Dr. Sujata Dutta Hazarika published an article citing Avalon Springs as a model for sustainable development in her paper Sustainability and Social Change: A Paradigmatic Shift Redefining ‘Growth’ and ‘Consciousness’, published recently in the Journal: Pacific Asia Inquiry, Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 2011.
Relating to Avalon Springs, she writes:
It aims to recreate a culture of sustainability not by a top- down intervention at the level of macro super structures but by reconstruction at the fundamental level of human consciousness that redefines the value system. How far this can be achieved in societies in the West that are far gone in limiting consumption is questionable because of the predominance of non-localizing forces of modernization driven by technology and communication that have already been mentioned but for societies that are half way can check their advances by limiting it within the folds of a restricted value system that was so erroneously imposed by capitalist formations....
...In fact, redefinition of ‘growth’ with a viable business model at the level of value systems can lead to significant changes that are both achievable and conducive with sustainable forms of living as human being on the planet. Avalon Springs can be a useful case study which without contesting the existing model of growth-for prosperity and achievement redefines the same growth by instilling values that were otherwise absent in ideas of ‘consumption’ and ‘commodification’.
Dr. Hazarika goes on to relate this to the tenets of Gandhi's philosophy of ‘Gram Swaraj’ or village autonomy.
On behalf of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (The People's University), she is in conversations with the Avalon Springs about forming an international academic consortium ((GISDP) Global initiative for Sustainable Development and Planning. She is currently authoring a book on sustainability with Dr. Saurabh Garg of UC Berkeley, which will continue to view Avalon Springs as an exemplary project.
Her full journal article can be viewed at www.uog.edu/dynamicdata/CLASSPacificAsiaInquiry.aspx.
