ABSTRACT

“Getting one’s head together” by attempting to go “back-to-the-land” – move into the countryside to live more “naturally” – remains a stereotype of “hippies” from the long Sixties. Yet, while studies of this phenomenon exist, both academic and as memoirs, it has not been researched in detail as much as might have been expected, certainly not in terms of how those involved lived “off the land” and/or outside the US. This paper seeks to resurrect this topic for serious academic consideration. A call to revisit back-to-the-land comes not just from abiding fascination with the Sixties but because this countercultural movement fed into the contemporaneous emergence of a broader and still notable population trend across much of the global North of a “return” to rural living: counterurbanization. Moreover, recent decades have seen the resurgence of countercultural back-to-the-land, building on its long 1960s legacy but now underpinned by a more explicit search for environmentally sustainable lifestyles. This review of back-to-the-land, after noting the demographic place today of counterurbanization, focuses on an overview of long Sixties back-to-the-land and then on the early years of its ongoing resurgence. For both periods, attention is given to how back-to-the-landers have been studied, what their motivations are, whether they move as family or group, how long their rural life tends to last, what opportunities and barriers they have met, and what evidence there is of land work. It is concluded that back-to-the-land today shows considerable continuity with its 1960s heyday but has been more proactive in its spatialized rejection of key everyday life aspects and experiences within contemporary (urban and suburban) mainstream society. In short, a key Sixties phenomenon remains very much alive today but in a more mature form.

摘要

通过尝试“回归土地”来“集思广益”——搬到乡下过更“自然”的生活——仍然是六十年代以来对“嬉皮士”的刻板印象。然而，尽管存在对这种现象的研究，无论是学术研究还是回忆录，都没有像预期的那样详细研究，当然不是关于那些参与“离开土地”和/或在美国以外生活的人. 本文力求复活这个话题，以供认真的学术考虑。重返故土的呼吁不仅来自对六十年代的持久迷恋，还因为这种反文化运动促成了同时出现的更广泛且仍然显着的人口趋势，这种趋势在全球大部分北方地区“回归”到农村生活：逆城市化。而且，近几十年来，反主流文化重新兴起，以其 1960 年代悠久的遗产为基础，但现在更明确地寻求环境可持续的生活方式。这篇关于回归的回顾，在注意到当今逆城市化的人口地位之后，着重于对漫长的六十年代回归的概述，然后是其持续复苏的早年。对于这两个时期，都关注如何研究返回登陆者、他们的动机是什么、他们是作为家庭还是群体迁移、他们的农村生活往往会持续多久、他们遇到了哪些机会和障碍，以及土地工作的证据。得出的结论是，今天的回归土地与其 1960 年代的鼎盛时期有着相当大的连续性，但在空间化拒绝当代（城市和郊区）主流社会的关键日常生活方面和经验方面更加积极主动。简而言之，六十年代的一个关键现象在今天仍然非常活跃，但形式更加成熟。