Center for Rural Livelihoods

Back from the Land: Fellowship at the Center for Rural Livelihoods

This four-week fellowship is for those who take seriously the possibility of a popular movement for social justice and ecological regeneration. Orienting around local power-building, the fellowship has two tracks: a) the municipality and b) the university. Both are loci of contested power. Students and those grassroots movements that build local power are leading the way against end times fascism. 

In the 1970s, 10,000 communes sprung up in the back-to-the-land movement as the social movements of the 1960s were in retreat. Now, facing end times fascism and climate chaos, we are orienting back-from-the-land. CRL has been rooted in Cottage Grove since 1981 — long enough to have community but also long enough to know what we don't yet know about this town. 

The fellowship consists of three parts and two tracks. First off, everyone will engage in “bread labor” – three hours of physical work on the 40-acre campus that showcases restoration forestry, agroforestry, and natural building. Secondly, fellows will read and discuss Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor's forthcoming book, End Times Fascism. And thirdly, participants will pick one of the two tracks. 

Track A: The municipality (four weeks, September 12th - October 9th) focuses on doing the work of understanding one specific place together — Cottage Grove, Oregon. Using a combination of tools and methodologies, we’ll study and engage the town, culminating in a community gathering at the end of the term. 

Track B: The university (two weeks, September 12th - September 26th) focuses on social movements in the university context. This track will spend time preparing for the tumultuous academic year ahead. Students will spend time exploring the neoliberal university landscape in order to strategically conceive of upcoming social movement actions. 

This intensive program may be physically, socially, and intellectually demanding with bread labor in the mornings, and Track A or B in some afternoons and some evenings discussing ideas and theory. And yet, we intend the fellowship to be an integrative experience that nourishes the whole person, fosters connection to the land, and enriches each other by furthering our community work.