“Time is different working with the land”: Temporal pedagogies in European ecovillages

How we respond to sustainability is inextricably entangled with our ideas about and practices of time, yet time remains relatively unexplored in environmental education. To fill this gap, this paper looks to the ‘temporal pedagogies’ afforded by European ecovillages, as sites intentionally removed from the paces of industrialized societies and aligned to the tempos of grassroot organization and multispecies ecologies. Drawing on ethnographic research with ecovillage visitors, the paper shows that the material and social design of ecovillages (a) interrupts inherited temporal habits, (b) re-attunes people to more-than-human temporalities, and (c) inspires a reimagining/renegotiation of temporal choices. In so doing, the paper foregrounds the potential for land-based learning experiences to act as ‘heterochronic’ openings through which to unsettle and rebuild new temporal imaginations and socioenvironmental relations. These findings offer insights to environmental educators looking to create environments that support students to experience the diverse times and rhythms of more-than-human ecologies.