Palgi / Getz Conflicts and Conflict Management in Intentional Communities

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-3-11-123877-7
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band Volume III, 184 Seiten

Reihe: Emerging Trends in Conflict Management

Intentional communities combine complex economic organizations with member-run governance. As in any human organization, conflicts arise—whether between members, officials, or external entities. These communities seek to manage disputes locally, often avoiding formal mechanisms like state courts. Many rely on bylaws and committees, adjusting their conflict-resolution strategies over time. Strategic decisions often require broad consensus, pushing members to refine their approaches to agreement.

This volume explores how various intentional communities—such as kibbutzim, eco-villages, and cooperative housing—navigate internal and external conflicts. The book contains both theoretical analysis and research articles written specifically for this volume, alongside innovative practical methods developed and tested to resolve conflicts that arise in intentional communities.

Zielgruppe

Students and scholars of Conflict Management.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Palgi, Michal

Getz, Shlomo

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Friedens- und Konfliktforschung

Leseproben

An Overview of the Book and a Short Review of the Theoretical Framework

Shlomo Getz

Michal Palgi

Intentional Communities: Definition and Structure

This book explores conflicts and conflict resolution within intentional communities. The term “community” is broad, encompassing various formal and informal groups. The communities we are targeting are place-based. Many characteristics have been associated with such communities compared to other human organizations. Tönnies used the term “Gemeinschaft” to describe an organization where everyone knows everyone else via daily interactions, social network of family and friends. Durkheim calls “mechanical solidarity” a society in which there is a shared culture and group members act and think according to a common consciousness that creates strong solidarity. We focus on face-to-face intentional communities that share a geographical space, have stable membership, exhibit interaction or relationships among participants, and foster a sense of belonging.

This definition excludes professional communities, virtual communities, support communities, cultural communities, ethnic communities, and similar communities.

Intentional communities are “small, voluntary social units partly isolated from general society in which members share an economic union and lifestyle in an attempt to implement, at least in part, their ideal ideological, religious, political, social, economic, and educational systems” (Pitzer, 1989).

Intentional communities combine complex economic organizations and residential communities run by their members. As economic organizations, they are cooperatives controlled by their members. As residential communities, they oversee all the activities and services that municipalities provide for their inhabitants.

Intentional communities are not the result of a natural occurrence or a random gathering of people, although it is possible that members were connected before declaring their shared intent. Instead, they are formed from an initial intention by a group of people who consciously come together to create a way of life that contradicts the mainstream style in society. The goals are not partial but constitute a complete lifestyle different from the conventional one in society. Moreover, the community’s way of life is considered inherently valuable, beyond its instrumental value. The individuals comprising the group see themselves and their community as distinct and separate from the surrounding environment, and the existence of the community holds moral value, with its goals transcending the individual members’ lifestyles. Collaboration is integral to the community’s ideology and according to the community’s goals. Even if those goals are aimed at benefiting individuals, they can only be achieved within the shared framework (Pitzer, 2017).

These voluntary residential communities become central to their members’ lives. Intentional communities are localized groups fostering direct interpersonal interactions (i.e., face to face relations). They operate as self-governing entities with participatory decision-making processes.

Types of Intentional Communities

Intentional communities come in diverse forms, each with distinct features and objectives. Common types include ecovillages, cohousing, religious and secular communes, and kibbutzim.

Ecovillages focus on ecological sustainability. Members aim to live in harmony with nature and use environmentally friendly practices like renewable energy or sustainable building techniques. In recent years a sub-type has emerged, the permaculture community, that uses permaculture principles to minimize environmental impact and promote self-sufficiency (Bluesmith, 2023; Daily, 2017; Mollison, 1991). According to the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), as of 2023, there are around 10,000 ecovillages in 114 countries with a total population of over 100,000 people.

Cohousing is a form of collaborative living where residents actively choose to be part of a close-knit community. In this arrangement people have their own private homes, typically grouped around communal areas. Residents live in individual houses or attached units, each equipped with standard amenities and usually a small kitchen. The heart of a cohousing community is often a shared building, commonly referred to as the “common house.” This central facility frequently includes a spacious kitchen and dining area, laundry facilities, and spaces for various activities. The design of cohousing communities emphasizes social interaction through shared outdoor spaces. These may include connecting pathways, open green areas, communal parking lots, playgrounds, and gardens. Beyond physical spaces, cohousing often involves sharing resources and skills among neighbors, such as tools, childcare duties, and creative talents (Bianchi et al., 2024; Tummers, 2016). There are also senior cohouses designed for older adults who want to age in a supportive community (Puplampu, 2020).

Communes are groups of people who live together and share responsibilities, possessions, and resources (such as income, food, and housing). Decisions are usually made collectively, with an emphasis on consensus and cooperation. Communes are founded on specific principles or ideologies, such as environmental sustainability, social equality, religion, or spiritual beliefs.

Religious communes are based on spiritual or religious beliefs. Members share values related to faith and engage in shared practices and rituals (Killian 2017; Miller, 2013). Most communes are religious, and some have existed for hundreds of years (Oved, 2017).

Secular communes are a relatively new phenomenon. Most of those communes create an alternative lifestyle to the capitalist world. Only some of these communes survive beyond the founding generation.

The kibbutz is a special type of commune, found in Israel. Most kibbutzim (plural of kibbutz) are secular, but some are religious. The first kibbutz was founded at the beginning of the 20th century and by now there are about 270 Israeli kibbutzim spread all over the country, with a population of 200,000. The main values upon which the kibbutz communities were originally based were:

1. equality among members, creating an environment in which members receive their needs from the community and in which they contribute to it according to their ability;

2. common ownership of assets such as means of production and consumption;

3. mutual responsibility;

4. direct democracy in local governance and the practice of rotation of all officeholders;

5. self-labor (i.e., without hired labor), deriving from the socialist ideal not to exploit hired labor.

Originally, kibbutz members received equal budgets and special additions for individual needs. Members owned and operated kibbutz assets in common, working together in kibbutz-owned economic ventures. They lived in kibbutz-owned housing and ate their meals in a central dining hall. The kibbutz provided all necessary services like laundry, entertainment, and sports. In addition, members raised their children in communal centers for children that also served as dormitories in almost all kibbutzim.

The kibbutz has undergone a transformation since the end of the 20th century, allowing members to have various forms of private ownership, paying salaries to members, and allowing non-members to live in the kibbutz (Abramitzki, 2018; Ben Raphael & Shemer, 2020; Palgi & Reinharz, 2013; Russel, Hanneman, & Getz, 2013)

Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution

As in any human organization, conflicts frequently occur in intentional communities. They can emerge from internal communal aspects: conflict between members or between members and community officials who administer the community’s democratically-adopted by-laws. They can also stem from the organizational aspect: a workplace owned by its employees, a residential place governed by its inhabitants, and so on. Other sources of conflict are external: between the community and the surrounding neighborhoods, the state, or other official entities (see the chapter by Levi).

One might expect that intentional communities, based on shared values and face-to-face relations, would be friendly places, free of conflicts where their inhabitants feel close to their partners. But despite these shared values and face-to-face relations, conflicts do arise and significant efforts are focused on their prevention. Conflicts can pose a menace to the community because of its overlapping social networks. A conflict not only involves the participants but also a wider circle of community members, interconnected with one or both parties. So even if a conflict is between two individuals, it can affect the entire community.

On the other hand, there are those who consider conflicts as a...

Über Autor(innen)

Michal Palgi, a professor of organizational sociology, is a senior researcher and the previous head of the Institute for Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea at the University of Haifa. She was the chair and founder of the graduate program in Organizational Development and Consulting at the Emek Yezreel College in Israel and among the founders of the Action Research Center there. Prof. Michal Palgi is a former president of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management (RC10) and was Co-President of the International Work and Labor Network on "Regional and Local Development". She is a member of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) and its past president. Prof. Palgi was nominated as an advisor to the Austrian-German research project ODEM (Organizational Democracy – Resources of Organizations for social behavior readiness conducive to Democracy).
Prof. Palgi's main areas of research and activity are organizational democracy, organizational change; gender-based inequality; social justice; kibbutz society and community development. She has published extensively on kibbutz, organizational democracy, community development and gender.

Shlomo Getz is the head of the Institute for Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea at the University of Haifa. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a faculty member at the department of sociology and anthropology at the Emek Yezreel College in Israel and a visiting professor at the university of California, Riverside. Dr. Getz's main area of research are institutional changes of the kibbutz, process of decommunization, cooperatives. Another field of research is personal and environmental resources of students in their college choice. He has published in both areas of research.