Online Colloquium No. 11: Inner change, social innovation and transformative communities

Datum und Uhrzeit
Dauer
2 Stunden
Referent

Dr. Iris Kunze

IFIS, Universität für Bodenkultur (BOKU), Vienna

Details

Inner change, social innovation and transformative communities

What is the potential of conscious, transformative communities for a future, innovative society and for sustainable ways of living? After decades of individualisation in Western societies a different mode of community is emerging which also prepares the ground for new ways of organisation and governance. I will present examples from social movements, especially intentional communities and ecovillages. I look at these initiatives as experiments and real world laboratories for more integrated, ecological and socially conscious ways of living including spiritual and personal growth. What kind of practices can we observe there and which culture does this generate? How can these examples inspire our own work and private life?

Shortbio

Iris Kunze (*1976) has been experiencing and researching communities from multiple perspectives since the late nineties. Being inspired by community empowerment she moved into a local ecoproject in 1998 during her studies, while starting to work with meditation and integral methods. Then she approached the community topic academically, writing her master thesis and PhD on models for eco-social sustainable living, based on participant observation in several intentional communities in Germany and elsewhere. Iris co-founded the community research project at the sociology department / University of Münster, Germany where she has also taught on this topic. Since 2011 she is affiliated with BOKU University Vienna, Austria, researching the transformative potential of community and other social movements for societies in larger EU projects. Iris co-founded the Freiburg Institute for Integral Studies in 2008 and has been one of its board members since then. She bridges research and practice by coordinating the Global Ecovillage Research platform and by living in the ecovillage community of Sieben Linden in East Germany since 2016. Personal website: http://www.community-research.eu.