Living Off-Grid in Wales

Eco-Villages in Policy and Practice

Author(s) Elaine Forde

Language: English

Genre(s): Social Policy and Law

  • October 2020 · 224 pages ·216x138mm

  • · Paperback - 9781786836588
  • · eBook - pdf - 9781786836595
  • · eBook - epub - 9781786836601

About The Book

Living Off-Grid in Wales addresses broad debates about the possibility of planning for a sustainable future, by an examination of rural development off the grid. Contrasting Wales’s policy on One Planet Development – a planning policy that encourages living off-grid – with a more DIY approach to living off-grid, the book presents case studies from eco-villages that imagine off-grid very differently. The text pivots on the problematic question that if planning is about the spatial reproduction of society, then why should it encourage autonomy from societal systems. The ethnographic case studies in the book comprise an ethnography of rural Wales, and the focus on eco-villages brings a fresh perspective to the anthropological literature on community by considering off-grid as a radical form of social assemblage.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
0 Introduction
1 Wales
2 Y Mynydd: A Village off the Grid
3 Tir y Gafel: A Model Village
4 More Problems with Community
5 Living Off-grid: Towards a Material Culture
6 OPD: Policy in Practice
7 Concluding Remarks
References
Index

About the Author(s)

Author(s): Elaine Forde

Elaine Forde is a lecturer at Swansea University. Her research explores the ethnography of energy, with a particular focus on how new political and technological regimes are changing the relationship between energy and societies.

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