Description
Book SynopsisIn Seeing Like a Commons, Joshua P. Lockyer demonstrates how a growing group of people have, over the last 80 years, deliberately built the Celo Community, a communal settlement on 1,200 acres of commonly owned land in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Joshua P. Lockyer highlights the potential for intentional communities like Celo to raise awareness of global interconnectivity and structural inequalities, enabling people and communities to become better stewards and citizens of both local landscapes and global commons.
Trade ReviewSeeing Like a Commons is the definitive study of the famous Celo community founded by TVA director Arthur Morgan. Now, after Celo’s first 80 years, Joshua Lockyer’s research reveals the processes that make it one of the longest enduring secular communal utopias in America. Lockyer’s effective application of the Community Design Principles identified by Nobel Prize winning political economist Elinor Ostrom provide both a practical and theoretical framework for his on-sight ethnographic observations, interviews, and for the book itself. Seeing Like a Commons is the first work to apply Ostrom’s commons concept to the field of communal studies. Lockyer’s own theory of transformative utopianism and use of the theory of developmental communalism also add to a deeper understanding of Celo’s success. Engaging vignettes, with which Lockyer opens chapters, personalize for the reader the inner workings of Celo’s governance and resolution of interpersonal conflicts. In all, Seeing Like a Commons is ethnography, history, and communal utopian studies at their best.
-- Donald E. Pitzer, professor emeritus, University of Southern Indiana
Table of ContentsPart I: Introduction and History
Introduction: Intentional Community, Commons, and Utopia
Chapter 1: Arthur Morgan, Utopianism, and the Founding of Celo Community
Chapter 2: Cultivating Intentional Community Commons: A History of Celo Community
Chapter 3: A Commons Community Today: Celo through the Lens of Transformative Utopianism
Part II: Design Principles for a Commons Community
Chapter 4: Common Land and Community Membership: Celo’s Social and Spatial Boundaries
Chapter 5: Creating Our Own Commons Rules
Chapter 6: Governing Ourselves and Our Commons
Chapter 7: Keeping Each Other Honest
Chapter 8: When One of Us is Not Honest
Chapter 9: Dealing with Disputes on the Commons
Chapter 10: Gaining Official Recognition
Chapter 11: The Commons and Larger Democratic Systems
Chapter 12: Beyond the Design Principles: Other Factors that Make Celo Work
Conclusion: Cultivating Commons Subjects in and Beyond Intentional Community
