Living Sustainably

Whitney Sanford’s book Living Sustainably illustrates how groups of intentional communities are living out values such as nonviolence, social equity and sustainability. Between 2011 and 2015, Sanford visited more than 20 intentional communities across the U.S., including ecovillages, cohousing communities and Catholic worker houses and farms, to see how these communities translate values into actual practices of eating, building and governing. What does nonviolence look like, for example? Their on-going demonstrations showcase choices and trade-offs in attempting to live sustainably, and their experiments can help us think through solutions in our own communities. These individuals and communities are “being the change they wish to see in the world” and show us how we can bring these lessons home to our own families and communities.

A. Whitney Sanford teaches and researches in religion and nature and religions of Asia. Her current work lies at the intersection of religion, food (and water) and social equity. She is currently conducting ethnographic research on Florida rivers, exploring human attachment to place and water, for a book tentatively entitled River People of Florida. Her books include Living Sustainably: What Intentional Communities Can Teach Us About Democracy, Simplicity, and Nonviolence (University Press of Kentucky, 2017), Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture (University Press of Kentucky, 2012) and Singing Krishna: Sound Becomes Sight in Paramanand's Poetry (SUNY 2008). Her journal articles have appeared in publications including JAAR, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Worldviews and Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture.