two detailed ethnographic case studies of inner urban Australian eco-communities in Adelaide and Melbourne. These novel responses to the ecological crisis – real social laboratories that attempt to manifest a vision of the ‘eco-city’ in microcosm – offer substantial new insights into the concept and creation of sustainable urban communities, their attempts to cultivate ways of living that are socially and ecologically nourishing, and their often fraught relationship to the capitalist city beyond. These studies also suggest the opportunities and limitations of moving beyond demonstration projects towards wider urban transformation, as well as exposing the problems of accessibility and affordability that thwart further urban eco-interventions and the ways that existing projects can exacerbate issues of gentrification and privilege in a socially polarised city. Amidst the challenges of the capitalist city, climate change and ecological crisis, this book offers vital lessons on the potential of urban sustainability in future cities.




Authors and Affiliations

  • Melbourne, Australia

    Liam Cooper

  • School of Social Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Hans A. Baer

About the authors

Liam Cooper is an independent scholar with a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Melbourne.  He has worked in the financial, government and community sectors and has conducted research in housing and sustainability at a number of non-government organisations.  Liam's research interests span the fields of urban and environmental anthropology, cultural ecology and human geography.

Hans A. Baer is a Principal Honorary Research Fellow and Associate Professor in the School of Social Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne. Hans has published some 20 books and 190 book chapters and articles on topics including Mormonism, African-American religion, socio-political life in East Germany, critical health anthropology, medical pluralism in the US, UK, and Australia, the critical anthropology of climate change and Australian climate politics. His books include Global Warming and the Political Ecology of Health (with Merrill Singer, 2009), Global Capitalism and Climate Change (2012), Climate Politics and the Climate Movement in Australia (with Verity Burgmann, 2012),  The Anthropology of Climate Change (with Merrill Singer, 2014) and Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Real Utopia (2018). Hans earned his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Utah and has taught at several US colleges and universities, at Humboldt University in East Berlin as a Fulbright Lecturer and at the Australian National University.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Urban Eco-Communities in Australia

  • Book Subtitle: Real Utopian Responses to the Ecological Crisis or Niche Markets?

  • Authors: Liam Cooper, Hans A. Baer

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1168-0

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-13-1167-3Published: 14 July 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4579-1Published: 23 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-13-1168-0Published: 28 June 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 225

  • Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 4 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Urban Studies/Sociology, Human Geography, Urban Ecology, Sustainable Development

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