Here I share the link where you can read or download the dissertation that allowed me to graduate as a Master in Science in Ecological Economics.
shorturl.at/nDKZ0
Abstract
Ecovillages
are communities that aim to live in a sustainable, resilient way. Since their
formal origins in the 1990s, when the concept was formally coined, several
studies have shown their ecological benefits. However, there is a lack of research
about the economic dynamics of these modern settlements. The present study aims
to contribute to the knowledge of the economics of ecovillages by researching
the livelihood options of its members and how capable they are to generate
enough resources to create a community resilient environment. For this motive,
one of the most famous and long-lived ecovillages in the world, Findhorn
Ecovillage, was used as a case study. Eleven interviews were applied, trying to
understand the overall economic situation of Findhorn Ecovillage’s members.
Results indicate that, while basic needs are successfully met and there is high
job satisfaction, the feeling of members about their economic situation, especially
regarding secondary needs, is ambiguous. Also, the youngest interviewees have
uncertainties about their financial future. On the other hand, the worldview of
the members shows a lack of financial ambition and monetary goals. Theirs is a philosophy of voluntary
simplicity. In this way, the presence of social capital seems to counteract the
deficiency of financial richness, as a source of well-being and community
resilience. The research concludes with new understandings of communal
resilience and with potential ways to enhance it.
Key words:
community resilience, ecovillages, Findhorn Ecovillage, social capital, voluntary
simplicity.
The
aim of this paper was to:
·
document livelihood options of the FE members
to understand better community resilience and the economies of ecovillages; and
with this,
·
contribute to fill in the present literature
gap, addressing ecovillage economics and its relationship with community resilience;
to secondarily,
·
offer valuable information to new ecovillage
projects.
The
main research question of this study is:
1. How successfully have ecovillages a resilient community environment?
And
the secondary research questions are:
2. What are the main personal economic choices and the general worldview
that members have about their economic lifestyle?
3. How comfortable are members with their current economic situation?
4. What are the main income sources of the members? Do they depend mainly
of jobs inside or outside the community?
5. Are there some benefits, either financial, intangible or subjective,
that come with living inside the ecovillage? If so, what are they?
Lastly, for the ones that want to take a brief look without download it, I share you the Introduction of the dissertation, as also the Contents (Index), besides a concept created:
Introduction
1.1.
Contextualization and justification
To keep the economic engine working, growing economies tend to encourage
the culture of consumerism. Jackson (2009, p.99) expresses that this
materialist culture can even act as a “substitute for religion consolation.” In
modern societies, consumerism and merchandise function as identification. The
upper classes try to differentiate themselves from the rest, which, according
to the Veblen's (1899) “conspicuous theory”, are constantly trying to imitate the former. For
Jackson (2009) this creates an “Iron Cage of Consumerism”, based on anxiety:
Materialistic values such as popularity,
image and financial success are psychologically opposed to ‘intrinsic’ values
like self-acceptance, affiliation, a sense of belonging in the community …
People with higher intrinsic values are both happier and have higher levels of
environmental responsibility than those with materialistic values. (pp.148-149)
After
realizing that there is a threshold in which more GDP per capita growth does
not increase happiness, Dietz and O’Neill (2013, p.163) recommended that to achieve a steady state economy[1],
consumerism should be replaced with nonmaterialistic lifestyles. One example
that presents such a lifestyle shift are ecovillages (Dietz and O’Neill, 2013, p.164). They are offered as an alternative
to individualistic and consumerist systems (Andreas and Wagner, 2012) and even as a “third political way”, different from capitalism and
communism (Gilman et al., 1995).
These
modern settlements has been identified as a source of inspiration in a transition
to a sustainable society (Accioly Dias et al., 2017) and how a “degrowth world” would look like (Cattaneo, 2015). The latest philosophy, which aims to overcome perpetual economic
growth, may be one of the main theoretical and practical products of the strong
sustainability viewpoint. This approach, differently from the weak
sustainability one, claim that natural capital[2]
is not replaceable for other kinds of capital. According to Gowdy (2014), ecological economics represents the strong approach, whereas
neoclassical economics represents the weak. Raworth (2017) adds that whereas neoclassical economics focuses on an individualist
methodological approach, ecological economics is based on a systemic paradigm.
Understanding practical and concrete cases of those sustainability paradigms
might be useful to cope with the current ecological crisis and its potential
solutions. Socio-ecological systems not only need to mitigate harmful
ecological practices to ameliorate global warming, but they should also adapt
to potential changes (IPCC, 2014) – community resilience is an indicator of the social sustainability
which facilitates adaptation to stressors (Magis, 2010).
Ecovillages
try to deal with the global crisis not in an individualist but in a systemic
way. This systemic view is supposed to be exhibited through three dimensions:
ecological, cultural-spiritual and social-economic (Jackson and Svensson, 2002). However, Lombardozzi (2017) argues that the economic dimension has not
been sufficiently studied. Andreas and Wagner (2012) also identify this
theoretical gap, mentioning that they could find just one study that shows
(partially) the economy of an ecovillage.
Moreover,
in contrast to businesses, the ecovillage’s economic activities tend to focus
upon generating community resilience rather than generating income[3].
This can create some difficulties that might paradoxically debilitate community
resilience. Especially considering that on the one hand, some ecovillage
initiatives depend heavily on owning enough personal assets that bring the
security needed for living in a simpler, low-consumption lifestyle (Jackson, 2009) – but on the other hand, most ecological-communities struggle
financially (Ludwig, 2017).
Therefore,
identifying the proper academic discipline and concepts that explain
ecovillages’ dynamics is important. Otherwise they could be judged and analysed
according to values and purposes with which they do not identify. In this
sense, it may be relevant to understand the general worldview and livelihood
options of ecovillagers, and in which economic approach they better fit in, in
order to clarify the communal resilience concept.
Findhorn
Ecovillage (FE), situated in the highlands of Scotland, has been commonly known
as “the mother of all ecovillages” (Meltzer, 2018, p.25). In 1995, the terms ecovillage
and Global Ecovillage Network (GEN)
were coined in a Findhorn Foundation (FF) meeting (Lombardozzi, 2017). Besides
its protagonist role in the ecovillage movement, FE has remained since its
foundation in the 1960s as one of the most long-lived ecological communities in
existence. Therefore, its experience
makes it one of the most resilient ecovillages in the world. This becomes suitable for the purposes of
this study, as will be understood in the following section.
[1] Steady state economy is a “dynamic society in which quantitative growth
is replace by qualitative social development and whose rates of resource
extraction and pollution are compatible with the rates of resource production
and waste assimilation by supporting ecosystems” (Rees, 2003).
[2] Natural capital refers
to natural resources, both non-renewable and renewable (Gowdy,
2014).
[3] Melissa Godbeer (Research Director, Findhorn
College), email message to the author, April 26, 2019.
List of Contents, Figures and Tables
CREATED CONCEPTS:
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE:
Community
resilience could be understood as the social and institutional[1]
capacities to adapt, resist or avoid external shocks that threaten the economic
and ontological security of community members.
[1] Institutional concept is
preferred here instead of governmental
or state ones. There is a branch
that understood ecovillages as an anarchist movement (Dawson, 2006). In the latter sense, institutional could be applied in a different
way, like the political capital of decision-making staff in contrast to
“grassroot” social capital. This should avoid restrictions in the use of the
definition.
For any commentary or observation you can contact the author of this research to his email lombardozziv@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteThanks for this work. This type of work inspires me to look and think at things from a different than I used to. And this is good; I'm not a fond of being fixated and fall in love with narrow premises and ideas.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I was hoping to achieve if you don't mind. I reviewed the thesis and had a proposition to discuss it, primarily to inspire more inventive thinking and promote similar works. I also hope that it will helpful to you as well.
If you don't mind I started a google doc that attempts to closely trail the thesis, but offers additional or alternative points of view. I think the scope and context of this enormous work is the most important part. So, for the last few days I concentrated on the intro and the context and justification chapter:
"Granted that the context and justification might be the most crucial information that sets the direction and tone of the discussion, I thought of two general improvements to the context discussion. First, looking at the criticism of the materialistic lifestyle in more detail. Two, broadening the boundaries of the debate to more fertile land. All that we’d need to explore with a cold mind and minimal bias towards the proposed solution."
The detailed discussion of the materialistic culture and conspicuous consumerism follows. In addition, I've proposed a handful of alternative angles to look at the current context of both current lifestyle and ecological scene.
Here is the link to the doc. Feel free to comment and write back with your feedback.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j-ZilgNyMthPti8PlaWsQ_JyS3LXBxrUOQE96MMzTMw/edit?usp=sharing
Best regards,
- Vald
I want to emphasize a critical direction of the work that I always felt intuitively but didn't have the words to express. In this work, we should not forget about the health and social integrity aspects. It may prove to be a more fruitful direction than finding the economic underpinnings of the intentional communities. Anyone who finds that the health of the planet, an average human, the society is deteriorating will be inclined to see what medicine they hold in store for them. Here are two quotes to reinforce the meaning.
ReplyDelete"All the money in the world can't buy you back good health."—Reba McEntire
"When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost."—Billy Graham
Frederic Nietzsche once said:
"Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavors to mitigate distress, to honor it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is an age of the poor. Our «rich people»—they are the poorest! The real purpose of all wealth has been forgotten."
I think you also told similar intuition in your way:
"On the other hand, the worldview of the members shows a lack of financial ambition and monetary goals. Theirs is a philosophy of voluntary simplicity. In this way, the presence of social capital seems to counteract the deficiency of financial richness as a source of well-being and community resilience."
Yet, it feels like a pure justification of the lack of economic ambitions. In contrast, we must admit a possibility of the innate lack of need and, therefore, the absence of financial goals. And consequently, the following apparent paradox would resolve trivially.
"Therefore, identifying the proper academic discipline and concepts that explain ecovillages' dynamics is important. Otherwise they could be judged and analysed according to values and purposes
with which they do not identify."
Indeed, these communities need money to be part of the rest of society. But the internal dynamics may not need to be predicated on what western culture understands by economics. With appropriate insulation from the rest of the economy, internal social security is a cultural and health matter, not economical. There are multiple successful examples to support this argument, e.g., shared income communities, monasteries, etc.
Emphasis notwithstanding, health and happiness aspects should be evaluated and discussed among other significant ecological, social, and economic factors.
To conclude, a couple of resources had great inspiration and influence on me in this regard.
The first set of information was a bunch of documentaries. For example, "the social dilemma" -a documentary about the unhealthy influence of social media and lack of education and research in this area, "the great hack"-about undermining the free choices of the electorate in Trump's presidential campaign using AI technologies and data from Facebook.
Another set of information was research papers about people's motivations and actions in the modern hi-tech society. For example, Edwards, F., 2017. An investigation of attention-seeking behavior through social media post framing. Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, 3(1), pp.25-44.
The last set was from renowned psychologists and sociologists, and philosophers whose works I quoted in a few places, like E. Fromm and Aldous Huxley.
Sincerely,
- Vlad
Hi Vlad, thank you for your commentaries. I will be commenting them by parts...
ReplyDelete1) "the story that we are attempting to tell the reader should be weaved into our cultural context or rejected. That context is the Western culture."
This is a very complex statement to made, especially regarding to one movement that is trying to transcend nowadays cultural problems (and which is expanding to a worldwide basis)... Nonetheless, this claim was broadly treated, but in my first thesis about ecovillages (https://understandingecovillages.blogspot.com/2020/01/sociological-thesis-organizational.html).
It would be too long to explain in which way ecovillages are a "new way of community" deeply influenced by Western culture (because this was actually the main conclusion of the whole aforementioned research). But in few words, the main idea is that ecovillages don't organize themselves, in contrast to "old traditional communities", according to "mechanic solidarity" but -as modern Western societies- according to "organic solidarity"...
2) "Community resilience - is the sustained ability of a community to use available resources (energy, communication, transportation, food, etc.) to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations."
Very complete definition. I would like to clarify -if not understood implicitly- that in my definition the "recovery" part of it may be understood as a way of "adaptation" too...
3) "Premis #1: There is no one right way to live sustainably. The branching and diversity of species are promoted by evolution as a backup mechanism. But it goes beyond just biodiversity. Reducing diversity in many areas leads to the fragility of the solution overall. So, the variety of methods and principles of sustainable living is encouraged to mitigate the risk of failures of any single one of them due to unknown adverse effects."
Exactly. I think this is explicitly acknowledged by ecovillages. However, "an excess of diversity" could imply in the long term a lack of unity of common goals (for example, to exaggerate this idea, even getting away from sustainability itself). This can also be better understood reading my first thesis. An "excess" of diversity is something that it might be produced by the "excess" of Organic Solidarity. To counteract this, social systems might apply Mechanic Solidarity...
4) "Premis #2: Current methods and principles of living of the community at large are unsustainable. They include but are not limited to population growth, economic growth, resource management, member health (physique and psyche), social health, progress pace, ecological impact. Many of these factors are interrelated, but there is no clear indication of the predominant factors"
I would say that "Current methods and principles of living of the SOCIETY at large are unsustainable"; in the context of understanding Community and Society as follows (https://understandingecovillages.blogspot.com/2020/02/community-and-society-new-definition.html).
5) "Premis #4: There are two primary purposes of incorporating and studying ecovillages. a) discover and study a sustainable lifestyle. b) alleviate the ecological overshoot we are presently experiencing. The critical point here is that alleviation doesn’t mean full resolution. Other means must be employed to deal with the global population growth and so on."
ReplyDeleteI agree with this Premis. Ecovillages mainly work in a micro-communal-level, for a macro-society-level other logic should be considered. That is why in my conclusions I added the institutional dimension of community resilience (to relate the micro-communal level to the macro-political one). I understand that trying to apply the (small) community logic to the (huge) society basis of nowadays very complex world it would be inappropriate and ineffective, for several reasons (also better understood after considering the ideas of my first thesis), such as that in society most people don't share -what Habermas understands as- the same "Lebenswelt" (Lifeworld)...
6) "Socializing (e.g., socializing on the Internet may prove less valuable than personal contact)" exactly that is why my definition of community implies the "face-to-face" dimension... Because, "A meaningful life, meaningful relationships" is one of the strongest points of community: it facilitates primary relationships, in contrast of what Weber defined as "instrumental rationality".
7) "Consumerism is a manifestation of some deeply rooted causes and, together with the growth of GDP and population, could be an intrinsic feature of economics. It may well be that if you take away any one of those components, the whole economy will collapse. "
This is a very complex issue. It would be extremely long to be debated in detail (because to effectively break that systemic dynamics, other political measures -such as Universal Basic Income- should be put on the table...). But in few words, in the nowadays society system, it is true that consumerism is the "engine" that makes economy "going on". However, as I tried to explain in this dissertation, ecovillages try to break with neoclassical economics (and therefore with "growing economies" logic), fitting better with "Doughnut economics" (Raworth), degrowth, steady-state economics, etc...
8) "But no criticism was able to directly or fully prove the absence of the correlation between wellbeing and wealth. Attempts to dismantle materialistic values were inconclusive and based on circumstantial evidence. Proposed alternatives are new ideologies based on postmaterialistic premises that have no solid proof themselves".
I don't think that postmaterialistic projects are based on the idea that there is not correlation at all between wellbeing and wealth (at least Doughnut Economics do not claim that). In fact, there is data that correlates wealth and wellbeing (for example, chapter 2 of "Enough is enough", Dietz & O'Neill). The issue is that there is a threshold (that we might agree that is much lower than the "American dream" which inspires the growing economies systems): "Beyond an average national income of about $20.000 a year, additional money does not appear to buy additional happiness" (p. 26). This might be even lower is one considers some of the trade-off that ecovillages offer (such as social relationships satisfaction).
9) "What if materialistic values are an inevitable facet of our economy? How far back we need to unwind and what to change to avoid the materialistic lifestyle?"
ReplyDeleteThe previous point gives us a general reference, at least to be open to the idea that not always more means better… But this is also a complex issue, that is mainly philosophical. I treated it in one of my other blogs (http://metafisicasocial.blogspot.com/2020/06/panutilitarismo-causas-metafisicas.html). Sadly, I have not translated it from Spanish to English, but maybe if you use a translator, you might get a general idea.
10) “As mentioned earlier, broadening the horizon for this discussion will ease the tension and reliance on a narrow theory that material wealth is terrible.”
I don’t think that material wealth is terrible. It is just an issue of emphasis. In my opinion, the overvaluation of material wealth as almost the only factor of well-being (as implicitly happens nowadays within the neoclassical political-economy and its ever-growth economic systems) not only contributes to the ecological crisis that might undermine our capacity of living well, but it also facilitates dynamics that contribute to other problems, such as stressful work environments due to extreme competition (and the physical and psychological problems that this brings).
11) “Sooner or later, a country that cannot be fully autonomous falls back to a marketing economy”
Even though ecovillages try to achieve a strong level of autonomy, I don’t think they necessary look for a fully autonomous economy. One example of this is Findhorn, in which its economic model is explicitly based on tourism and it also allows private ownership. However, this is complemented with “central planning” dynamics, such as the one of assuring a minimum permanent income to the Findhorn Foundation members. On the other hand, it is true that some ecovillages (as the one studied in my Sociological thesis) look for a high autonomy under valuating the benefits of market economy. I think this is one weakness that ecovillages should have in mind, at least in a long-term strategy. For this reason I also added the “institutional dimension” of community resilience: to not only show the benefits of being integrated with “external” market economies, but also to be open to integrate governmental benefits as well.
12) “So, if economic growth is at odds with eco-wellness, does it also mean that the notion of happiness is at odds with eco-wellness?”
This might be true if one considers (as subconsciously seems to do nowadays neoclassic economics) that economic growth has a timeless absolute identify with happiness. But as Doughnut economics shows, an ever growing economy might undermine (social) happiness. In this way, you could consider that eco-wellness is a (social) dimension of happiness, as it does other paradigms, such as the Gross Happiness Index of Bhutan or the “Buen Vivir” (Good living) of South-american indigenous philosophies.
13) “Not everyone will be willing even to consider this discussion since they are risking losing more than others.”
ReplyDeleteIn theory, ecovillages don’t need a world-wide complete social change or revolution to start functioning (as it is proposed for the success of other social and political endeavors such as Classic Marxism or The Venus Project). In this sense, they don't need to force everyone to participate. Nonetheless, if one considers the “institutional dimension” of community resilience, other variables come into play. But this is a typical ethical issue that emerges in any representative democracy: we should give some priorities to where the resources are going to be focused. In this way, a big polluting company must adapt to the ecological situation (for example, paying green taxes and complying the juridical regulations). Otherwise, we would fall in the Anarcho-capitalism dynamics of extreme atomism and anomie (https://understandingecovillages.blogspot.com/2020/02/organizational-vectors-theory.html)
14) “Followers of these religions would rather perish than consider abandoning their beliefs.”
The previous should be applied to this point as well. However, it might be also relevant to highlight that religions also might adapt to the present ecological situation. One example of this can be seen in Francis Pope’s “Laudato si’” encyclical, in which this issue is considered. Other example of the need of adaptation is population regulation (in contrast to the “go and populate the Earth”).
15) “Scope of economic interests. Is it social or individual?”
In society -as defined in my other thesis- (https://understandingecovillages.blogspot.com/2020/02/community-and-society-new-definition.html) , it’s easier to develop individual interest but also easier that this confront with others; in community, due to sharing the same physical property and “Lifeworld”, there might be more possibilities of increasing social economic interests. But I think that social and individual interest are not necessarily to be in confrontation. In my opinion, “Organic Community” (https://understandingecovillages.blogspot.com/2020/02/organizational-vectors-theory.html), that is to say, a Community with Organic Solidarity, facilitates synergies between social (community) and individual (organic) interests.
16) “What is sustainable living? What are the parameters?
In my opinion “Doughnut economics” and “A Good Life For All Within Planetary Boundaries” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4; https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/) propose a strong, scientific and holistic model to sustainable living. You can see the indicators of sustainable living in the photo of this publication: https://sustentabilidadarmonica.blogspot.com/2018/10/redistribucion-socioeconomica-su.html.
17) “Entry/exit government or public funding”
ReplyDeleteIn a world without Universal Basic Income, I think a good start for receiving public funding could be due to ecologically friendly living. For example, Findhorn Ecovillage has the lower per capita carbon footprint registered within the Industrial World. Therefore, this could be publicly awarded giving them some funding…
18) “I postulate that everything that has led to this point was the natural evolution of modern society. Trying to use different values as the argument is not going to be simple”.
Similarly to point 1, to be understood in more detail, my Sociological thesis should be studied (https://understandingecovillages.blogspot.com/2020/01/sociological-thesis-organizational.html). But in few words, let’s say that ecovillages share values with modern society (Organic Solidarity) but it also propose a new way of social organizing (Community; particularly the combination of the previous, that is to say, Organic Community).
19) “Role of ecovillages as mini-laboratories of possible futures. Is replicability a proper measure of success? The diversity of results could be good”
This point is very interesting. Historically, we tend, as Western society -especially since the French Revolution- to think that replicability is THE measure of success (for example, all countries going for the "American dream" or macro-economically speaking, looking for more economic growth). But, in my Sociological thesis I tried to show that ecovillages, from a micro-sociological level, organize themselves using "Organic Solidarity" ("cohesion through differences")… we could extrapolate this same logic to a macro-sociological level, which means that diversity of results -in a ecological friendly context- maybe good. From my viewpoint, this is a strength. Especially consider that in general, empires have tried to homogenize their viewpoint through "Mechanic Solidarity" (cohesion through equalities which needs a strong repression)…
So, I think diversity of results are good and in my opinion, ecovillage's authors in general tend to, implicitly or explicitly, think the same. For example, if you compare the ecovillage of my Sociological thesis with the Ecological Economics one, you can see lots of differences. Specifically, in terms of the economic model. Meanwhile the Chilean ecovillage live "with the minimum", in terms they were not looking for more profit (for example, they rejected one friend's business offer to bring tourism to visit the place and receiving income because of that), Findhorn on the other hand, has a strong economic model that, without renouncing to “voluntary simplicity", integrates business dynamics.
20) “Role of ecovillages as mini-arks for various levels of socio-ecological failures” “Are ecovillages on a lower energy level than the rest of the society per capita? Is it a local or a global minimum?”
Findhorn Ecovillage has the lower per capita carboon footprint registered within the industrial world. Therefore, ecovillages should be lower in energy level use (also, besides the "voluntary simplicity" culture and the intrinsic efficiency of “green technologies” such as wind energy, as these ones are distributed also in a collective way, “energetic economies of scale” contribute to this ecologically friendly performance).
21) “What are promoting forces that support ecovillages? The role of government”.
ReplyDeleteDegrowth movement (https://www.degrowth.info/en/2016/09/synergies-between-degrowth-and-the-global-ecovillage-network/), “Buen Vivir”, UN Sustainable Goals in general. I think Global Government as well (UN) would support ecovillages movement. Although these are diverse and locally situated, a Global Government could put limits to the economic anarchy that doesn’t consider “world externalities” (climate crisis consequences), therefore, allocating resources to ecologically-friendly projects such as ecovillages. The role of government, as I tried to propose in the conclusion, could be to financially support projects that promote a “green lifestyle” (which implies a “good for all” in terms that they don’t contribute to general pollution or carbon intensive lifestyles).
22) “What are destructive forces that deteriorate ecovillages as self-sustainable habitats?”
More than destructive, one of the main problems I can see is the economic livelihood. Also, the ideology of “better=more” is controversial with “Living within the Limits” projects. Another variables could be physical isolation, for example, problems with education if the ecovillage is not close to a city or rural town…
23) “Ecovillage as a living organism within another living organism of modern society. A symbiotic relationship, mutual benefits, and tensions; personal and communal”.
This is a very interesting topic. Besides the “institutional dimension” of the present dissertation, I treated this issue, at least as a conceptual mark in the point “VII.5- Society and community” of my Sociological thesis (pp.74-77).
24) “A possible path from the modern society to the ecovillage”.
A possible path for me it would be government support for sustainable lifestyles, and also Universal Basic Income (which would decrease economic pressures for “working in the city” and therefore, increasing the probabilities of choosing a lifestyle that might be less "financially profitable").
I think this would be the last point in response to your commentaries. I am sorry if one topic proposed by you was not treated in the responses (I tried to focus in the ones I considered more relevant and clearly exposed and were not explicitly mentioned in -or implicitly deduced from- other responses). Also, it might be of interest to mention that the maximum writing length allowed for this dissertation by the University was 12,000 words (this might justify some elements that were not broaden or treated with more detail -I had to choose and eliminate words in order to fulfil this academic requirement).