University of Sussex
Browse
Clarence-Smith, Suryamayi Aswini.pdf (38.25 MB)

Towards a spiritualised society: Auroville, an experiment in prefigurative utopianism

Download (38.25 MB)
thesis
posted on 2023-06-09, 20:16 authored by Suryamayi Clarence-Smith
This thesis is an autoethnographic examination of the intentional community “Auroville,” located in Tamil Nadu, South India, as a site of utopian practice. I begin by situating Auroville within the broader, historical context of the intentional community movement and its academic literature, to which I contribute previously under-explored insider perceptions and experiences that offer significant insight into how utopian practice is animated, engaged, and sustained. Building on recent utopian scholarship that emphasises the critically engaged, concretely applied, and progressive nature of utopian practice, I further theorise such practice as prefigurative in the Auroville context, specifically as spiritually prefigurative, given that it seeks to anticipate and incarnate a spiritually evolved society. My ethnographic research, undertaken as a participant-observer, researcher-member of the Auroville community, focuses on how the founding spiritual ideals of this experimental township are, and have been, embodied and articulated in its sociopolitical and socio-economic organisation, development, and praxis. This exploration proved revelatory of the strategic role and influence of spirituality in inspiring, informing and sustaining its utopian practice, enriching an emerging body of literature that examines the prevalence of spirituality in contemporary, prefigurative left social movements. As a detailed empirical study, it contributes to the record of communal economic models, and anarchist forms of organisation, administration and decision-making, offering analytical insights that are relevant both for Auroville and for other contemporary collectives that enact these alternative practices. These raise important considerations related to the institutionalisation and perpetuation of the latter, a matter of significant activist and academic debate that reaches beyond intentional community contexts. Specifically, the uniquely semi-institutionalised organisational structure of the Auroville community ensures its perpetuation while preserving the opportunity for open-ended reformulation, both of which are key to sustaining its utopian practice. This original, autoethnographic scholarship thus furthers theoretical understandings of, and offers pragmatic insights into, how communal utopian practice is enabled, challenged, and sustained – relevant to fostering such practice within and beyond the Auroville experiment.

History

File Version

  • Published version

Pages

273.0

Department affiliated with

  • International Development Theses

Qualification level

  • doctoral

Qualification name

  • phd

Language

  • eng

Institution

University of Sussex

Full text available

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2020-01-15

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Theses)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC