Some of Auroville can feel quite colonial with rich westerners utilising dirt cheap local labour and help

Eyes Open Photography The Photography of Bob Rose Village Relations

Although Auroville has a radius of around 3km, it has not yet managed to buy all the land within this area. Also within Auroville are local villages which causes many interesting issues. Some of Auroville can feel quite colonial with rich westerners utilising dirt cheap local labour and help. This is definitely not encouraged by the constitution, but it is easy to rationalise that the villagers need jobs and money. There can sometimes be a very uneasy relationship here!

When many of the Aurovilians boast that they came here and built their houses, what they can mean is that they came here and ordered villagers to build their houses! There are cultural and racial issues which obviously arise out of all this and it can be a somewhat taboo issue for many Aurovilians. As well as employing them, other Aurovilians take the time to volunteer in the villages to build up trust and communication, and also highlight importand social and environmental issues. As Aurovile expands and grows, it will be interesting to see what happens here! Filed under Uncategorized by Bob Rose at 5:14 Saturday, March 24th, 2007