Since the late 1990s, Western countries are witnessing an increasing phenomenon of a particular type of urban to rural migrations led by anti-capitalism, a reject of the city and ecological considerations. This phenomenon partakes of what is often referred to as a “radical” (Halfacree, 2007) or “alternative” (Pruvost, 2013) rural – i.e. individual and collective projects and initiatives engaged in a contestation of the dominant politico-economical order mostly through everyday practices and representations rather than through open conflict (Halfacree, 2007, Leblay, 2021). This pregnancy of everyday politics among the people involved reveals a desire of social and ecological transformation as much as an ambition to experience this transformation through place-based experimentations. This raises the question of the spatiality of such initiatives simultaneously locally rooted and taking part in more or less extensive networks (Nicholls et al., 2016). This communication addresses this by presenting some results of an ongoing thesis about ecological and community living in the countryside in France and Quebec. Based on case studies of intentional communities, we show how their members try to influence rural actors – including public actors – around them, using different strategies to promote their environmental discourses and practices, for example through bartering or cultural events. Those intentional communities are themselves influenced by the local socio-political context, and benefit from existing networks of local alternative initiatives. Moreover, we show how their members partake in larger networks, formal or informal, with the aim of promoting those environmental discourses and practices at a (trans)national scale.