academia's reach into intentional communities

hi friends,

academia and intentional communities are WAY more linked than you might think.

there are very few academic studies of ICs, especially in the U.S., and especially outside of environmental studies or anthropology.

so that link isn’t through research - it’s because of the high proportion of residents who have advanced degrees.

in the first intentional community research visit I did, i went to magic ecovillage in palo alto. the leaders of the group claimed to have realized the dream of the ‘60s. they wore boonie hats and shared common spaces, ate surplus farmers’ market produce and experimented with (limited) income sharing.

they also all had graduated from ivy league schools.

overrepresented

in the early 1970s, magic ecovillage’s founder graduated from Yale, trekked across the country with a group of friends, and bought a cheap plot of land on the outskirts of San Francisco in a (then) no-name town called Palo Alto.

the other unofficial leaders, or ‘fellows,’ at magic hailed from Stanford or graduated from Yale a few class years after the initial founder had.

the vast majority of IC residents I interviewed had a college degree. This could be research bias — people with college degrees were likely more comfortable inviting in a researcher or sitting down for an interview.

yet across the IC movement, many of its leaders are college graduates.

mike reynolds, the inventor of earthships, started his career with an architecture degree. many of those who come to his classes and become earthship builders are college students.

even among the urban farmers i interviewed in detroit, all of them had some kind of college degree.

meanwhile, only 38% of americans age 25 and older have a college degree as of 2021 — meaning that 62% of americans, a significant majority, do not.

a college to community pipeline?

college students:

• get experience in communal living

• try out a walkable neighborhood

• get comfortable living away from home

• have time to explore who they want to be and how they want to live their lives

• access classes about ecology and the environment

so a college education — from the classes to the dorms — might expose people to the ideas underlying many alternative communities, encouraging them to join the movement.

how non-college-grads get overlooked

moreover, though, many people are exposed to intentional communities, ecovillages, permaculture, etc., through classes and workshops.

if intentional communities want to expand past this class divide, one key method is catering workshops and advertisements to communities who might not be as comfortable or as interested in a formal class.

some successful approaches i’ve seen are:

• having a family day at the farm! focus on teaching and engaging kids, and the parents will learn too

• focusing on sharing a concrete, practical skill

• emphasizing how people can save time and money

what’s new

sorry for the skipped issue last week — between a new job and a conference in davis, my schedule was packed! but i got to meet lots of lovely people and learn a ton at the california cooperative conference.

hope you’re getting some may warmth where you are!

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much love,

jasper