The Political Economies of U.S. Communes
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Weier, Jacklyn
- Graduate Program:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 18, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Melissa Wright, Major Field Member
Lorraine Dowler, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Kathleen Sexsmith, Outside Unit & Field Member
Karl Zimmerer, Major Field Member
Brian King, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- intentional communities
diverse economies
commons
governance
property
geography - Abstract:
- The intentional communities movement in the U.S. consists of varying arrangements that differently prioritize values, purpose, and goals. In general, these communities collectively own land, share residence, and manage cooperative enterprises. Income-sharing communities, the focus of this dissertation, also share the income that is generated by their on-land cooperatives. Beyond this, they have complex systems of governance that determine concepts of labor, how labor is distributed, how resources are accessed, how surplus is consumed, and how to organize with other communities. This dissertation focuses on an income-sharing community called Acorn in rural Virginia and draws from feminist economic geographies for approaches to community economic practices. Based on ethnography and semi-structured qualitative interview data, I uncover different socio-economic processes in the community and conceptualize these through different analytical frameworks. In the first, I utilize feminist political economy approaches to understand labor distribution in the community. ‘Labor’ in these communities is very broad, including productive and reproductive work. This broad interpretation contributes to the community economy ethos of interdependence and worker and environmental wellbeing. I also identify social difference as a key factor in how labor is assigned. Second, I approach the communities as commons, as they engage in the sharing and management of collective resources. I trace the history of the 501(d) tax status that allows for collective landholding and argue it is a state mechanism that reinforces private property logics. From there, understanding 501(d)’s strict tenets for communities, I approach the labor exchange program (LEX) between the communities as a multi-scale governance strategies that contributes to the longevity of these communities. The network moves people between the communities, and with them their labor, knowledge, and care that is consequential to the success of communities. Finally, I draw on cohousing literature to develop an approach to commoning in intentional communities as a way to understand participation outcomes. This analysis revealed that shared values and the individual-collective dichotomy were recurring aspects of communal living that impacted systems of governance and participation efforts. In total, this work contributes to feminist economic geographies, urban commons scholarship, and research targeting communal living. These combined perspectives reveal the multifaceted connections between communities and external systems, including unequal power relationships. The application of the commons as a concept is used throughout, and this dissertation directly involves an arduous study of the intricacies of governance. In this, the papers contribute to new ways of understanding commoning as a series of relationships between other commoners and social systems. It does so by focusing on the everyday, the individual, the collective, and the body as points of departure for analysis.