Community Living Worldwide

International Communal Studies Association Conference at Damanhur

By Bill Metcalf

This June I met with 120 communitarians and academic researchers from more than a dozen countries at the 2007 International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) conference. We met at Damanhur Federation, a 32-year-old spiritual community near Turin, Italy. Every three years ICSA members meet and share research findings at an intentional community or university: in 2004 it was the Amana Colonies in Amana, Iowa; in 2001, ZEGG community in Germany; in 1998 at University of Amsterdam, and in 1998, at Yad Tabenkin Research Centre, Israel.

One of the most interesting and dynamic intentional communities in the world, Damanhur started with a small group in 1975 and has grown to about 600 members, or “citizens,” as well as several hundred affiliated members living in Damanhurian centers throughout Europe.

Damanhur members own and operate numerous businesses: making silk scarves, jewelry, specialist cheeses, and high-quality handmade goods. The community is involved in the government in the Valchiusella Valley: a Damanhurian is mayor of the local town, and 22 Damanhurians sit on other towns councils in the valley. Damanhur citizens live in small communal households, called “nucleos,” of 12-30 adults, plus children. Nucleo residents eat and socialise together, and share expenses and responsibilities for children and work. Some nucleos comprise more than one house, and all 20 nucleos constitute the Damanhur Federation. Each nucleo appoints a member to sit on the Damanhur Federation Council, and this Council selects two senior members, their “King and Queen Guides,” for a six-month period to co-serve in the executive director role for the Federation. These officers can be re-elected or replaced, offering the community both continuity and change. Damanhur has a sophisticated range of governance facilities to make and implement decisions and resolve conflicts. The community is famous for their “The Temple of Humankind,” a complex of seven linked underground temples characterized by beautiful stained glass domes, mosaics, carvings, and tiles.

The ICSA conference was formally opened on June 29th by Professor Dennis Hardy of the UK, ICSA’s retiring President. We were then welcomed by Damanhur’s King and Queen Guides, Uria Sedano and Testuggine Cacao. Our first formal address was by Albert Bates, director of Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee, whose talk, “Communal Economics in a Post-Petroleum World,” emphasised the importance of sustainability to the intentional communities movement—a theme which ran through the rest of the conference.

Over the next three days about 40 speakers covered topics about current and historical intentional communities, community networking, and a wide range of philosophical and theoretical issues. Simultaneous translation facilities were provided by Damanhur members so that a presentation in Italian, for example, could be simultaneously heard in English or German simply by listening through earphones tuned to the proper channel. As far as I know, this is the first intentional communities conference ever to offer this service!

Presentations about contemporary intentional communities included: “The Utopianism of Longo Mai Co-operatives,” by Saskia Poldervaart (Holland); “Camphill: A Spiritual Community,” by Jan Martin Bang (Norway); and “Shri Ram*: a Modern Path to Enlightenment,” by Tatiana Ginzberg (Russia).

The talks about historic intentional communities included “An Owenite Community in Flotey-lès-Vesoul, Haute-Saône,” by Megali Fleurot (France); “Visions of Peace: The Shakers, the Bruderhof, and the World,” by Etta Madden (US); and my own presentation, “Ethnically Based Utopian Intentional Communities: The Example of New Italy, Australia.”

Philosophical and theoretical presentations included “Intentional Community, Modernity, Post-Modernity, and Globalization,” by Michael Livni (Israel); “All Things Common: Comparing Christian Interpretations of Biblical Communism,” by Deborah Altus (US); “Integrated Ecovillage Design: A New Tool for Physical Planning,” by Hildur Jackson (Denmark); “We Have Nothing to Hide: Public Nudity in North American Communes,” by Tim Miller (US); and “The Sound of Communal Living” by Chris Coates (UK).

Talks about networking to promote and sustain intentional community included: “RIVE: Network of Italian Ecovillages,” by Mimmo Tringale (Italy); “Ecovillages,” by Jonathon Dawson (UK); and “Experimental Fields for Sustainable Lifestyle Models” by Iris Kunze, (Germany).

In our final, plenary session, which I chaired, Ross Jackson (Denmark) presented “A Gaian Utopia,” about how environmental imperatives must dictate the ways that not only intentional communities but all societies develop. ICSA’s co-founder, Professor Yaacov Oved (Israel), then presented “Changes in Modern Communes: from Utopian Propensity to Pragmatic Approach,” based upon his half-century of research. We then collectively thanked the members of Damanhur Federation for opening up their lives, hearts, and nucleos to us. We also thanked the workers, many of whom were volunteers, who had looked after the technical and practical aspects, and ensured that we were all fed, housed, entertained, supported, and made to feel at home.

As well as these fascinating, albeit heady topics of ICSA’s formal presentations, we were entertained on the first evening with a concert of esoteric music and interpretive modern dance by Damanhur members at their Open Temple. On the final evening, we held an ICSA formal dinner, followed by a Laser Light Show, with accompanying dance, also put on by Damanhur members. On the intervening evening, we each had the chance to dine with different small groups of Damanhur members in the privacy of their nucleos. For many of us, this was a highlight as we were able to visit informally with ordinary Damanhurians, and ask all those questions which we wouldn’t feel comfortable to ask in a larger meeting. I was fortunate to dine and enjoy superb local wines with the dozen members of a small, three-year old nucleo, “Arboricoli,” built 20 feet off the ground in trees growing on the mountain above their underground temple complex. The Arboricoli folk are experimenting to see how viable it is to live in trees. Fortunately, I did not drink too much wine so at the end of the evening I was able to return safely to Earth.

After the conference many of us took a bus tour to Torri Superiore ecovillage near the Italian Riviera. Without a doubt, Torri Superiore is one of the most charming and welcoming intentional communities in the world. Thirteen resident adults and six children operate a Guest House and permaculture demonstration site, and offer various training programs. They live in a restored stone village dating from the thirteenth century but abandoned after the Second World War. The 160 rooms of this complicated and convoluted complex with eight levels are built against a steep hillside, with most rooms having vaulted stone ceilings—reminding me of what it would be like to live in an M.C. Escher print. ICSA conference members were welcomed with a tour, drinks, and a three-course dinner, on Torri Superiore’s balcony, which overlooks their olive, grape, and vegetable terraces, stepped down to the Bevera River. Most of us slept that night at Torri Superiore.

On the final day, our tour buses took us from Torri Superiore to visit two nearby medieval architectural gems, the strikingly beautiful villages of Dolceaqua and Apricale. At the latter, we were welcomed by the mayor and given lunch at the hilltop castle, Eidechsenburg, with its extraordinary views.

Our buses then headed home, taking delegates to catch trains, buses or planes back to our homes around the globe.

During the conference, the ICSA Board decided that our next President will be Professor Michal Palgi, a long term member of Kibbutz Nir-David (“The field of David”) between Haifa and Jerusalem, Israel. Michal is a sociologist who has been involved for years in studying organisational and gender issues within intentional communities, particularly within the broad range of Israeli kibbutzim. She has been an ICSA member for many years.

The ICSA Board unanimously decided that our next conference, in 2010, will be held in northern Israel, under the auspices of the Institute for Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea at the University of Haifa, and will focus on both the history of the traditional, rural Israeli kibbutzim (which began in 1910) and on the recent establishment of numerous urban kibbutzim in that country. These latter intentional communities appear to be modifying the kibbutz form of communal living, which suited the 20th century, into a new form of communal living which might be more appropriate to the 21st century.

Among the associated issues discussed by the Board were questions of security and justice in the Middle East, since we recognised that such issues will be in the minds of people who will participate in our conference in 2010. We resolved that ICSA2010 should have the issue of peace as a key element. We need to explore what intentional communities can contribute to promoting ethnic accord and peaceful communities.

Personally, the best part of ICSA2007 was to meet with colleagues whom I have known and worked with for many years, as well as to meet several brilliant young graduate students from whom we will no doubt hear much in the future. The worst part of ICSA2007, for me, was when any presenter would read a dry paper rather than actually talking with us about their subject.

And will I be at ICSA in 2010 in Israel? Absolutely! ICSA gatherings are a wonderful opportunity to learn, contribute, and enjoy a wonderful few days of fellowship with a wide range of good people, all of whom are involved in intentional community in one way or another.

Bill Metcalf, PhD., a semi-retired professor of environmental science at Griffith University in Brisbane, is author of nine books on community, including The Findhorn Book of Community Living. He is a Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, and a past president of ICSA.

ICSA: icsacommunity.org.

Damanhur: damanhur.info/en/html/home.asp.

Torri Superiore: torri-superiore.org.