| This dissertation is an exploration of the dialectic of economic individualism and the drive to create sustaining communities, as seen in two urban Canadian cohousing groups. In it, I provide a critique of the systemic conditions of latemodem capitalism, and an exploration of the temporal and environmental considerations in cohousing through detailed case study analysis. I employ a feminist framework to investigate the question of how to create and maintain communities that are sustaining of people and the nonhuman world within a context that promotes and rewards consumption-based conceptions of the good life. I argue that cohousing is an instance of both conformity and resistance to prevailing norms of economic individualism, and that it provides an example of how the tensions inherent in latemodem capitalism may be negotiated in fruitful ways. I furthermore suggest that cohousing is a space in which the economic habitus may be at least partially transformed into an ecological habitus of care and consideration for the nonhuman. The paradox of cohousing lies in the reality that the very conditions of sustaining community that cohousing reaches towards better enables cohousing members to survive and even flourish in the economic structures to which it is a response.;This dissertation suggests that cohousing, while not a panacea for prevailing conditions of disconnectedness and apathy in latemodemity, reaches towards cultural sustainability in offering four interconnected responses to the temporal, spatial, economic and environmental conditions in which it is situated. These responses are: first, cohousing offers the possibility of creative tension between humanity and the biotic community; second, it fosters daily habits that inculcate a sense of interdependence and respect between humans and the world in which we are situated; third, it provides a physical location in which the habits of mental emancipation can be practiced; and finally cohousing presents an example of the idea of "enough" as a viable way of life in sustaining communities. Cohousing does not resolve the dialectic between economic individualism and community, but it does add steps to the dance between them.;This research expands scholarship on time theory, sustainable development and conceptions of sustainability, and provides an example of applied environmental ethics and feminist methodology. It is based on empirical research consisting of site visits, in-depth interviews, participant observation and community-based archival research. |
