Seeing Like a Commons

Joshua Lockyer is associate professor of anthropology at Arkansas Tech University.

Seeing Like a Commons is a worthy addition to the scholarly literature on intentional communities. It focuses on Celo, an 80-year-old, 1,200-acre intentional community located in rural North Carolina…. Lockyer sees Celo as a dynamic, ongoing, and largely successful social experiment. He uses the concept of the community as a commons to explain Celo, defining the commons as both a resource (e.g., land) and as an internal social system for managing the resource by a group that shares values and feelings of community identity. He draws heavily on the work of Elinor Ostrom, discussing Celo’s implementation of several of her commons design principles. Lockyer’s book has relevance for students across the social sciences who are interested in social change as implemented by a long-standing alternative community. Recommended. General readers through faculty.

• Part I: Introduction and HistoryIntroduction: Intentional Community, Commons, and UtopiaChapter 1: Arthur Morgan, Utopianism, and the Founding of Celo CommunityChapter 2: Cultivating Intentional Community Commons: A History of Celo CommunityChapter 3: A Commons Community Today: Celo through the Lens of Transformative UtopianismPart II: Design Principles for a Commons CommunityChapter 4: Common Land and Community Membership: Celo’s Social and Spatial BoundariesChapter 5: Creating Our Own Commons RulesChapter 6: Governing Ourselves and Our CommonsChapter 7: Keeping Each Other HonestChapter 8: When One of Us is Not HonestChapter 9: Dealing with Disputes on the CommonsChapter 10: Gaining Official RecognitionChapter 11: The Commons and Larger Democratic SystemsChapter 12: Beyond the Design Principles: Other Factors that Make Celo WorkConclusion: Cultivating Commons Subjects in and Beyond Intentional Community