Abstract
This chapter outlines the complex yet productive three-way relationship between utopianism, anarchism and intentional communities. It begins with a brief historical exegesis of the concept of utopia, and a critical exploration of the anti-utopian sentiment that has permeated modern political theory and contemporary culture. It then follows points of resonance between utopianism and anarchism, drawing on the anarchist theorists Gustav Landauer, Martin Buber, Max Stirner and Colin Ward, all of whom vindicate voluntary communities or unions of individuals who produce social change through experimenting with different values and meeting their needs in the here-and-now. The chapter moves on to the intentional communities movement as a living example of critical, anarchistic utopianism. It is argued that intentional communities are incredibly diverse, not all are anarchist, though many draw on anarchist principles. This section explores anarchist approaches to property relations, decision-making and geographic scale and federation in the movement. Finally, the chapter covers controversies and tensions within and between anarchism and the intentional communities movement, including leftist versus post-leftist visions of social change, commitment to longevity versus temporariness and informality versus democratic structuring.
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Notes
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My own interest and knowledge arises from my doctoral research on utopian intentional communities in the UK, which involved ethnographic research with ten different intentional communities in the summer of 2007. This was published as: R. Firth, Utopian Politics: Citizenship and Practice (London: Routledge, 2012).
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Ibid., 101–109. It is possible to use consensus in huge groups through the spokescouncil model (Seeds for Change, 72–75) however I have not encountered this in intentional communities.
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Firth, R. (2019). Utopianism and Intentional Communities. In: Levy, C., Adams, M.S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_28
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