The International Township of Auroville was inaugurated as an international experiment in Human Unity on the southeast coast of India in 1968. My research on Auroville constitutes a case study of collective decision-making. Coding extracts from the weekly internal newsletters of the Township 1975 to 2000 in the qualitative software program, NVivo, I reconstruct features of decision-making in the township which I argue form implicit agreements on principles of organization. Illocutionary action, the effort to reach mutual understanding, underscores each of these principles. Illocutionary action is the building block of Jurgen Habermas Theory of Communicative Action and his Discourse Ethics. Because of the correspondence between decision-making in Auroville and the formulations of Jurgen Habermas, I apply key dimensions of Habermas theory to developments in the township in order to identify the practical consequences of adherence to the primacy Habermas pays to illocutionary action. In this way, I submit his theory to practical test. Contrary to the theoretical expectations of Habermas, decision-making characteristic of lifeworld continues to play a role in steering the systems developed to facilitate the expansion of the Auroville Township.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-08182011-020638 |
| Date | 22 August 2011 |
| Creators | Leard, Stuart R |
| Contributors | Dickinson, Harley D. |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-08182011-020638/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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