Amy L. Sasser

6 July 2013

Variations on a Theme:

Translating My Personal Interests into Useful Information for the Seminar

     In my earlier research post, I spoke of my two families becoming one and building our own mini-utopia. Perhaps a better approach would be to call our ideal a sort of intentional community with only 12 members. Taking these notions a step farther, I have done some additional research into intentional communities and what that might mean for a larger, less personal focus.

     To begin with, we must decide what an intentional community really is. Dictionary.com defines it as “a community designed and planned around a social ideal or collective values and interests, often involving shared resources and responsibilities.” This definition is broad and far-reaching, so I set out to discover through some examples what this boils down to on a practical and ideal basis, as it might encompass so much more than just families living together with common ideological ideals. My first stop on this journey of discovery was at a website briefly mentioned in one of the in-class web review presentations. The Fellowship for Intentional Community, located at ic.org, bills itself as a “source for community information.” Their explanation of an intentional community (hereinafter abbreviated as IC) is “an inclusive term for ecovillages, cohousing communities, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives, intentional living, alternative communities, cooperative living, and other projects where people strive together with a common vision.” My first thought on reading this is how much more common ICs are than I’d previously thought. I thought that my family’s idea of cohabitation for a loving and supportive environment to raise our children and share the day-to-day struggles and responsibilities of life were very unique and uncommon. I had struggled with how to present this ideal to family and friends who were, frankly, not invited to join the commitment. Now, I realize that the words and phrases we could use as explanation are everywhere, and that the IC world makes it quite possible to discuss without the constant question of a romantic-style polyamorous relationship coming up. So, now that one of the tougher questions for my personal situation has been answered, what other use could I make of this Fellowship that might be helpful for the seminar as a whole?

     The ic.org website has a section titled “Resources.”  I was searching for information on beginning a venture like this, but was disappointed to find that their “Community Forming” link was really more of a classified section attempting to attract people to new ICs, ecovillages, cohousing opportunities and so forth. This could serve well any student who wanted to further experience an IC striving toward a utopia by actually taking a turn living with such a group. What’s more, if a student truly wanted to pursue this type of lifestyle within an established community, the Directory at the site allows you to locate and contact communities you might be interested in.

Further research into building an IC revealed a wealth of resources. One book I found on Amazon, Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities (ISBN 978-0865714717) looks at the most common issues you might face in building a brand new group from the ground up. It covers everything from startup costs and real estate needs to your different and demanding role as a founder of the community, to legal considerations, to handling conflicts within the group. At less than $20, this book seems to be an invaluable resource to begin your own IC and to trying to carve out your own mini-utopia.

This brings me back to my own familial experiment. I wanted to take a look at how it is like and unlike a traditional IC. I think the part that most defines my intended co-family concept is “striving together for a common vision.” We have no overarching philosophical or ecological goal which we plan to espouse. Rather, we recognize the fact that, even when we are arguing or disagreeing about something, we are a much happier group of people when we are all together than when we are all apart. We want to have that togetherness on a much more permanent basis. Unlike most ICs, we will not be looking to add to our numbers or increase our membership. We want to have our own larger family group and leave it at that. A great many of the ICs we’ve seen tend to require large expenditures up front in order to join their group or adhere to their lifestyle; we would simply require finding a place to live that is large enough, which shouldn’t cost any more than what the two separate families are already paying for housing and supplies. Many ICs have an ideological, ecological, or religious viewpoint at their core. While we all practice the same religion, that is not the basis of our desired family unit. As a matter of fact, we fully expect that the Church (all of us are Catholics) would have a hard time understanding what it is we are trying to do. Many ICs have a goal, a target for which they are working. Our target is simply to be a family, close together, strong and tight-knit.

Based on these findings, I believe explaining our situation to the world at large would be more easily accepted with the increase in ICs in the US, but in truth, our idea is not really aligned with most usual ICs. The most amazing outcome of my research, however, has been the sheer abundance of resources available. At each help I found online, there were more links and more sites leading me down a seemingly never-ending path to more information about ICs, how they operate and how they sustain themselves, as well as how to get one started. I know that when we are ready to move forward with our ideals, we have a wealth of information at our disposal. As to the student of Utopias, these resources can help to guide and inform one’s opinion of ICs and Utopias in general, or it can serve as a practical almanac to begin such a lifestyle yourself.