LE3 .A278 1998

1998

Powers, Ann Marie

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

Sociology

Sociology

This thesis provides a cultural, historical, and demographic profile of a self-defined alternative community in and around Wolfville, in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. The author, an insider to the group, used a varied, mostly qualitative methodology including fieldwork, questionnaires and interviews. The group's experience in natural foods, the back-to-the-land movement, environmentalism, mid-wifery, the human potential movement, spirituality, alternative health, music, and death and dying is recounted. The group's impact on, and partial integration with, the surrounding mainstream community is discussed. Unifying themes include the quest for the Natural or real, a sense of collectivity, a willingness to experiment, and the application of these qualities to events in the life cycle. The structure of a community without clear boundaries is explained in terms of centres of interest, or "nodes," and the attraction these nodes hold for individuals. A Literature review traces the roots of the cultural elements in the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Theoretical and methodological approaches are based on A. P. Cohen's work on the authorship of the self and the conscious use of the researcher's self to know others, Cohen's work on community, grounded theory, and participatory research.

The author retains copyright in this thesis. Any substantial copying or any other actions that exceed fair dealing or other exceptions in the Copyright Act require the permission of the author.

https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3006