While this homesteading program has ended, the desire to own a piece of land where one could be independent and self-sufficient has not. Today people are digging up their front yards and planting gardens, unplugging from the grid, and striving for a lifestyle and an ideology that is totally different than the one they know. They are the modern homesteader. The term modern homesteader or just simply homesteader is the most common used by researchers to define a group of people “leading a largely self-sufficient life close to nature. The homesteader is one in which the practice of everyday life is a chosen ‘answer’ to a particular constellation of personal, social and cultural questions” (Gould, 1999, p.191). Other terms used to describe this diverse group of people and their lifestyle include neo-farmers, neo-peasants,
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In her article, Modern Homesteading in America: Negotiating Religion, Nature, and Modernity, and book, At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America, she shows how the homesteading experiences and practices could be compared to those of traditional religions. She notes that there is what could be called a religious conversion experience that happens when people visit a homestead. They are inspired to become homesteaders and began to look for more information. The autobiographies of other homesteaders become like a sacred text with guidelines of how to live this lifestyle. “Many have well-stocked libraries of books and magazines on simple living with serve as testament to a way of living that is both practical and philosophical, not just ‘how-to’ but ‘why you should’” (Gould, 1999, p.191). She goes on to say that if one considers the autobiographies as the sacred text, then nature itself becomes that “which is the physical and symbolic center of one’s existence” and puts them in touch the ‘creator’(Gould,
In her article, Modern Homesteading in America: Negotiating Religion, Nature, and Modernity, and book, At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America, she shows how the homesteading experiences and practices could be compared to those of traditional religions. She notes that there is what could be called a religious conversion experience that happens when people visit a homestead. They are inspired to become homesteaders and began to look for more information. The autobiographies of other homesteaders become like a sacred text with guidelines of how to live this lifestyle. “Many have well-stocked libraries of books and magazines on simple living with serve as testament to a way of living that is both practical and philosophical, not just ‘how-to’ but ‘why you should’” (Gould, 1999, p.191). She goes on to say that if one considers the autobiographies as the sacred text, then nature itself becomes that “which is the physical and symbolic center of one’s existence” and puts them in touch the ‘creator’(Gould,