An intentional community is a voluntary

residential community A residential community is a community, usually a small town or city, that is composed mostly of residents, as opposed to commercial businesses and/or industrial facilities, all three of which are considered to be the three main types of oc ...

which is designed to have a high degree of

social cohesion Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main c ...

and

teamwork Teamwork is the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way. This concept is seen within the greater framework of a team, which is a group of interdependent individu ...

from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

, or spiritual vision, and typically share responsibilities and property. This way of life is sometimes characterized as an " alternative lifestyle". Intentional communities can be seen as

social experiment A social experiment is a type of psychological or sociological research for testing people's reactions to certain situations or events. The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of information is the point of v ...

s or communal experiments. The multitude of intentional communities includes collective households, cohousing communities, coliving, ecovillages, monasteries, survivalist retreats,

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

im,

hutterites Hutterites (german: link=no, Hutterer), also called Hutterian Brethren (German: ), are a communal ethnoreligious branch of Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the early 16th century ...

ashram An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (< housing cooperatives.

History

Ashrams An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (<

Buddhist monasteries appeared around 500 BCE.

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His politic ...

founded an intellectual vegetarian commune in about 525 BCE in southern Italy. Hundreds of modern intentional communities were formed across Europe, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand out of the intellectual foment of

utopianism A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...

. Intentional communities exhibit the utopian ambition to create a better, more sustainable world for living. Nevertheless, the term utopian community as a synonym for an intentional community might be considered to be of pejorative nature and many intentional communities do not consider themselves to be utopian. Also the alternative term commune is considered to be non-neutral or even linked to leftist politics or hippies.

Synonyms and Definitions

Additional terms referring to an intentional community can be alternative lifestyle, intentional society, cooperative community, withdrawn community, enacted community, socialist colony, communistic society, collective settlement, communal society, mutualistic community, communitarian experiment, experimental community, utopian experiment, practical utopia, and utopian society.

Variety

The purposes of intentional communities vary and may be political, spiritual, economic, or environmental. In addition to spiritual communities, secular communities also exist. One common practice, particularly in spiritual communities, is communal meals. Egalitarian values can be combined with other values. Benjamin Zablocki categorized communities this way: * Alternative-family communities (see

Tenacious Unicorn Ranch The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch is a queer and transgender community and working ranch in Custer County, Colorado, United States. Located in a conservative part of Colorado, members of the ranch often carry firearms and wear body armor due to hara ...

) * Coliving communities *

Cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

communities * Countercultural communities * Egalitarian communities *

Political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

communities *

Psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betw ...

communities (based on

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

or gestalt principles) * Rehabilitational communities (see Synanon) * Religious communities * Spiritual communities * Experimental communities

Membership

Members of Christian intentional communities want to emulate the practices of the earliest believers. Using the biblical book of Acts (and, often, the Sermon on the Mount) as a model, members of these communities strive to demonstrate their faith in a corporate context, and to live out the teachings of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

, practicing compassion and hospitality. Communities such as the Simple Way, the Bruderhof and Rutba House would fall into this category. Despite strict membership criteria, these communities are open to visitors and not reclusive to the extent of some other intentional communities. A survey in the 1995 edition of the " Communities Directory", published by Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), reported that 54 percent of the communities choosing to list themselves were rural, 28 percent were urban, 10 percent had both rural and urban sites, and 8 percent did not specify.

Governance

The most common form of

governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the ...

in intentional communities is

democratic Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

(64 percent), with decisions made by some form of

consensus decision-making Consensus decision-making or consensus process (often abbreviated to ''consensus'') are group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all. The focus on e ...

or voting. A hierarchical or

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...

structure governs 9 percent of communities, 11 percent are a combination of democratic and hierarchical structure, and 16 percent do not specify.

Core principles

The central characteristics of communes, or core principles that define communes, have been expressed in various forms over the years. The term "communitarian" was invented by the Suffolk-born radical

John Goodwyn Barmby John Goodwyn Barmby (Bapt. 12 November 1820 – 18 October 1881) was born at Yoxford in Suffolk and educated at Woodbridge School. He was an English Victorian utopian socialist thinker. He and his wife Catherine Barmby (1816/17–1853) were inf ...

, subsequently a

Unitarian Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to: Christian and Christian-derived theologies A Unitarian is a follower of, or a member of an organisation that follows, any of several theologies referred to as Unitarianism: * Unitarianism (1565–present ...

minister. At the start of the 1970s, ''The New Communes'' author Ron E. Roberts classified communes as a subclass of a larger category of Utopias. He listed three main characteristics: first, egalitarianism – that communes specifically rejected hierarchy or graduations of social status as being necessary to social order. Second, human scale – that members of some communes saw the scale of society as it was then organized as being too

industrialized Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

(or factory sized) and therefore unsympathetic to human dimensions. And third, that communes were consciously anti- bureaucratic. Twenty five years later, Dr. Bill Metcalf, in his edited book ''Shared Visions, Shared Lives'' defined communes as having the following core principles: the importance of the group as opposed to the

nuclear family A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the la ...

unit, a "common purse", a collective household, group decision making in general and intimate affairs. Sharing everyday life and facilities, a commune is an idealized form of family, being a new sort of "primary group" (generally with fewer than 20 people although there are examples of much larger communes). Commune members have emotional bonds to the whole group rather than to any sub-group, and the commune is experienced with emotions which go beyond just social collectivity.

By region

With the simple definition of a commune as an intentional community with 100% income sharing, the online directory of the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC) lists 222 communes worldwide (28 January 2019). Some of these are religious institutions such as abbeys and monasteries. Others are based in

anthroposophic Anthroposophy is a Spiritualism, spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the Western esotericism, esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spirituality, spiritual w ...

philosophy, including Camphill villages that provide support for the education, employment, and daily lives of adults and children with developmental disabilities, mental health problems or other

special needs In clinical diagnostic and functional development, special needs (or additional needs) refers to individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. Guidelines for clinical diagnosis are given in ...

. Many communes are part of the New Age movement. Many cultures naturally practice communal or tribal living, and would not designate their way of life as a planned 'commune' per se, though their living situation may have many characteristics of a commune.

Australia

In Australia, many intentional communities started with the hippie movement and those searching for social alternatives to the nuclear family. One of the oldest continuously running communities is called " Moora Moora Co-operative Community" with about 47 members (Oct 2021). Located at the top of Mount Toolebewong, 65km east of Melbourne, Victoria at an altitude of 600–800 m, this community has been entirely off the electricity grid since its inception in 1974. Founding members still resident include Peter and Sandra Cock.

Germany

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

, a large number of the intentional communities define themselves as communes and there is a network of political communes called "Kommuja" with about 30 member groups (May 2009). Germany has a long tradition of intentional communities going back to the groups inspired by the principles of '' Lebensreform'' in the 19th century. Later, about 100 intentional communities were started in the

Weimar Republic The German Reich, commonly referred to as the Weimar Republic,, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also r ...

after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

; many had a communal economy. In the 1960s, there was a resurgence of communities calling themselves communes, starting with the Kommune 1 in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

, followed by Kommune 2 (also Berlin) and Kommune 3 in Wolfsburg. In the German commune book, , communes are defined by Elisabeth Voß as communities which: * Live and work together * Have a communal economy, i.e. common finances and common property (land, buildings,

means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, Work (human activity), labor and capital (economics), capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or Service (economics), services); however, the term can also refer to anyth ...

) * Have communal decision making – usually consensus decision making * Try to reduce hierarchy and hierarchical structures * Have communalization of housework, childcare and other communal tasks * Have equality between women and men * Have low ecological footprints through sharing and saving resources

Israel

PikiWiki 3560 Architecture of the Golan Heights

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

im in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, (sing., kibbutz) are examples of officially organized communes, the first of which were based on agriculture. Other Israeli communities are Neve Shalom, Kvutza, Yishuv Kehilati, Moshavim and Kfar No'ar. Today, there are dozens of urban communes growing in the cities of Israel, often called urban kibbutzim. The urban kibbutzim are smaller and more anarchist. Most of the urban communes in Israel emphasize social change, education, and local involvement in the cities where they live. Some of the urban communes have members who are graduates of zionist-

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

youth movements, like HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed, HaMahanot HaOlim and

Hashomer Hatsair Hashomer Hatzair ( he, הַשׁוֹמֵר הַצָעִיר, , ''The Young Guard'') is a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, and it was also the name of the g ...

Ireland

In 1831 John Vandeleur (a landlord) established a commune on his Ralahine Estate at Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co. Clare. Vandeleur asked Edward Thomas Craig, an English socialist, to formulate rules and regulations for the commune. It was set up with a population of 22 adult single men, 7 married women and their 7 husbands, 5 single women, 4 orphan boys and 5 children under the age of 9 years. No money was employed, only credit notes which could be used in the commune shop. All occupants were committed to a life with no alcohol, tobacco, snuff or gambling. All were required to work for 12 hours a day during the summer and from dawn to dusk in winter. The social experiment prospered for a time and 29 new members joined. However, in 1833 the experiment collapsed due to the gambling debts of John Vandeleur. The members of the commune met for the last time on 23 November 1833 and placed on record a declaration of "the contentment, peace and happiness they had experienced for two years under the arrangements introduced by Mr. Vandeleur and Mr. Craig and which through no fault of the Association was now at an end".

Russia

imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. T ...

, the vast majority of Russian peasants held their land in communal ownership within a ''mir'' community, which acted as a village government and a cooperative. The very widespread and influential pre-Soviet Russian tradition of Monastic communities of both sexes could also be considered a form of communal living. After the end of communism in Russia, monastic communities have again become more common, populous and, to a lesser degree, more influential in Russian society. Various patterns of Russian behavior — (толока), (помочи), (артель) — are also based on communal ("мирские") traditions.

South Africa

In 1991,

Afrikaners Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Cas ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

founded the controversial Afrikaner-only town of Orania, with the goal of creating a stronghold for the Afrikaner minority group, the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner culture. By 2022, the population was 2,500. The town was experiencing rapid growth and the population had climbed by 55% from 2018. They favour a model of strict Afrikaner self-sufficiency and have their own currency, bank, local government and only employ Afrikaners.

United Kingdom

A 19th century advocate and practitioner of communal living was the utopian socialist

, who founded a Communist Church before becoming a

minister. The Simon Community in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

is an example of social cooperation, made to ease

homelessness Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

within London. It provides food and religion and is staffed by homeless people and volunteers. Mildly nomadic, they run street "cafés" which distribute food to their known members and to the general public. Findhorn wind turbines

The Bruderhof has three locations in the UK. In Glandwr, Pembrokeshire, Glandwr, near Crymych, Pembrokeshire, a co-op called Lammas Ecovillage focuses on planning and sustainable development. Granted planning permission by the Welsh Government in 2009, it has since created 9 holdings and is a central communal hub for its community. In Scotland, the Findhorn Foundation founded by Peter Caddy, Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean in 1962 is prominent for its educational centre and experimental architectural community project based at The Park, in Moray, Scotland, near the village of Findhorn.Local relations between the Findhorn Foundation and the village of Findhorn have occasionally foundered over inconsiderate use of the word 'Findhorn' to mean either the former or the Ecovillage. See for example Walker (1994), Talk:Findhorn Foundation and also Findhorn (disambiguation). The Findhorn Ecovillage community at The Park, Findhorn, a village in Moray, Scotland, and at Cluny Hill in Forres, now houses more than 400 people. Historic Agricultural commune, agricultural examples include the Diggers settlement on St George's Hill, Surrey during the English Civil War and the Clousden Hill Free Communist and Co-operative Colony near Newcastle upon Tyne during the 1890s.

United States

There is a long history of List of American utopian communities, utopian communities in America which led to the rise in the communes of the hippie movement—the "back-to-the-land" ventures of the 1960s and 1970s. One commune that played a large role in the hippie movement was Kaliflower Commune, Kaliflower, a utopian living cooperative that existed in San Francisco between 1967 and 1973 built on values of free love and anti-capitalism. Andrew Jacobs (journalist), Andrew Jacobs of ''The New York Times'' wrote that "after decades of contraction, the American commune movement has been expanding since the mid-1990s, spurred by the growth of settlements that seek to marry the utopian-minded commune of the 1960s with the American predilection for privacy and capital appreciation." The Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC) is the best source for listings of and more information about communes in the United States. While many American communes are short lived, some have been in operation for over 50 years. The Bruderhof was established in the US in 1954, Twin Oaks Community, Virginia, Twin Oaks in 1967 and Koinonia Partners, Koinonia Farm in 1942. Twin Oaks is a rare example of a non-religious commune surviving for longer than 30 years.

Notes

References

Sources

* Curl, John (2007). Memories of Drop City, The First Hippie Commune of the 1960s and the Summer of Love, a memoir. iUniverse.
Red-coral.net
* Curl, John (2009) ''For All The People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America'', PM Press. . * Fitzgerald, George R. (1971). Communes Their Goals, Hopes, Problems. New York: Paulist Press. * Hall, John R. (1978). The Ways Out: Utopian Communal Groups in an Age of Babylon. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Horrox, James. (2009). ''A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement''. Oakland: AK Press. * Margaret Hollenbach. (2004)''Lost and Found: My Life in a Group Marriage Commune''. University of New Mexico Press, . * * Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (1972) ''Commitment and community: communes and utopias in sociological perspective.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. * Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (1973) ''Communes: creating and managing the collective life.'' New York, Harper & Row. * Lattin, Don. (2003, March 2) Twilight of Hippiedom
The San Francisco Chronicle
Retrieved March 16, 2008 * Lauber, John. (1963, June). Hawthorne's Shaker Tales [Electronic version]. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 18, 82–86. * * Meunier, Rachel. (1994, December 17). Communal Living in the Late 60s and Early 70s. Retrieved March 16, 2008, fro
thefarm.org
* Miller, Timothy. (1997) "Assault on Eden: A Memoir of Communal Life in the Early '70s", ''Utopian Studies'', Vol. 8, 1997. * Roberts, Ron E. (1971). The New Communes Coming Together in America. New Jersey: Prentice Hall inc. * Van Deusen, David. (2008
''Green Mountain Communes: The Making of a Peoples’ Vermont''
Catamount Tavern News Service. * Laurence Veysey, Veysey, Laurence R. (1978) ''The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Communities in Twentieth Century America'' * * Wild, Paul H. (1966 March). Teaching Utopia [Electronic version]. The English Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3, 335–37, 339. * Benjamin Zablocki, Zablocki, Benjamin. (1980, 1971) ''The Joyful Community: An Account of the Bruderhof: A Communal Movement Now in Its Third Generation'' (University of Chicago Press, 1971, reissued 1980), . (The 1980 edition of the Whole Earth Catalog called this book "the best and most useful book on communes that's been written".) * Benjamin Zablocki, Zablocki, Benjamin. (1980) ''Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes'' (The Free Press, 1980), .

External links

*
Federation of Egalitarian Communities

Intentional Communities Website

eurotopia European Directory of Communities and Ecovillages

Intentional Communities Wiki

List of Communes
in th
Communities Directory

Intentional Community For Media and Spirituality

Diggers & Dreamers UK directory & Journal

– slideshow by ''The New York Times''
International Communes Desk
{{Authority control Intentional communities, Housing cooperatives Intentional living Living arrangements Sharing economy Types of communities