It is a good question and one which has obviously occupied my mind quite a lot during the last couple of years.
I thought it might be useful just to write a few words about how it is being used in the context of this blog based on my current thinking. Bear in mind this may yet change!
Alternative is one of those words which tends to be a bit abused and misused. Generally it seem to be used as a synonym for ‘a bit different’. This reflects one important facet of alternative, that it predominately a relational term. Therefore without an understanding of what the ‘other’ is, alternative is pretty meaningless. Often, therefore, you see alternative being used in relation to the ‘mainstream’ whatever that might mean.
The second important thing about alternative is that there is an important temporal dimension. What is alternative now might well become mainstream in 20 years time. We see this across a huge range of practices and ideas that start on the ‘margins’ and then become absorbed. So what is alternative today, might not be tomorrow.
In terms of economics, there are two different types of alternative. Alternative economic theories and alternative economic practices. So ecological economic for example, is an alternative economic theory to that of mainstream neoclassical economics. Alternative economic practices are those which are again presented as an alternative to the mainstream. This covers a broad range of possibilities but might include ‘ethical’ trade, local currencies etc. With practices, the definition of alternative is more problematic and again dependent on what you are defining them against. Of course there is some relationship also between theory and practice but this is not the place to explore that.
A final important use of alternative relates to ideas that emerged from the counterculture in the 1960s. I am arguing that during the 1970s there was a set of overlapping ideas about the ‘Alternative Society’ which covered a range of different areas e.g. health, agriculture, education, technology, economics. These ideas were about developing alternatives to dysfunctional mainstream society by working at a local level and building alternative institutions. Some of these ideas of the alternative society which circulated in the Totnes area and which partly underpinned the development alternative culture that developed in the area. However other strands of the counterculture also developed in the area including ‘social movements’ such as feminism and environmentalism and some strands of what became known as the ‘new age.’ Indeed the modern meaning of ‘alternative’ tends to mean ‘countercultural’ in the sense that it reflects values and practices which are still (to some degree) outside the mainstream.
It is this sense that the term is most often used in retlation to Totnes: as a site where there are a density of ‘alternative’ cultures. One of my arguments is that these cultures can not only be traced back to the Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s but that also there are multiple dimensions and conflicts between them. Thus labels which define Totnes as simply ‘New Age’ or ‘Hippy’ do not capture this complexity, nor some of the interesting socail innovations that have taken place in the area.
May i put to you an suggestion that the South Devon
Railway as it is now known could also be included as
part of an local alternative to the regular modes of transportation,all be it an attempt to re-create an mode of transportation that has now been cast aside in the quest for faster,cleaner means of getting from A to B.
The people responsible for it’s inception were looking to tap into an tourist type market and indeed it was set up as an business whose aim was to make profits,from it’s inception the staff were all paid an wage.
The South Devon Railway is now an registered charity and as such it relies on an large number of volunteers to help run the operation,though there are indeed an small nucleus of paid staff whom work for the company on an full time basis.
I pass these thoughts to you as an ex employee whom worked on that line from 1974 through to 1988,although in the latter part of my time there i spent more time involved with the Paignton to Kingswear section of The Dart Valley Railway.
As an aside to the above i remember an young lady who set up an North American style wig wam tent in an field alongside the railway line on the approach to Staverton station in the early 1980′s, i often used to see her riding an bicycle in the Dartington area on my way to and from work.
I hope these comments prove useful to you.
All the best.
Angus Morrison
By: Angus Morrison on March 11, 2009
at 11:53 pm