Community-Based Learning Commons^™

Communities Towards Social Sustainability: A Case Study Of La'akea Permaculture Community And Lost Valley Education And Event Center, Richard Brett Olson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this research, I explore social practices that members of two intentional communities identified as contributing positively to their experiences and the functioning of their communities. Specifically, I examined the social practices that deal with conflict resolution/prevention, the decision making processes of consensus and sociocracy, and how knowledge about these practices is shared within the ecovillage context. The intention is to present how community members develop and use these social practices to live together more harmoniously and authentically by utilizing activities and techniques to help mediate and resolve conflicts and make decisions collectively.

In order to investigate these questions I …