Sur la terre, pour la terre, dans une terre : La territorialité de l’utopie éco- spirituelle d’Auroville (sud de l’Inde)

Abstract

Auroville, an international city located in South India and founded on a spiritual utopia, has just celebrated half a century of existence. This city highlights different aspects of the category of “land,” namely its uses and meanings in neo-oriental spiritual movements: the land as the (residential) site of a community that has had to fight for its land rights within the Indian Nation and that embraces the principles of internal collectivism; the land as an anthropomorphised setting (environment) shaped according to the principles of the spiritual philosophy that inspired the foundation of the city; the land as a laboratory space for new technologies developed before the environmentalist wave, but also as a “spiritual laboratory” for new ways of transcending religious traditions; the land as a cosmic and architectural model, since Auroville represents a galaxy and since its only “temple” has the shape of a terrestrial globe; and, lastly, the land as planet, since Auroville is said to shower the world with its technical discoveries and philosophical advances. As an ideal of the city and ideal city anchored in a concrete materiality, Auroville provides an analytical case study that sheds light on the complex aspects of the (theoretical and practical) return to the “Land” in spiritual movements.