lucy sargisson, strange places - estrangement, utopianism, and intentional communities

Strange Places: Estrangement, Utopianism, and Intentional CommunitiesAuthor(s): Lucy SargissonReviewed work(s):Source: Utopian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, Irish Utopian (2007), pp. 393-424Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719884 .Accessed: 03/01/2013 14:26

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Strange Places: Estrangement, Utopianism, and Intentional Communities

Lucy Sargisson

Introduction

In this article, I examine the paradoxical role of estrangement in utopianism

by drawing on the experiences of intentional communities.1 Scholars of fic tional utopias, following (or contesting) Darko Suvin, have firmly established that estrangement is fundamental to utopianism. It permits critical distance and facilitates paradigm shifts; it provokes a key Utopian function: fresh per

ceptions of the limits of the possible.2 My research indicates that estrange ment performs similar functions inside intentional communities by facilitat

ing critical distance and group coherence. As such, it seems that estrangement has a profoundly positive relationship with utopianism. Distanced, remote, and strange, utopias variously interrogate the now from an imaginary good place, and estrangement permits this interrogation. However, estranged re

lationships are complex and difficult, and a discussion of estrangement also

requires contemplation of the ways that we regard and treat the Other: the

strange and unknown outsider. This aspect of estrangement takes us into dark

places, and people who try to realise Utopian dreams in intentional com munities often find the various effects of estrangement impossible to endure.

Drawing on theoretical debates and first-hand fieldwork, I will suggest that

estrangement lies at the heart of Utopian experiments. It is necessary and yet variously unendurable.

I should note at the outset some potentially controversial points of method. First, with due respect to scholars who define utopia purely in liter

ary terms, I make no apologies for treating intentional communities as Uto

pian experiments. They may not be fidly realised eutopias, and they are in many ways different from literary utopias. They are, nonetheless, Utopian in

many respects; they are often eutopic in intent, and they represent utopias in process: spaces in which the good life is explored and pursued. Second, this article assumes a two-way relationship between practice and theory, and I connect theories of Utopian estrangement with observations drawn from

Utopian Studies 18.3 (2007): 393-424 ? Society for Utopian Studies 2007


- UTOPIAN STUDIES 183 ~

empirical research inside intentional communities. For this reason, theoreti

cal and empirical discussions intertwine throughout much of the piece as

they inform and illuminate each other. Finally, I make a number of empiri cal claims and generalisations in this paper. These are drawn from first-hand

observation and fieldwork inside over 50 intentional communities in two

countries (Britain and New Zealand).3 Discussions are based on the premise that whilst every community is unique, cross-national and cross-typological commonalities do occur.

Discussion is structured around three key questions: Why is estrange ment important to utopianism? Why is the relationship between estrange ment and utopianism paradoxical? Can this paradox be negotiated? I open with a brief exegesis on the various roles of estrangement in Utopian fiction,

theory, and intentional communities before moving on to focus on lessons

offered by concrete experiences of estrangement in intentional communities.

Discussion concludes with some broader theoretical reflections.

Why Is Estrangement Important?

Utopianism

The word "estrangement" contains a number of cognate terms related to dis tance and difference. The modern word

' estrangement" combines the old

French estranger (modern equivalent: ?tranger) and the Latin extraneare. Ety

mologically, then, estrangement evokes the stranger and the extraneous, the

unknown and the outside. Colloquially, the term evokes loss, sadness, regret and/or pain: an affective door closes as we become estranged from one anoth

er. Conceptually, estrangement is complex; it evokes normative, ideological, social, and affective distance. For Marxist theorists, it is firmly connected to

alienation.4 Within Utopian studies, it is used according to the very particular definition established by Darko Suvin, and/or in more a more general (but nonetheless specialist) sense which conveys something important about the

nature of utopia. All of these different ways of thinking about estrangement are pertinent to the discussion in hand.

Estrangement variously contributes to the ambivalent heart of uto

pianism. It plays a structuring role and a normative one; it permits utopias to function critically.5 At a most fundamental level, utopias require a certain

estrangement in order to function. Fictional utopias, for example, are inten

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Sargisson Estrangement, Utopianism, Community

tionally and necessarily distanced from the now. They are set apart in space or

time in a "no-place" whence they offer radical, normative critique and visions

of a better world. As Vincent Geoghegan has argued:

The classical utopia anticipates and criticises. Its alternative fundamentally interrogates the

present, piercing through existing societies' defensive mechanism?common sense realism,

positivism, and scientism. Its unabashed and

flagrant otherness gives it a power which is

lacking in other analytical devices. By playing fast and loose with time and space, logic and

morality, and by thinking the unthinkable, a utopia asks the most awkward, most

embarrassing questions. (1-2)

This is estrangement. From its no-place, utopia tells a story; it breaks rules

that constrain the present; it thinks the unthinkable and (as Tom Moylan has it) it demands the impossible. Utopias are, thus, set apart from "reality" and Utopian visions are powerfid because they are estranged. Estrangement

pertains to the "ou of utopia. For some scholars, estrangement exists as a core but implicit ele

ment of analysis. Others pursue it more direcdy. Darko Suvins early work on literary form established estrangement as a fundamental constituent of

both science fiction and utopia.6 In a series of key essays in the 1970s, he

identified a bond between these two literary forms. For him, science fiction

is, famously, "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are

the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition and whose main

formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author s empiri cal involvement" (Suvin, "Poetics" 375). And utopia is "a verbal construction

of a particular quasi-human community where socio-political institutions, norms and individual relationships are organized according to a more perfect

principle being based on estrangement arising out of an alternative historical

hypothesis" (Suvin, Metamorphoses 49) J For Suvin, then, estrangement both

characterizes and binds science fiction and utopia. Drawing on Russian For

malism and German Marxism, Suvin suggests that estrangement is a powerful narrative device which has the effect of disrupting the familiar by representing it in a new light, thus "counter[ing] habitualization" (Parrinder, "Revisiting"

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~ UTOPIAN STUDIES 18.3

39). He refers to techniques used in the plays of Bertholt Brecht: "[a] repre sentation which estranges is one which allows us to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar" (Brecht; qtd. in Suvin, "Poetics"

374). This experience permits a new cognition or understanding of the now

which is potentially liberating. For Suvin, this understanding occurs in the novum or new, a space offered by science fiction. In this account, utopias are

estranged because they place familiar subjects in unfamiliar settings, which

forces us to look afresh at our world. Our old and tired perceptions can thus

be revitalised and transformed.

For Suvin, then, estrangement is a technical term which helps to ex

plain the internal mechanisms, form, and functions of Utopian texts. Others

add a material dimension to this analysis by suggesting that utopias belong in some way to estranged socio-political groups, which social psychologists

would describe as alienated from the dominant win-group." (See Bammer;

Moylan, Demand-, Turner and Reynolds; and Hogg.) Feminist analyses sug

gest that utopias offer women a particularly appropriate space in which to

explore and develop desires for a better world (See Bammer; Sargisson, Con

temporary Feminist Utopianism-, and Burwell.) In these accounts, something about women's exclusion, silence, and lack of positive value in patriarchal systems of representation resonates with the Utopian method, and the norma

tive and conceptual distance of utopias makes them good-places in which to

explore dreams. In all of these various discussions within the field of Utopian studies, estrangement has a broadly positive and definitely important role.

It permits critical distance, reflection, and new perspectives. It facilitates the

articulation of repressed or marginal voices. And it works by creating distant

spaces whence to interrogate the now.

Intentional Communities

Intentional communities are strange places, full of dreams, hopes, and disap

pointments as groups of individuals work collectively to realise a better life.

In order to pursue their vision of the good life, these groups require space (in which to experiment), individual security, and group coherence. Estrange ment can facilitate these.

Intentional communities need to provide a space inside which mem

bers can explore the good life. This exploration often involves deep experi mentation with the self as members seek self-improvement, self-development,

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and/or self-transformation in a search for a different ontological relationship with the world. For example, members may seek a better (more authentic,

genuine, or transparent) way of relating to other people, or they may desire to

be closer to the divine, spirit, or nature. These are deeply-held desires which

inform a range of very different practices. For example, in community visits I

have worked alongside people using divining rods to design a garden having asked nature-spirits for guidance; or visualising planting patterns in medita

tion; or planting, sowing, and harvesting in tune with the phases of the moon.

Similarly, people weed their garden whilst praying or addressing the plants,

apologising, or explaining what is happening and why. The last series of ac

tions often occurs in New Age communities or in groups that seek to recover

ancient nature-based spiritual traditions. Others work with "biodynamic"

techniques, which seek to harmonise the spiritual energy of plants, land, and

humans. These are everyday examples of practices that seek to build a closer

ontological relationship between humanity and nature. The same paradigm informs communities where experimental sexual relationships, polygamy, or

polylove are practised. A key component in all of these very different practices is "openness." For example, deep ecologists speak in terms of "total field im

ages" or "transpersonal theories of self," the subtext of which is a request that

followers of deep ecology "open" themselves to the natural world (Naess 95; Fox 198). Practitioners and theorists of polylove speak in terms of openness to the Other, or to desire. All of these render members vulnerable, and the

intentional community needs to be a space in which members feel able to

explore Utopian practices. This characteristic requires physical estrangement, in which distance or separation from the local community permits members to concentrate on their self-appointed task while insulated from external in

terruption, interference, and criticism. These forms of insulation are prereq uisites for sustainable experiments with the self.

A case in point is the Findhorn Foundation in Scodand. The Founda

tion has an important legacy: it is the largest intentional community in Brit

ain and has inspired community founders worldwide. The Findhorn Founda

tion is an umbrella organisation under whose rubric falls a raft of businesses, charitable organisations, and groups as well as two intentional communities.

One inhabits two sites near the town of Findhorn in Morayshire. The other

is on the Scottish west coast island of Erraid. The Foundation is primarily a

non-denominational spiritual organisation which (historically) has followed

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- UTOPIAN STUDIES 183 -

the guidance of one of its founders, Eileen Caddy, and her "channelled" mes

sages from God. (She no longer guides the community in this way but re mains a focal point within the group.) It has pioneered experiments with the self. In particular, members are encouraged to cast aside defensive behavioural

patterns and to "open" themselves?spiritually and socially?to "God," "di

vinity" or "spirit." This openness, it is believed, can be manifested in the self

through "attunement" and "unconditional love."8 These processes can render

people profoundly vulnerable. In such cases, the community needs to insulate

its members from the external gaze. To go out into the wider community whilst in the middle of the induction programme (Experience Week), for

example, is inappropriately exposing. Participants are "wide open," in a con

dition of what is variously interpreted as emotional, spiritual, and psychic

receptiveness. It is not helpfrd to encounter the wider world whilst in this

condition. People often recall the transition between inside and outside such

communities as traumatic. Deep experimentation with the self requires a safe

haven.

One of the most enduring challenges for intentional communities is

the need to balance the competing needs of individuals and the group. This

challenge includes the Utopian aspects of the group, such as the shared vision

and associated practices, and sociological phenomena of group dynamics. A

related challenge is the need to strike a balance between collective self-nurture

and outreach. Often, crises involving these tensions are triggered by a call for

change. Key studies such as Rosabeth Kanters Commitment and Community

have established that intentional communities require group cohesion in or

der to pursue a collective vision. Estrangement can facilitate this cohesion.

If a group exists in a protected space, its members can more easily focus on

their collective vision and internal dynamics. However, intentional commu

nities also need to be dynamic, and to evolve, adapt, and change. Strangely,

perhaps, estrangement can also facilitate this process. The tension between

cohesion and stagnation presents a persistent challenge to all intentional

communities, one which causes crisis and conflict. In order to negotiate and

resolve problems, the community needs to represent a space into which the

members can retreat and inside which they can reflect, debate, and negotiate the challenge.

This need emerged as a recurring theme in fieldwork across New

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Zealand and the United Kingdom. For example, members of two long-lived communities in the New Zealand city of Christchurch recall periods of sig nificant tension during which the group needed to retreat from the wider

community. These are the Community of the Sacred Name and Chippenham

Community. The Community of the Sacred Name is an Anglican convent, with an all-female membership; and Chippenham Community is a mixed, secular commune. The former is located in a deprived district of the inner

city, where it was founded in 1893 with the aim of supporting the "fallen' women of the city. Chippenham Community lies on the other side of the city in a now-affluent suburb, where it was founded in 1971 by a group commit

ted to environmentalist, gender, and socialist politics. (In 1973 Chippenham

purchased a neighbouring property and farm some 10 miles distant. These

operate as semi-autonomous communities.) For decades, Sisters of the Sa

cred Name engaged in missionary work as well as offering medical and social

support to Christchurch's prostitutes. And Chippenham's founders published

underground magazines, ran protests, were involved in an alternative school, and hosted New Zealand's first branch of Greenpeace (Sargisson and Sargent 84-87).

For these two very different groups, and indeed for all intentional

communities, the community is a physical space inside which members col

laborate on their collective vision, mission, and associated practices. It is the

space inside which and whence they pursue a good life. It is also a living com

munity in which relationships grow and change and conflicts occur. When I visited in 2001, both communities were introspective. Collective activities

outside the group had ceased. The Community of the Sacred Name faced an

extended period of diminishing numbers and was considering its future. The Mother Superior explained that this diminution is a common challenge for

Anglican convents, produced as it is by a combination of declining religiosity and the ordination of women into the Anglican Church. Members were ask

ing themselves: Is the community viable? Should we relocate? Can we afford to maintain this property? Should we continue to occupy such a large build

ing? Should we move to a smaller building? Might we merge with another

community? At the same time, members of Chippenham Community were

recovering from a long period of internal conflict about the future of the com

munity and its assets. A clash had occurred and escalated within the group in the 1990s. One faction claimed the community had strayed from its original

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intent. (A paragraph in the community constitution committed the group to supporting the poor of the city of Christchurch.) The original mortgage had almost been repaid, and the community was now relatively wealthy. This

faction wanted to sell the property and use the assets to support good works.

The other faction opposed this desire, arguing that with the secure asset they were free to help others. The dispute grew to encompass core values as well as constitutional interpretation, and proved cosdy in emotional and financial terms. Some members left. Mediation failed, and the case went to court.

Legal costs were considerable, and the community is no longer affluent. By 2004, the group was regaining coherence and becoming active once more in

the wider community. There is much to learn from this case (not least about

conflict resolution). (See Sargissons "Surviving Conflict: New Zealand's In

tentional Communities.") For present purposes, it is instructive to note that

they hastily accepted new members in the middle of a crisis. These people did not share the collective ethos, behaved inappropriately and had to be ejected. This conflict further complicated an already difficult situation. The group had retreated into its own space in order to negotiate serious internal conflict.

When this negotiation was almost resolved, it invited disruptive elements into that space. This invitation was a bad mistake.

These are quite extreme examples, and both involve threats to the survival of the group. Such experiences occur in most long-lived groups, and

intentional communities rarely retain the exact vision of their founders across

more than one decade. Rather, it shifts and changes over time. Sometimes, this change is a consequence of protracted internal debate; sometimes, it is

triggered by new members; and, sometimes, experience indicates that the

original desire (non-possessive polygamous relationships, a money-free econ

omy, parenting teenagers without television) was unclear or unrealisable. In

all such cases, the community will need, at some point, to retreat into itself to

negotiate these changes and challenges. Sometimes, then, an intentional community represents a space which

offers people the security to pursue their Utopian vision and explore Utopian

practices. It is also a space whence the group acts collectively and reaches

outwards to impact the wider community. And sometimes it is a space into

which the group needs to retreat?to negotiate conflict and challenges that

threaten their community's survival. All of this process requires some level of

spatial estrangement. This estrangement permits intentional communities to

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pursue a normative agenda, generate a collective identity and cohesive group, nurture a shared vision, and follow a path to the good life. However, it also

creates problems.

Why fa Estrangement Paradoxical?

I noted above that the word estrangement etymologically combines estranger and extraneare, the stranger and the extraneous, the unknown and the out

side. I have discussed some of the potentially liberating and insulating aspects of intentional estrangement, and have suggested that this estrangement is

necessary to Utopian communal projects. However, my research also indi cates that it presents deep challenges: it is both necessary and difficult, and some find it impossible to endure. The root of this ambivalence lies in the

nature of estrangement. It is difficult always to be outside, different, strange, and estrangement involves the loss of affective relationships. In colloquial terms, "estranged" relationships evoke a sense of loss and deterioration. The

estranged partner, child, or parent?once familiar and trusted?is now dis

tant, removed, and remote. Each has become "a stranger" to us. Similarly, the

stranger, conceptually cast as Other, is the unknown and feared outsider who

belongs outside the boundaries of the familiar: "our" community, country,

place, or culture. Estrangement may be necessary, then, but it is extremely uncomfortable to endure. It is necessary for group survival, but life in a per

petually estranged space can be difficult. I propose to examine two core as

pects of this estrangement: the first concerns the physical separation, which is both necessary and difficult; and the second concerns the deeper and more

problematic effects of alienation.

Paradoxes of Estrangement

Urban communities struggle to achieve and maintain separation from their local communities. Rural groups have it in abundance. This separation is

double-edged. Rural communes are perhaps the most estranged form of in

tentional community in physical terms, and this estrangement was often part of their founders' intent. These people sought to live the good life far from the interfering gaze of wider society. Visits to rural communities quickly reveal the challenges of physical estrangement, which are material and practical. It is, quite simply, very difficult to live in a physically estranged space. The

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everyday challenges of estrangement may seem banal, but they can have pro found outcomes. Too much physical estrangement can mean that life in an

intentional community is materially unsustainable. And too much affective

estrangement can contribute to corrupt internal power relations, collective

alienation, and a slide from eutopic intent to dystopic outcome.

Physical Estrangement The rural communes of the 1970s were set apart from society in remote loca

tions: founders purchased or leased mountaintops, hillsides, or swathes of

forest or bush often considered unviable for conventional farming. In Britain,

they often settled in less-populated areas such as North Wales and Scodand.

In New Zealand, they were even more remote. For a short time, the New Zea

land government sponsored the establishment of intentional communities

on such land. (See Sargent's "The Ohu Movement.") Community founders

recall the physical hardships of the early days as they cut paths into the forest or bush with machetes; felled trees; and built bridges by hand, often without

good tools or skills. Dozens of these communities were founded in Britain

and New Zealand. The Utopian visions pursued by many of these groups were

anti-materialist and often involved a life "closer to nature," one with a deeper

spiritual connection to place. Members explored their dreams of the good life

in these spaces, developing and exploring spiritual practices, practical ecology, and/or alternative social relationships. Members recall a sense of freedom,

awe, and spiritual awakening as an important part of their early experiences.9

Many established close relationships with the land and cherished their expe rience of physical isolation. The positive, liberating, and enabling effects of

estrangement in a Utopian project can be clearly observed in such accounts.

However, this form of estrangement has a high price. Members found

a place in which they were free to live as they wished with like-minded people far away from the gaze of the world "outside." They also found themselves

isolated, lonely, and conflict-ridden.10 Life was physically tough as well as

financially challenging, and social relationships (always intense in intentional

communities) were placed under additional strain. (See Sargisson's "Surviv

ing.") Some of these communities survive, but many do not. (See Coates;

Hardy; and Sargent's New Zealand Communities)} Some members lived in

tents or temporary huts for years while they struggled to build houses. They lived miles from schools, and hospitals, and these communes are often dif

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ficult to get to by car. Visits involve long walks along tracks through the

bush and fording streams that in the wet season become impassable torrents.

Women recall childbirth by candlelight, without professional medical sup port, electricity, or hot water. Children speak of long treks to school, where

they were often ridiculed or bullied. Teenagers recall tedium. In some cases,

members decided that the dream was not worth the sacrifice. In addition to

harsh living conditions and strained relationships, many groups found that

their project was financially unviable. These groups had an abundance of es

trangement, and many hoped to live independendy of wider society in a new

space where the old rules and conventions did not apply and new ones built

a better world in microcosm. All of the positive and liberating aspects of

estrangement can be found in these places. However, those that survive have

endured considerable material and emotional hardship.

Affective Estrangement and Collective Alienation

Some aspects of estrangement are more profound. These aspects have a deep and insidious by-product which I term "collective alienation." This alienation stems from the Otherness of intentional communities and concerns the pow er relations within and beyond the group. Estrangement can trigger a process which runs like this: in the face of a (real or perceived) hostile gaze, the com

munity becomes increasingly introverted. Normative estrangement becomes

extreme, the founding vision becomes intensified or radicalised, and the col

lective sense of Otherness increases. This process can be both unhealthy and

dangerous and in these instances estrangement has profoundly negative out

comes.

My research indicates that this process works at two levels, which are

interrelated. The first concerns relationships across the boundary, between

intentional community and wider community. The second concerns relation

ships inside the boundary, within the intentional community. Regarding re

lationships across the boundary: a lack of interaction between intentional and

wider communities generates mutual ignorance and suspicion. The religious community of Gloriavale, in New Zealand, is a group that has closed off most contact with the wider community (beyond local trading links). This group appears to believe that the wider population live in a state of lax morals, loose sexual behaviour, and ungodliness.11 In turn it is viewed with suspicion by large sections of the New Zealand population, and the national press.vari

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ously depicts it as a religious cult (which it is), a free love group (which it is not), and a sexual cult (for which there is no conclusive evidence). External

perceptions become increasingly based on imagined fantasies about life inside

the walls. Within these groups, the outcomes are double-edged. First, the

situation contributes to a strong sense of solidarity (formed against a strong external Other). Ignorance and fear about "life outside" generate a strong

group bond which enhances coherence and strengthens the shared vision.12

This bond can make a group very strong. Second, it renders members vul

nerable to manipulation. Ignorance feeds existing alienation from the main

stream and enhances fears and beliefs about values and behaviour in the wider

society. Skilful leaders can exploit this alienation.

Any group that feels besieged or beleaguered can become defensive and increasingly hostile towards its critics. This hostility affects relationships within the group. Internal discipline and dogma intensify under such circum

stances, and people (members and non-members) who challenge the belief

system or leader come to be seen as enemies. Robert Liftons classic studies

would include these as core features of "ideological totalism," which in turn

is a key element in what he terms (in the vocabulary of his time) "cult brain

washing" (8). Studies from the field of social psychology suggest that these processes of social isolation can occur in any group. For example, in a classic

study of risk in 1961, Stoner established that people will make "riskier" deci sions in a group than they will alone. Stoner worked with groups of students on the subject of job offers. Participants took decisions involving greater risk when they had to make decisions collectively. This process has become

known as the "shift: to risk," and later studies have shown a parallel tendency to "shift to extremity," in which collective decisions become increasingly radi

cal (Brown 198-212). If this shift applies to all communities, it is likely to have a particularly significant impact in intentional communities. Members

have huge investment in their membership having sacrificed relationships,

possessions, career paths, and employment opportunities as part of their deci

sion to join the group. They are intentionally estranged from the opportuni ties and (sometimes) relationships of their previous existence. Studies suggest that group polarization is most likely to occur when participants' sense of

identity is bound up in their membership of that group.13 For example, this

description of Wetherall's 1987 study claims that normative estrangement contributes to group cohesion:

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[W]hat is happening when a group polarizes is that the group members are attempting to conform more closely to the normative

position that they see as prototypical for their group. When the situation makes their

in-group identity more important . . . then the relevant in-group norms are likely to become more extreme so as to be more clearly differentiated from the out-group norms.

. . .

(Brown 209-210)

My research suggests that intentional communities are particularly vulnerable to these processes. None of the studies mentioned above focuses on intentional communities or indeed on any "real," lived communities?

all were conducted under laboratory conditions?and the transferability of

their findings must remain open to question. However, their findings do have

resonance with my own observations of intentional communities across New

Zealand and Britain. If all groups show a tendency to shift towards risk and

extremity when they make collective decisions, and if self-identification with

the group further radicalizes members, then we can understand how these

groups might be particularly vulnerable to extremism and polarization. In

tentional communities are groups of individuals drawn together by a shared sense of dissatisfaction with wider society; they are engaged in creating al

ternative (and they believe better) ways of living. Members strongly identify with the group and its mission. In some cases, this mission shifts to extrem

ity. In the countries under discussion the history of intentional communities

has been largely peaceable and none has shifted to violent extremes such as

mass suicides or shootings. However, some groups have had secret caches of arms (an example is the Lamb of God Community, New Zealand, who were

stockpiling for Armageddon), and others have developed degenerate internal

power relations. An example of the latter is Centrepoint Community, which

exhibited some of these characteristics towards the end of its life.

Founded in the 1970s, Centrepoint was closed by the courts in

2000. For many years, it was one of the most successful communities in

New Zealand; it was home to several thriving businesses; it had around 200

members. Centrepoint was concerned with personal growth and spirituality, and members sought to be closer to God through the teachings of the group s founder, Bert Potter.14 Potter taught a creed of non-possession?all worldly

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goods were given up to the community upon joining, and the community

provided for all members material needs. Non-possessive relationships were

encouraged. Members sought to shake off the shackles of Christian moral

ity and find their true (and higher) selves. The physical space was organised in such a way as to facilitate the group s aims. Centrepoint occupied a plot

which became increasingly urban as the suburbs of Auckland crept outwards.

The plot still feels separate from nearby housing: community buildings are surrounded by a belt of trees, a plant nursery, and gardens, and the land is

accessed by a bridge across a small stream. Buildings had no internal doors as

privacy was identified as a barrier to group synthesis. For example, bathrooms were communal, and members slept in "long-houses" (long open huts with no internal walls). Within this "safe haven," self-experimentation was encour

aged. This community was an estranged Utopian space in all of the senses

discussed above.

In the 1980s and 1990s, however, stories of paedophilia and drug manufacturing began to emerge from Centrepoint. Potter and some of his

close followers were convicted of serious sexual offences and imprisoned.15 Soon after Potters release from prison, the community was closed by the

High Court on grounds of financial irregularity. In the intervening period and following intense press scrutiny, the group turned inwards. Interviews

indicate that internal power relationships became increasingly corrupt.16 The

group had always used therapy as part of its day-to-day activities, and former

members recall that when things were going well they experienced a state of

collective bliss. Surrounded by love, they felt that anything was possible. Sup

ported and cherished, they experienced a state of collective ecstasy. In later

years, however, some members challenged the leadership and were subjected to many different forms of abuse and manipulation. One man recalled being

regularly encircled by a group of men, who would push their faces close to his

own, muscles taut, and fists clenched, as they loudly and incessandy shouted

abuse: "traitor, a turn-coat, scum" (Chris). One woman spoke of punishment confiscations: no toothbrush, no tampons (Interview 19 June 2001). Another

recalled the emotional pain when the group turned against her, and the love

that had nurtured her for years was suddenly withdrawn (Interview 18 May 2001). Members were "free" to leave at any time, but they would be penniless

having abandoned their possessions to the group. What the community had once given, it now withheld; it left the challengers isolated within the group

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as well as estranged from the wider community: alienated and devastated. Too

much estrangement is bad.

Separation, isolation, alienation, and estrangement are intimately connected in this story. Just as Utopian fiction requires some level of estrange

ment for critical distance or cognition, so intentional communities require it to pursue their collective projects. These groups need to operate within

self-set boundaries that separate them from the wider community by retain

ing some spatial, emotional, and normative distance. Estrangement requires separation. However, this separation can generate material challenges and,

more importantly, can deteriorate into collective alienation.

Can This Paradox Be Negotiated?

My research indicates a cautiously affirmative response to this question, and

suggests that the answer lies in the boundaries that surround intentional communities. These boundaries are essential, but they need to be porous. Davina Coopers work on negotiating difference?Challenging Diversity? is useful here. Looking at a range of "alternative" groups (all social others)

including smokers, the campaign for the establishment of a Jewish eruv in London, campaigns for the recognition of same-sex marriages, Greenham Common Women's Camp, Local Exchange and Trading Schemes, and alter native schools, Cooper suggests that boundaries perform a number of roles.17 In particular, they sustain the community by permitting alternative practices to occur as the norm. Thus, group cohesion is strengthened. It works in this

way: "In general, the role of boundaries is threefold: to keep the status quo at a geographical, socio-economic or cultural distance, to intensify members' commitment and familiarity towards localised practices, and to negate the attractiveness or desirability of the status quo" (Cooper 168). Whilst it is not focussed on intentional communities per se, Cooper's work is useful. As she suggests, boundaries are essential. They permit "alternative" groups suc

cessfidly to create and maintain spaces in which their differences can exist. In particular, they permit intentional communities to function as Utopian spaces: critical of the now and practising alternatives, providing showcases for a different life, and allowing participants to think and live differendy. They need to be robust, but they also need to be porous. These boundaries need to permit a two-way gaze and flow of ideas and activity. They need, in other

words, both to maintain and mediate estrangement.

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-UTOPIAN STUDIES 18.3

Maintaining Estrangement

Physical factors, such as a remote location, or gates, fences, and other physical boundaries are necessary but insufficient to ensure functional estrangement for intentional communities. Other factors can contribute, such as mecha

nisms that reinforce or complement physical separation. For example, most

intentional communities will accept visitors, but visits are usually restricted

to certain dates and almost always have to be pre-arranged. Most groups in

Britain require a prospective letter explaining the visitor s interest and intent.

This letter is considered in a community meeting before an invitation is is

sued. Similarly, in most British communities a nominated individual mentors

guests, contacts visitors, and explains rules or conventions. Such mechanisms

contribute to the maintenance of a space in which collective visions can be

nurtured and pursued. When these boundary mechanisms fail, groups suffer

by losing coherence. A constant flow of visitors can drain the members: meet

ing new people, explaining matters, and answering questions all distract them

from daily practice and intentional living. Entrance and exit rules play an important role in maintaining group

coherence and stability. Prospective members are usually invited to visit on

several occasions for short stays before being permitted to take up trial mem

bership. This trial membership can last anything from three months to several

years depending on the level of commitment involved in full membership. Riverside Community (New Zealand), for example, is an income-pooling

group. (See its Community Constitution, and its Statement of Financial

Commitment.) At more than sixty years old, Riverside is an extraordinarily robust, secular, community. Founded by Methodist conscientious objectors after the Second World War, it secularised in the 1960s but retains a commit

ment to its core values and practices, including the income-pool. Membership

requires considerable commitment?including surrender of all monies to the

community. Under current rules, money is deposited into a community ac

count. If members resign, they may take their deposit with them but without

interest. The same rule applies to money inherited during membership. It

can take a long time to become a full member of this community. Similarly, traditional religious communities have a long initiation period consisting of

increasing commitments and culminating, often, in vows that are binding for

life. Even in more loosely-bound groups, entrance and exit rules are impor tant as mistakes can be difficult to resolve. For example, Katajuta Community

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on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island started life over thirty years

ago with an "open-door" policy because members felt that restrictions were

inappropriate to their anarchist ethos. By 2001, however, six of their eight

community rules related to procedures for joining and leaving the group. Entrance and exit are now tighdy constrained. Members recall this constraint

as a hard-learned lesson?a man joined them, they told me, and he seemed

fine until one day he started walking around with no clothes on and claim

ing to be Jesus Christ. This development was all right, they said, and nobody minded very much, until he began to insist that they kneel and worship him. He was the new Messiah who would lead the community to everlasting glory. This requirement hardly fitted with their vision of the good life, and there fol lowed a difficult period from which the group took some time to recover.

Mediating Estrangement Total estrangement, I have suggested, enhances an oppositional relationship with the wider community and can contribute to collective alienation and its

associated dangers. This estrangement should be considered within the con

text of wider debates about self/other relations. These are complex and mani

fold, and space prohibits detailed discussion. Briefly though, these debates are a recurrent theme in the western canon of philosophy and political thought, and political theorists, theologians and philosophers continue to explore the various ways in which we relate to the Other. The idea of a constitutive

other emerged from the work of Hegel, and has been developed, extended, and variously politicised by European philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel L?vinas, Jacques Derrida, and Edward Said. There is a dominant

tendency in this scholarship towards a belief that self/other relations occur

within an oppositional paradigm and that this paradigm has important socio

political and philosophical consequences. In this paradigm, self is opposed to other, sameness to difference, and interior to exterior. People who are "like

us" become the "in"-group, known, familiar, and trusted. Those whom we

judge "different" become the Other. We, thus, establish an imaginary and safe

"inside" and identify our fears with the outside. At its most extreme, those

whom we identify as Other are regarded as incomplete, inferior, less human,

and, therefore, undeserving of the rules and norms that govern our treatment

of those who share our defining characteristics.

Our treatment of the unknown stranger with fear, suspicion, hatred,

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and violence, then, can be viewed as an empirical and ontological phenom enon which informs the conceptual membrane between ourselves and others. A range of alternative strategies has been proposed to negotiate, resolve, or

combat this phenomenon. For example, some seek to resolve the conflict by

embracing the Other in love and familiarity. This paradigm informs deep ecology, for instance. In this view, we should open ourselves to the Other

(in this case, 'nature") by "realising" that we are part of a wider self (Fox). A

different approach seeks to retain an ontological separation of self from other

whilst transforming our affective response to difference. In the work of Em

manuel L?vinas, for example, the unknown Other is greeted with awe. S/he

is unknowable and wondrous (Totality and Infinity). In this conception, we should not attempt cognitive assimilation of the Others radical alterity. In

this view, the other should always remain unknown and difference unassimi

lated. Different again is Richard Kearneys approach, which advocates a strat

egy of what he calls "narrative bridges" between the self and the other (17). Here, he hopes to foster dialogue between self and other without valorising or negating difference but rather by encouraging us to note the differences

and splits within ourselves (the otherness inside us) and to seek some under

standing of the other. These three different strategies provide a flavour of the

manifold alternatives that have been proposed in recent years in response to

the problems of self/other relations.

I do not profess to resolve?or even significandy contribute to?

these debates but they are pertinent to the discussion in hand. In practice, many of these approaches are difficult to sustain with regard to the wider

community. For example, members of some intentional communities fol

low a deep ecological paradigm by seeking to open themselves to each other, nature, and/or the divine. However, this approach cannot, as suggested in the

above discussions of the Findhorn Foundation, be sustained with regard to

the wider community. Similarly, some groups regard certain forms of "other"

with wonder. For example, many spiritual communities conceive of the di

vine in this way. In such cases, the face of the divine can be greeted only with

awe, for it is ultimately and always unknowable. This viewpoint does not,

however, extend to all "others." A weaker form of this paradigm might be a

distanced and mutual respect for the Other, and many intentional communi

ties assume this attitude to the wider community. But intentional communi

ties are primarily oppositional or critical of the world around them, and this

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oppositional stance complicates matters.

This story contains several complicating factors. First, intentional communities are at once inside and outside the wider community. They are

embedded. They stem from it. They are part of it. However, they exist because

they are deeply critical of dominant norms, values, and practices. It follows that attitudes to "the outside" will be critical. Second, self/other relations oc

cur inside and beyond the intentional community. Many groups seek trans

formed human relationships, but, in practice, many communities establish differentiated attitudes to the other. "Others" (other members, divine beings, nature) who are "inside" the group (materially, conceptually, normatively, af

fectively) are greeted with openness and awe while the world outside is re

garded as Other in a more traditional sense. The outside thus becomes the

opposed, the inferior, and/or the bad, and this reinforces group coherence.

Intentional communities necessarily operate at a normative and spa tial distance from the wider community. This distance creates self-margin alisation, which permits them to function as Utopian spaces inside which members may explore visions of the good life. This self-marginalisation is

necessary and difficult to endure because intentional communities pertain to

the real: they are Utopian but not outopic; they contain real people who need sustainable relationships inside and beyond their chosen communities. Part of the story of estrangement is a negotiation of the consequences of a para doxically embedded exteriority. They are estranged from and part of the wider world. The following examination of a range of different practices illuminates different ways that communities have attempted to reconcile this paradox. Sometimes, for example, intentional communities confront physical, emo

tional, and/or normative isolation by deliberately interacting with the local and/or wider community.

Community schools are a case in point. Educational utopias have formed an important part of the history of intentional communities, and

many have practised home schooling or founded independent schools. Some fail due to lack of funds as well as practical or legal obstacles, but many per sist. Two successful examples in New Zealand are the Mountain Valley School in the South Island and the school at Timatanga Community in the North.

The former was founded by members of two intentional communities (Te Ora and nearby Graham Downs Community [also sometimes known as "Re

naissance"]). The latter has the more traditional history in that it was founded

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- UTOPIAN STUDIES 183 -

by members of one community. These schools practice alternative learning

philosophies?in particular, pupil-led learning as advocated and practiced

by the Summerhill School in England. Both have sought and achieved state

recognition, but retain considerable autonomy by being financially indepen dent. Both are patronised by parents from the wider community as well as

local intentional communities. These schools are spaces where people from

intentional and wider communities meet, interact, and co-operate. Parents

collaborate for the best education of their children. Children work and play together. This interaction takes place in the "classroom," in school manage

ment, and at social events. Parents can join activities: sitting quiedy with a

pupil; reading; or working on a problem, craft project, or game. The educa

tional philosophy of these schools assumes a wide conception of education,

and pupils learn through play and self-directed study for much of the time. In visits, I observed mutually respectful relationships between and amongst

pupils, teachers, and parent-assistants. Decisions about the day-to-day run

ning of the schools are made by all concerned. These decisions extend from

the physical design of space inside the school (separate zones are dedicated to

different learning activities, and children select their "lessons" by going to the

appropriate area), to the appointment of paid staff, to the establishment and

maintenance of rules and codes of behaviour. All are decided upon collective

ly by children and adults consensually. I witnessed an impromptu meeting at

Mountain Valley School in the South Island in which people were reminded of the rules. I was impressed by the demeanour of adults and children, the

sophistication of their interpersonal skills, and the efficacy of their systems.18 Both of these schools are in some way physically separated from the

intentional community: atTimatanga, the school sits at the front of the com

munity property while other community buildings and homes lie towards the rear of the property. In this way, members privacy is protected. Similarly,

Mountain Valley School is located on its own site a few minutes distance

from Te Ora and Graham Downs Communities. The communities retain

their privacy whilst creating a dedicated space to which the wider community is invited. This physical space is governed by the rules and norms of the in tentional community. Interchange of ideas occurs, and these rules and norms

may shift and re-form, but the space is, nonetheless, created and maintained

with the intent of sharing the groups values and practices with the wider

community.

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These are intentional transgressions of the communal boundary and

permit a flow of ideas and relationships. Such phenomena are not restricted

to schools and can occur whenever groups dedicate some communal space to

outreach activities. For example, intentional communities sometimes lend or

rent their meeting rooms, studios, kitchens, or residential accommodation

free of charge or at sub-commercial rates for the sake of goodwill, dissemina

tion, or as part of a wider Utopian project. Many groups establish commercial

oudets which reflect their values, such as co-operative food stores and cafes, or shops selling ethical or "green" products. Others develop businesses such as

eco-tours, or workers' co-operatives. Such initiatives are multifunctional and

can mediate estrangement in a variety of ways: introducing and explaining the community vision, proselytizing its message, and/or making individual

members more familiar.

Most communities create time-limited openings of their spatial

boundary at some point during the year. These openings might be a harvest

celebration, such as the annual Fig Festival at the remote Karuna Falls Com

munity, or the annual music festival at the sixty-year-old community of Riv

erside, or it might be a more formal occasion. Many groups host dedicated

Open Days.19 On such occasions, the community becomes a showcase for an

alternative lifestyle as choices are explained, for example: "We have an anaero

bic composting toilet: here it is, see how it looks and smells (or rather doesn't

smell), understand that this is why we choose to dispose of our waste in this

way.... Here is our sauna, and this is how we power it from the wind turbine. . . ." Several groups generate income by providing training, often drawing

direcdy on skills gained in the community (conflict resolution techniques, consensus decision-making mechanisms) and/or taken from the heart of their

shared beliefs (permaculture gardening, low-impact waste disposal). The aim

is dissemination of ideas and good practice. An (unintended?) outcome can

be improved relationships with the neighbours. (See Merton.) Participation in local government, campaigns, or initiatives can have

similar outcomes. For example, members of Beech Hill Community in De von piloted a local recycling and composting scheme which has now been

adopted by the local council. Activities of this kind spread good practice and persuade through action. They also have the effect of demystifying the inten

tional community as local residents come to know individuals and to gain

understanding of the group's aims. They thus represent tenuous bridges across

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the gap between intentional and wider communities. Some initiatives have

clear didactic intent while others are more open-ended and seek to facili

tate communication and debate. An instance of these initiatives occurs at the

farmers' market in the town of Kaipara, New Zealand, each Saturday morn

ing. Members of nearby Otamatea Ecovillage sell surplus organic produce at

the market and have started a guest lecture scheme in an adjacent tea-room. I

was invited to talk about my research on intentional communities and found

myself addressing a mixed audience of market gardeners, members of nearby intentional communities, local teenagers, shoppers taking a rest, elderly men

and women, and passers by. Some had come for a cup of tea without realising there was a speaker; others had seen the event advertised and made a special

journey. There was prolonged debate, and it was an interesting experience. The mediation of estrangement can also be an unintended outcome

of the actions of individual members who develop normative, social, finan

cial, or service-based relationships beyond the community. The founder of

Mahamudra Buddhist Retreat Centre on the Coromandel Peninsula, for ex

ample, has established himself as a widely respected sheep shearer. This ex

ample may seem quaint, but his actions significandy influenced the attitude

of the local population towards the community. This district is deeply rural

and remote; its economy focuses on primary industries (farming and logging) and some tourism. Rural communities are historically socially conservative.

In an interview, the founder recalled that Mahamudra was at first regarded with some suspicion:

"I think, perhaps by coincidence, that my

becoming a shearing contractor actually helped that whole thing quite a lot. Before that, there

was a certain standoffishness from the local

farmers, quite justifiably. People that came

here [community founders] were extremely different and they were buying up large farms and not farming them. There was quite a lot of resistance really from the established farmers. So when I was a shearing contractor, and a

lot of people working for me were alternative

people, this got a lot of close attention and the farmers could see that they were actually just ordinary people. They might have slightly

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different ideas about the way that they want to conduct their lives, but they are just people

with families, trying to earn a living and getting on with life. I think that cut down a lot of resentment they felt about it, and now I think its reasonably harmonious between the two.

There is still a separation between us socially which is understandable, but there is certainly a much greater acceptance." (Fraser)

The same person was instrumental in setting up the co-operative store

in nearby Colville. This is the only shop for miles around, the nearest town

being an hours drive away. In 1976, he established a vegetable co-operative with members of other communities in the district, shortly afterwards this

group took over the failing local store. This store now provides an oudet for

local produce, employment, and supplies of basic foodstuffs. It is governed in a way that reflects the norms and beliefs of the nearby intentional com

munities. Profit-making has never been a high priority for this co-operative. Instead, it focuses on providing employment and good quality, well-priced

produce. The benefits are tangible?employment, and a local shop?as well

as intangible?cross-community co-operation, shared commitment and

ownership of a collective resource, and enhanced affective relationships. This brief discussion has illuminated just some of the ways that in

tentional communities mediate estrangement as members carefully negotiate

relationships with their neighbours. Boundaries are crossed in different ways and with different effects. Ideas and practices may spread, for example. And

the actions and lifestyles of the intentional community can be demystified. Individual members assume the role of specialists, active citizens, facilitators,

educators, or co-workers; as they do so, they become less strange and more

familiar.

Conclusions

In this article, I have considered the role of estrangement in utopia, illus

trating discussions by referring to the experiences of one subset of Utopian

experiments: intentional communities. I have illuminated some of the many

paradoxes inherent in this relationship and have argued that estrangement is both necessary and difficult for Utopian projects. Ultimately, the relation

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ship between estrangement and utopia is complex and ambiguous because of

paradoxes inherent in the two core concepts. Estrangement facilitates Utopian distance and has potentially liberating critical and political functions. It also

stems from an etymological lineage of pain, loss, and exclusion. This estrange ment all pertains to tensions within the ou of utopia.

On the one hand, estrangement is a necessary component of utopia nism. In fictional utopias it permits critical distance through spatial or tem

poral separation: the imagined "good place" is set apart from the now, usually in another time or place. This better world is guided by different values from our own and organised by different socio-political arrangements. Estrange ment renders utopia extraordinary and extraneous by placing it beyond the now. Scholars in the field tend to celebrate this placement. They endorse the

excess and difference of the classical utopias, and evoke what Geoghegan calls

their "flagrant otherness" (1-2). The otherness of utopia gives it power, and

this power stems from its trasgressive, rule-breaking approach to the exercise

of social criticism. In this reading, utopias are radically different: they break

and inhabit new ground; they criticise the now from a better place. They play by their own rules. However, it is important to note that in fictional utopias the visitor plays a key role in mediating estrangement. S/he provides a link to

the now by casting a contemporaneous gaze over the new world and glancing back at her/his own with a (usually growing) sense of discomfort. This link affords a connection to the now, or "one foot in reality."20

Intentional communities share some of these traits, and the story of

their relationship with estrangement is similar but more problematic. They exist in spaces which are (variously and necessarily) set apart from the wider

community. Here, members practice alternative ways of being, which range from simple domestic arrangements to deep experiments with self and other.

From here, they cast a critical gaze at the wider world, and some attempt to

influence external events. Others focus on self-realisation. These communities

are critical spaces; they consist of disaffected individuals who share common

ideas about the good life. These ideas may or may not be formalised into a

mission statement or formulated as a clear vision. They may or may not be

long to part of a wider ideological, political, or spiritual tradition. But they are always affirmed by the group and form an important bond between mem

bers. In order to function as Utopian spaces, and in order to begin to realise

their intent, intentional communities require distance from the wider com

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munity. I have suggested that physical separation facilitates the development of alternative normative agendas and practices. It permits people to begin to explore their version of the good life in a relatively safe space. From this

space, they view the wider world with an estranged gaze that has glimpsed a better way.

On the other hand, estrangement contributes to some of the most

challenging aspects of living a Utopian dream. Intentional communities want

to be different, and estrangement is part of this desire. Such communities seek

and practice alternatives. At the same time, estrangement places community members in a position of permanent social otherness. Otherness is part of the

Utopian project, and utopias encapsulate radical difference. This othereness

can be empowering, exciting, and inspirational. It has a certain glamour. But

the life of a perpetual outsider is a lonely one. Estrangement affords many

opportunities and freedoms, such as the safety of a normatively and physi

cally defined space in which to develop and practice alternative values and

lifestyles. It also has a cost, and this cost can lead groups to become introspec tive, socially isolated, and collectively alienated from the wider world. Under

these circumstances, intentional communities can become dangerous places. Deliberate manipulation by leaders and/or collective shifts to extremity can

very quickly spin a group into darkly dystopic reality. The discussions above indicate that it is possible (and necessary) to

mediate the negative impacts of estrangement in intentional communities. I

have suggested that the boundaries that surround intentional communities

need to be punctured and kept porous. To do so requires constant vigilance, and agency is important. Intentional communities need to be self-estranged, and to monitor and police their own boundaries. Like all alternative groups,

they need this self-estrangement in order to self-identify. As Utopian groups,

they have a particular need to develop and maintain shared visions and to

protect themselves as they engage in Utopian practices. At least part of the paradoxical relationship between utopia and es

trangement stems from the tension within the ou of utopia, and it is with this

that I want to conclude. As noted above, estrangement pertains to the ou of

utopia. It places utopias in a remote and critical elsewhere. It thus contributes to the critical function of utopias by permitting their otherness and radical difference from the now. And yet, utopias are not only fabulous. They are also

deeply embedded in the now, and utopianism maintains an important ten

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sion between the fantastic and the real. By being always in some other place (no-place), Utopian fictions occur outside our experience, outside our now, and are thus unbound by the limitations of our present. In this sense, they are impossible. However, utopias are always rooted in the here-and-now. They are not completely unfamiliar, fantastical, or cognitively remote. They are

not, in other words, completely alien. This quality returns us to the power of

estrangement as conceived by Suvin: Utopian fiction disturbs and re-presents the familiar. For this disturbance and re-presentation to occur, utopias need to be attached to the now. Herein lies the power and the beauty of utopias: they are at once "no-place" and "good-place." In an estranged "no-place," they evoke a vision of the good life, and from this estranged "no-place," they criti

cise the now. Without this connection, utopia would lose its critical purchase and cease to be utopia.

Similarly, though also differendy, intentional communities need to retain a connection with the now for practical and ontological reasons. Prac

tically, my research indicates that total disconnection is dangerous: fear and

ignorance are powerfid motivators, particularly when they intertwine with or replace a utopie vision. Collective alienation can lead groups to become more oppositional and less Utopian; they can become impelled by fear and

mistrust, and no longer compelled towards an idea of a better life. Ontologi cally, total estrangement negates the critical Utopian function of these groups.

Utopias must be connected to the now to enable the critical gaze. The story of Utopian estrangement, then, is a strange one. Estrange

ment permits utopias to exist beyond the normative boundaries of the now.

And it embeds them firmly within the now. It requires that intentional com

munities, as Utopian experiments, exist in a condition of perpetually precari ous balance between inside and outside, at once embedded and separate, and

this balance is part of their power and their danger, their strength and their

weakness.

Endnotes

lA technical point worth clarifying at an early stage concerns my

usage of the term "intentional community" An intentional community, in

this article, is taken to be a group of people who have chosen to live (and sometimes work) together for some common purpose. Their reason for being extends beyond tradition, personal relationships, or family ties. This defini



tion includes many different forms of intentional communities, such as com

munes, eco-villages and some housing co-operatives, co-housing groups, and

religious communities. It stems from the work of Lyman Tower Sargent, "The

Three Faces of Utopianism" and "The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited."

For recent accounts of definitional debates, see Sargisson and Sargent 2-6, and Metcalf 8-11.

2 See Suvins "On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre" 375;

Metamorphoses of Science Fiction 49; and "Defining the Literary Genre of

Utopia: Some Historical Semantics, Some Genology, a Proposal, and a Plea."

For critical discussions of Suvins work, see Moylans Scraps of the Untainted

Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia 41-48 and 73-75 as well as Parrinder's

Learning From Other Worlds: Estrangement, Cognition and the Politics of Sci ence Fiction (in particular the essays by Parrinder, "Revisiting Suvins Poetics

of Science Fiction"; and by Moylan, "Look into the Dark: On Dystopia and theNovum").

3 The data for this paper were gathered during two research projects. One was an independent study funded by the ESRC. The other occurred as

part of a larger collaborative project with Lyman Tower Sargent, funded by the University of Nottingham and the British Academy. Discussions refer to

material from interview transcripts with members from Beech Hill Commu

nity, Erraid Community, Findhorn Foundation Community (in the United

Kingdom), and Anahata Community, Centrepoint Community, Communi

ty of the Sacred Name, Friends' Setdement, Te Ora Community, Timatanga Community, Graham Downs Community, Mahmudra Bhuddist Centre, Otamatea Ecovillage, and Karuna Falls Community (in New Zealand).

4 For a discussion of the Marxist connection between estrangement and alienation, see Levitas.

5 "Critical" in the generic sense and also in the sense identified by Tom Moylan in Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagi nation.

6 Suvins work has had lasting impact but is controversial. Whilst

this article is not concerned with normative assessment of Suvins work, that assessment has been exhaustively undertaken. See, for example, Parrinder's

Learning from Other Worlds. 7 See also his "Defining the Literary Genre of Utopia." 8 For an accessible account of life at the Findhorn Foundation, see

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~ UTOPIAN STUDIES 183 ~

Metealf. 9 "I needed to live close to the earth. I wanted to learn something

of the land I was born into but barely knew, so I sank into a world of natu

ral forms, of winds and tides, trees and rocks, manuka, flowers, gardens. I

claimed the opportunity to 'drop out,' to pause, to take time to live like a

simple creature on the earth, to be free for a while of the overbearing social

and cultural order, de-prescribed ways" (Black and Barriball 7). 10 "I think the issue of isolation is a big thing.... That's part of pick

ing up the challenge. That is the worst part: all the stresses that you have to

deal with when you are doing something different and you haven't got sup

port for it" (Chrissie). 111 say "appears to believe" because it was not possible to access the

group direcdy. At the time of my fieldwork, the community was totally closed to visitors and did not reply to correspondence. However, some participant

testimony exists, and I am indebted to Lyman Tower Sargent for the source

material on Gloriavate. 12 For an extended discussion of coherence and shared vision, see

Kanter. 13 Self-categorization theory was developed by Turner in the 1980s as

a method for identifying groups. Turner proposed that subjective definitions

should form the basis for categorization. See Turner's "Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group."

14 Len Oakes, scholar of intentional communities and former mem

ber describes it thus: "Centrepoint is a communal psychotherapy cult" based

around the teachings of its founder, Bert Potter (Oakes 10). 15 Convictions and sentences were as follows: Bert Potter, indecent

assault of five minors: seven and a half years custodial sentence; Dr. Keith

McKenzie, indecent assault of a minor (fined $2,500 and struck off the medi

cal register); David Mendelssohn, indecent assault of three minors (four years in prison); Ulrich Schmid, sexual assault of two minors (one year in prison);

Richard Parker, attempted rape of a minor (four years and five months in

jail); Henry Stone, indecent assault of a minor (nine months in jail); and Kenneth Smith, indecent assault of two minors (200 hours community ser

vice and damages of NZ$1500 to each child). 16 Testimony from former members of communities always needs

to be treated with caution for a number of reasons, including motive (self

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justification or resentment towards the group), memory (accuracy of recol

lection), and verifiability For these reasons, I did not seek to interview for

mer members of communities. However, these people contacted me after my research was profiled on a national radio programme, doing so in order to

tell me about their Centrepoint experiences. They approached me separately from different parts of the country (not en masse), and their testimonies were

consistent with each other as well with court transcripts and other primary source materials.

17 The eruv creates a symbolic extension of the home within a spa

tially defined area. It thus allows all but Ultra-Orthodox Jewish people to leave their homes during the Sabbath. 18 The meeting was called by a boy of about ten years old (Michael). Some bicycles had been left out in the rain, and the new teacher had asked

Michael about this occurrence. Michael called a meeting, which lasted just a

few minutes, and reminded everyone that they had agreed to store bicycles and other equipment under cover in order to protect them from rain. The

children concerned explained that the shower had come so suddenly that they had dropped their bikes and run inside, but agreed that they should have put the bikes into the shed first. Once they had agreed on this point, the bicycles

were retrieved, and everyone returned to their reading, sums, cooking, and

other activities. 19 Rural and urban groups do this. Examples include Otamatea

Ecovillage (near Kiapara) and the city-based co-housing group at Earthsong (Waitakere City). Both have formal Open Days involving tours and lectures.

20 "To live in a world that cannot be but where one fervendy wishes to be: that is the literal essence of utopia.... So from its very inception with

More utopia embodies two impulses, tending often in opposite directions... . It always goes beyond the immediately practicable, and it may go so far be

yond as to be in the most realistic senses wholly impracticable. But it is never

simply dreaming. It always has one foot in reality" (Kumar 1-2).

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Article Contentsp. [393]p. 394p. 395p. 396p. 397p. 398p. 399p. 400p. 401p. 402p. 403p. 404p. 405p. 406p. 407p. 408p. 409p. 410p. 411p. 412p. 413p. 414p. 415p. 416p. 417p. 418p. 419p. 420p. 421p. 422p. 423p. 424

Issue Table of ContentsUtopian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, Irish Utopian (2007), pp. i-iv, 293-444Front MatterIntroduction: Tracking Utopia in Irish Culture(s) [pp. 295-298]Irish Voyages and Visions: Pre-figuring, Re-configuring Utopia [pp. 299-323]Affiliated to the Future? Culture, the Celt, and Matthew Arnold's Utopianism [pp. 325-344]A Future Ireland under German Rule: Dystopias as Propaganda during World War I [pp. 345-363]Aspects of Utopia, Anti-utopia, and Nostalgia in Irish-Language Texts [pp. 365-378]Church, State, and Unfettered Capitalism: Three Irish-Gaelic Dystopias [pp. 379-389]Strange Places: Estrangement, Utopianism, and Intentional Communities [pp. 393-424]Utopia, Dystopia or Anti-utopia? Gulliver's Travels and the Utopian Mode of Discourse [pp. 425-442]Back Matter

lucy sargisson, strange places - estrangement, utopianism, and intentional communities

Documents

discussion of estrangement

aspect of estrangement

utopian studies

utopian dreams

irish utopian

jstor terms

heart of utopian experiments

intentional communitiesauthors