ICSA at Tamera 2016

By Jan Martin Bang

Of all the ICSA conferences I have attended, this was without doubt the smallest ever. At first

we felt some dismay at this, normally we think of bigger as better, more is good, and when many

people attend an event, it’s a success. Of course, this mindset has changed, many of us have

read, “Small is Beautiful”, written in the 1970’s, and subscribe to Schumacher’s ideas.

This was the most intimate ICSA conference I have ever been to. I felt that I could spend time

with nearly everyone attending, and really get to know many of the new people much better.

Small really is beautiful!

The Israeli group was relatively larger than any other, reflecting the loyalty and interest that

the subject of communal research generates within and around the kibbutz movement. For me

it was a great opportunity to yet again renew my friendships with many of them.

Tamera is a well-established ecovillage in the south of Portugal, in an area that has been

overgrazed over many decades and turned into semi desert. For me, travelling direct from

Spitsbergen in the deep Arctic where I had been teaching, the transition was brutal, but at

Tamera they had been changing their landscape using Permaculture landscaping techniques,

and it felt like an oasis after coming in from the train station. The landscape outside had been

dry, dusty and hot!

Chris Coates, the Chair of the ICSA Board, and co-organiser of the conference, opened

proceedings by asking the question: “Why do I never get invited to any anniversaries of Peace?”

This year was the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles of

the First World War, and in the United Kingdom the media had given it massive coverage.

Chris talked about how important it was to celebrate peace, reminding us of the theme of this

year’s conference, “Community approaches towards inner and outer peace”. He rounded off his

introduction by listing some of the celebrations he has been noting during this last year or two:

Findhorn’s 50th birthday; lots of 70s communes reaching 40+, Zegg celebrating 25, Diggers & Dreamers 25, and of course our very own ICSA celebrating 30 years of community research.

These are his anniversaries of peace!

I picked up his theme and presented the collection of personal memories of the first 30 years of

ICSA that I had collected together with Yaacov Oved. This was our way of celebrating the

ICSA. I was really grateful to Peter Forster, Tim Miller and Deborah Altus who also

contributed to this presentation.

The Global Ecovillage Research group was well represented at the conference, and we ran a

workshop on ecovillage research, using our time to split up into smaller groups to look at the

impact researchers have on communities, and how communities could respond to researchers.

We had a well-attended ICSA Board meeting. The minutes are elsewhere in this Bulletin, well

written by Deborah Altus. It was an exciting meeting. On the one hand, we thought that due to

the low numbers attending the conference, we were in some kind of crisis. How will our

financial situation cope? Can we expand our membership? On the other hand, we had become

very close over the last few days, we had several new candidates for the Board, and Dan

McKanan had done really thorough homework on possible venues for the nest conference in

upstate New York. The future looked bleak, and also really exciting! What were we to choose?

As you can read in the minutes, we chose life. ICSA is looking forward to a really exciting

conference next time, in 2019. This will be a collaborative effort, and each one of you can

contribute by, first, making sure you have paid up your membership until 2019, and second, by

recruiting another member.

Deborah Altus presented the keynote lecture at the conference, “Perspectives on inner and

outer peace from long-term members of intentional communities in the United States.” Based

on many years of research on communities, and on her personal connections with leading

members of communities in the United States, she presented a really well thought out summing

up of the key factors that contribute to successful community. For me personally, teaching

community design within a Permaculture context, her paper was a really valuable addition to

my material!

I want to take this opportunity to thank Chris for his work in holding our Association together

for another three years, and for his contribution to making the 2016 conference a success. I also

want to congratulate Dan McKanan on being elected the next Chair, and wish him every success

with the next conference, which I will make every effort to attend!