Summary
ECOLISE’s People Care Manual (May 2023) is the internal governance and HR policy framework for the European Coalition for Community-Led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability — the umbrella network for ecovillages, transition towns, and cohousing communities across Europe. Written by Alicia Stewart-Colvin and Pauliina Helle, and heavily informed by RadHR’s radical HR frameworks, the manual explicitly reframes HR as “People Care” — a permaculture ethic — and adopts transformative justice (rather than punitive discipline) as its governing principle for conflict and accountability. The document covers Code of Conduct, Wellbeing Policy, Equity/Diversity/Inclusion Policy, Conflict Policy, and Bullying and Harassment Policy. The Conflict Policy sets out a three-stage tension management system: (1) informal direct dialogue / empathic listening / group process; (2) supported dialogue and mediation; (3) formal disciplinary procedure (last resort). Throughout, tensions are framed in sociocratic terms as “gifts” — signals of dissonance between current reality and desired reality that carry information about structural issues. Christopher Moore’s five types of conflict (information, values, interest, relationship, structural) are used as a diagnostic framework. Several sections (Conflict Policy, Performance Review, Recruitment policy) are marked “work in progress” in the May 2023 edition.
Key thesis insights
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“People care” as permaculture ethic institutionalised in governance — ECOLISE renames HR “People Care” to embed the permaculture ethic of care for self, people, and community in its organisational structure. “Radical people care” is explicitly positioned as the opposite of corporate neoliberal HR where people are valued in terms of profit: cooperative, non-hierarchical, caring, and people-centred. The thesis can cite this as a live practitioner example of how permaculture values translate from design philosophy into organisational governance practice — ECOLISE’s member communities are ecovillages and cohousing projects, making these governance norms directly continuous with the communities the thesis studies. OT_017
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Transformative justice as community-governance alternative to punishment — ECOLISE adopts transformative justice (Mia Mingus / Transform Harm) as its governing framework for conflict and harm: “We don’t just want to respond to harm — we want to change the conditions that enabled that harm to take place.” Conflicts are investigated for structural root causes (governance design, power dynamics, systemic oppression) not just interpersonal fault. Accountability is oriented toward growth and healing, not shame and punishment. This is the governance philosophy that the literature predicts community-led organisations require to sustain long-term cohesion — and it contrasts directly with the punitive disciplinary frameworks that conventional organisations import and that intentional communities often struggle to adapt. OT_017
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Staged conflict resolution: informal primary, formal residual — The three-stage conflict system keeps ownership with the parties for as long as possible (empathic listening → direct dialogue → group process → supported dialogue → external mediation) and reserves formal disciplinary procedure for cases where informal resolution has failed. Sociocratic framing: tensions should be addressed immediately and directly before they accumulate into conflicts. This mirrors the founding-recipe element identified in Christian (2003, RT_054) — “conflict resolution training” as a critical predictor of intentional community survival — and operationalises it in a specific practitioner model from a community network context. OT_017
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Five types of conflict as diagnostic framework — Christopher Moore’s typology (information conflicts, values conflicts, interest conflicts, relationship conflicts, structural conflicts) is embedded in the conflict management process. Structural conflicts — arising from governance design, resource distribution, power dynamics — are treated as a distinct category requiring organisational-level solutions rather than interpersonal repair. For the thesis governance chapter, this is significant: it acknowledges that community conflict is often not interpersonal but systemic, and that governance design is itself a conflict-prevention tool. OT_017
Connections
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