our unique approach to cultural exchange

Journeys within Alternative Communities of South America

 

Travel between and within Alternative Communities throughout South America

 

Alternative communities result from the displacing forces that affect and have affected vulnerable people around the world. They model distinctly new ways of living, emphasizing self-awareness and balance for humans in the natural environment.

 

Our contemporary world constructs institutional space with rules and arguments for a “civilized society” with which we are familiar. These notions are poorly adapted to the changing reality of human beings and the dynamic nature of society and culture. We grow ever distant from our roots as co-existent life forms in the modern era of carbon monoxide and plastic. Alternative communities throughout Latin America are constructing territories for the construction of new forms of living that meet our diverse needs: self-sustaining work and economies, culture, recreation, ecology and spirituality.

ExpansiónEcoSur will introduce you to life within alternative community in South America: the agricultural contributions and achievements, self-sustaining models and organization and ways of living in balance with nature to stimulate the free expansion of the mind and spirit.

 

How? With Information and Action

 

 

Documentation is a key component of our work. Previous to going anywhere, we arm ourselves with information, applying principles of ethnography, geography and sociology. When we arrive on site, we begin the more palpable and relevant work of observing and documenting various ways of living.

Our tours are journeys of new experience that introduce us to both nomadic and fixed alternative communities in Venezuela, the Greater Caribbean and throughout South America. We might pass days or even months within these alternative communities, integrating ourselves within their activities to come to understand how their process of living feels, their difficulties and successes, their self-sustaining ways and spiritual practices. We document the audio/visual aspects being respectful of our position within nature and treating the people with the human respect we all deserve.

 

The cultural spectrum is an important concept and tool we use to analyze ways individuals and groups maintain their own space and make bonds, how people see themselves, their own feelings and values which guide and shape their lives, customs, rites and art.