Abstract

NARDI COMUNELLO, Luciele  and  DE MOURA CARVALHO, Isabel Cristina. Avá [online]. 2015, n.27, pp.81-99. ISSN 1851-1694.

This paper is part of a wider research project that investigates environmentalization of religious and educational practices, intertwining cultural, ethical and political elements entangled in epistemologies that support Environmental Education. With this framework, we address ecological practices intertwined with experiences of an immanent spirituality, in an Ecovillage, stressing their potencial to comprehend materials participation on meaning production in a more-than-human world. Ecovillages are a presentification of an emergent phenomenon and, according to the Global Ecovillage Network, they propose to struggle against "the degradation of social, ecological and spiritual environments". The presented results come from an ethnographic experience -with participant observation and interviews- in an Ecovillage in South of Brazil. The obtained information led us to a dialogue with the field of New Age, spirituality and with topics that are central in the New Materialisms approach, in addition to Phenomenology, since they address the problems on frontiers between nature-culture. Rituals, health, healing and selfknowledge practices, as Temazcal, among other experiences lived by the community, seem to replace the relation human-environment, bringing light to life flow of materials.

Keywords : New Age; Ecovillages; Ecological Epistemologies; Spirituality; Learning.

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