Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

This thesis explores the internal dynamics in intentional rural communities in relation to broader society’s value systems. In rural communities, people create lifestyles and value systems that are different from the mainstream, neoliberal and individualistic ones. Through interviews with members of four different communities, we collected data on the values, motivations, and worldviews within the communities. The data was analysed using the conceptual framework “the circle of commoning” developed by Arbell (2023). The framework understands commons as social processes rather than fixed resources and places an emphasis on the interplay between internal and external dynamics forming the communities, where a circular internal process is in constant negotiation with external influences. Subjectivities, visions, and social practices are the three components making up the internal circular process, with each of them producing and reproducing the next.
In the analysis, we identify three central themes driving this process: a) Sense of belonging, b) equality and inclusion, and c) rurality and nature. For each theme, we carve out the interplay of subjectivities, visions, and social practices. The themes mirror central worldviews in the communities and therefore the motivation of individuals to join and uphold them. Two central worldviews we establish are (1) the criticism of mainstream society’s ways of life, and (2) that humans and nature are deeply interconnected. In these worldviews there is a negotiation between the communities and broader society: the communities are shaped by society’s value systems in that they are actively trying to undergo them.