FMcDowell

A space for projects related to my being - past, current and coming.

Book Review: Creating A Life Together

Kategori: Book Review, Community, Sustainability

 

Creating A Life Together
Diana Leafe Christian


Searching through the shelves in the Free and Real library one afternoon, my eye got hold of one title that stood out among the mostly Greek literature and scattered English novels. I picked it up, leaned back and read to the fading light of the day. The book, Creating A Life Together - Practical tools to grow ecovillages and intentional communities, is a guide by Diana Leafe Christian who has spent several years visiting, investigating, writing about and living in communities. Her approach to the subject is from the point that only approximately ten percent of projects and communities that gets initiated survive to become stable long term settlements, and from her broad understanding of what goes into community, she presents the biggest necessities and challenges communities will face - spanning from internal tensions to tax legislation for non-profit organizations - in clearly structured chapters, with a sober perspective and plenty of examples from failed and flourishing communities. This book is an overview of the process of creating a life together, and it contains loads of useful information for those who are deliberating that path.

Some definitions can be in place; what kind of community life is being considered here? Christian describes intentional communities as a group of people who have made an active choice to live with each other or near enough to share a specific lifestyle. This might include cohousing in urban environments or staying in rural homesteads, sharing houses or living in the same apartment block or countryside neighborhood.
     An ecovillage is an intentional community with the specific goal of living a sustainable lifestyle “in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and which can be successfully continued into the indefinite future”.

Christian has structured the book into three parts, with a relevant selection of chapters to each one, focusing on the conceptualization, initiation and development of intentional community. I will here under present some of the information that made an impact on me.


I - Planting the seeds of healthy community

Having joined a group that loosely had talked about communal living, Christian describes her first experience on the topic, she one day receives a phone call from the founder who exclaims that he’s found the land. Suddenly the group is out on the countryside, looking out over the acres of land that could be their new home - but once reality hits them, no one is ready to commit. And commit to what? She suddenly realizes that the group has no common vision, no organizational structure, no budget, no agreements. And for some acres of land to turn into a thriving community, there needs to be a concept of what that community will be.

In the first chapter Christian dwells deeper on the notion of the ten percent that makes it. After having witnessed many new communities dissolve or burst into conflict over her years of studying them, she has identified a specific type of omissions to be the dominant cause for failure. These are generally created when the founders haven’t clearly stated specific processes or decisions at the outset of the community building. She states that “[t]hese built-in structural problems seem to function like time bombs. Several weeks, months, or even years into the community-forming process the group erupts in major conflict that could have been largely prevented if they had handled these issues early on.” She goes on to point out, and advice for how to prevent, the most common sources for structural conflicts:
 
1. Identify your community vision and create vision documents.
2. Choose a participatory decision-making process appropriate for your group.
3. Make clear agreements - in writing.
4. Learn good communication skills and group process skills. Make clear communication and resolving conflicts a priority.
5. In choosing members, select for emotional maturity.
6. Take the time to learn what you need to know.

The fourth and fifth chapter focuses on the value of clearly stated vision documents. And one point Christian makes clear here and throughout the book, is the necessity of making decisions and agreements take a final written form. Verbal understandings gets to vague to form the basis of a solid project. This point stands out to me as being a generalizable piece of advice for any type of multipersonal enterprise - clarity of arrangements minimizes the probability of conflict. Within community creation this concepts intensifies, Christian goes on to portray it as simultaneously entering a business and marriage with the same person.
     The act of creating a vision document is a great opportunity for the group to learn about each other and for the individual member find out what they actually want from community. And once written down it serves to; describe a shared future, reveals the group’s core values, expresses something each member can identify with, gives the group something to lean on during disagreements or confusion and keeps the community committed and inspired.

The sixth chapter Christian devotes to power and governance. There is reason to highlight the concept of power within group dynamics, since it in many cases can be less visible how it gets distributed amongst the participants. Power imbalance can be created by someone taking over a discussion with a aggressive communication style, or by the person who happens to have a very energetic personality which makes other members look to them for leadership, or the imbalance can come from someone who’s influential because of previous deeds and therefore are offered more space. Power imbalance can often be created unintentionally, and therefore Christian argues that there is good reason to discern these structures and to create an arena for decision-making where all members feels content with having their say on the matter.
     She goes through several styles of group governance - I especially took note of her description of consensus decision, which I will not present in detail here, merely remark that it can work given that all participants have understood the foundation of the decision making process.


II - Sprouting new community: techniques and tools

Once the idea of the intentional community has been established, Christian goes on to shed light on the practicalities of creating the project. Chapter seven is a walk through clearly stated, and written, agreements and policies for areas that otherwise can lead to confusion and conflict. Amongst other things community expenses and payments, ecological guidelines, policies for pets, noise, water and electricity use and behavioral norms, how new members join, the process of a member leaving and on what grounds a member may be asked to leave. The point of these policies is to have a unbiased platform to act from once it gets required, just like the players of a game knows and follows the rule of a game. Christian gives several examples of where seemingly irrelevant conducts have led to group conflicts and community downfalls. The clearer the rules, the smoother the community runs.

The following chapters handles creating legal entities, finding and buying the right piece of land for your specific needs, financing the property and the community and how to think in regard to neighbours.

The thirteenth chapter is a small guide like segment called ‘Developing sustainable human settlements’. Here it’s described how the actual building of the community is something that has to be given its time. We get an example from the Earthaven community, who over the course of eight years transformed a mountainous landscape into a prosperous society. One term that is worth highlighting here is the term permaculture, which, if you haven’t already, you most likely will stumble upon if you read a bit into eco-communities. The idea is that of creating cultures that are designed for sustainability, and thus stands to last permanently - perma-culture. The idea rests on three core principles; 1) care for the earth, 2) care for the people and 3) setting limits to population and consumption. Therefore building for sustainability is a process that will need to take its time. This is followed up with some tips on how to create privacy in midst of community and to design for conviviality.


III - Thriving in community - enriching the soil

The third and last part contains two chapters that focuses on developing and handling social interactions. I will here focus on the first one, which is on communication processes and dealing with conflicts. Let’s just return quickly to the term permaculture; this concept originally referred to agricultural practices only (and I believe might still be strongly connected to especially that field), but as the core principles show, care for the people is an integral part of the idea - thus creating sustainable human relations is permaculture.
     Christian describes how people are drawn to community life out of a belief that it will provide a more harmonious and connected way of living, and she goes on to point out the danger of thinking that this is something that just comes along with the experience of community. Let’s soak in this paragraph for a moment:

“Most of us don’t realize that our wider society is dysfunctional because it’s just ourselves, doing what we habitually do, but multiplied and magnified by millions of people. When we see governments or corporations using manipulative, controlling, or punishing behaviors - through threats, terrorist attacks, or outright war - it frightens and disgusts us. But when we do the small-scale versions of these same ploys ourselves, we don’t see it. We may revile ‘terrorists,’ but what about our own choice of words and tone to voice this morning with our partner or child? Those of us who think we do these behaviors the least are often the ones who do them the most. The more spiritual we imagine we are, the harder it is to see.”

What I hear Christian identifying here is the omission in both our personal lives and society in large to focus on the learning of social and communicative skills, and she addresses the need of learning these skills for a functional community. I thoroughly enjoy the continued structure of this chapter, where she identifies and gives practical advice on how to prevent and deal with conflict - for example the pages with “twenty-four common sources of community conflict”. In the section of nourishing sustainable relationships my mind gets some endorsement for already held beliefs, when writing about the relevance of speaking more consciously she adds that “[t]he most effective communication skills I’ve found are those of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication process, which help people speak to each other in ways that tell the deepest truths while enhancing good will and deepening their connection.” A reassurance on a topic I hope to write more about in a near future.
     The guidelines Christian provides here seem to hold a great bearing on community life, and I would deem it worth a read for anyone who find an interest in the idea of creating permanent cultures.


This being the first book I’ve read on the specific topic of establishing and growing intentional communities, there were many points at which I paused, reread and appreciated the information provided. For anyone thinking about going into, or starting up, intentional communities, this book, or any of similar to it, is a must read. The amount of experience, practical tools and structural guidelines in these pages is a gold mine for any present or coming community dweller.
     As for me, the information has given me a better theoretical understanding of the needs of community, and it will serve as a foundation to lean upon in meeting the practical reality. I also reflected on the generalizability of the concepts in the book, I can see several of the ideas for a sound community being used and applied in other circumstances as well. And for that reason I would recommend this as a read to anyone who has an interest in learning more about what makes community work.

 
 
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