The Internet at the eco-village: Performing sustainability in the twenty-first century

Authors

  • Teresa Cerratto-Pargman
  • Daniel Pargman
  • Bonnie Nardi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i5.6637

Abstract

Is the digital infrastructure and its footprint an ideological blind spot for recently emerging ecological communities, including eco-villages? This paper examines how a group of people who are concerned with environmental issues such as peak oil and climate change are orchestrating a transition toward a more sustainable and resilient way of living. We studied a Swedish eco-village, considering how computing in this community contributes to defining what alternative ways of living might look like in the twenty-first century. Drawing on a social-ecological perspective, the analysis illustrates, on the one hand, that the Internet, along with the digital devices we use to access it, capitalizes and mobilizes values, knowledge and social relationships that in turn enhance resilience in the eco-village. On the other hand, the analysis shows that an explicit focus on ecological values is not sufficient for a community of individuals to significantly transform Internet use to conform to ecological ideals. This work contributes to a deeper understanding of the imbrication of social technologies with practices that are oriented to perform sustainable and resilient ways of living.

Author Biographies

Teresa Cerratto-Pargman

associate professor in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University (SU), Sweden

Daniel Pargman

assistant professor in Media Technology at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm

Bonnie Nardi

Professor, Department of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine

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Published

2016-04-29

How to Cite

Cerratto-Pargman, T., Pargman, D., & Nardi, B. (2016). The Internet at the eco-village: Performing sustainability in the twenty-first century. First Monday, 21(5). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i5.6637

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Section

Articles