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Seeing Like a Commons

Eighty Years of Intentional Community Building and Commons Stewardship in Celo, North Carolina

Joshua Lockyer

In Seeing Like a Commons, Joshua Lockyer demonstrates how a growing group of people have, over the last eighty years, deliberately built Celo Community, a communal settlement on 1,200 acres of commonly owned land in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Joshua Lockyer highlights the potential for intentional communities like Celo to raise awareness of global interconnectivity and structural inequalities, enabling people and communities to become better stewards and citizens of both local landscapes and global commons.

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Lexington Books
Pages: 278 • Trim: 6½ x 9
978-1-4985-9288-8 • Hardback • May 2021 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-9290-1 • Paperback • January 2023 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
978-1-4985-9289-5 • eBook • May 2021 • $38.00 • (£30.00)
Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General, Nature / General, Social Science / Regional Studies

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

Part I: Introduction and History

Introduction: Intentional Community, Commons, and Utopia

Chapter 1: Arthur Morgan, Utopianism, and the Founding of Celo Community

Chapter 2: Cultivating Intentional Community Commons: A History of Celo Community

Chapter 3: A Commons Community Today: Celo through the Lens of Transformative Utopianism

Part II: Design Principles for a Commons Community

Chapter 4: Common Land and Community Membership: Celo’s Social and Spatial Boundaries

Chapter 5: Creating Our Own Commons Rules

Chapter 6: Governing Ourselves and Our Commons

Chapter 7: Keeping Each Other Honest

Chapter 8: When One of Us is Not Honest

Chapter 9: Dealing with Disputes on the Commons

Chapter 10: Gaining Official Recognition

Chapter 11: The Commons and Larger Democratic Systems

Chapter 12: Beyond the Design Principles: Other Factors that Make Celo Work

Conclusion: Cultivating Commons Subjects in and Beyond Intentional Community

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.


— Choice Reviews


Seeing Like a Commons is the definitive study of the famous Celo community founded by Arthur Morgan, the Tennessee Valley Authority chairman. Now, after Celo’s first eighty years, Joshua Lockyer’s research reveals the processes that make it one of the longest enduring secular communal utopias in America. Lockyer’s effective application of the Community Design Principles identified by Nobel Prize winning political economist Elinor Ostrom provide both a practical and theoretical framework for his on-sight ethnographic observations, interviews, and for the book itself. Seeing Like a Commons is the first work to apply Ostrom’s commons concept to the field of communal studies. Lockyer’s own theory of transformative utopianism and use of the theory of developmental communalism also add to a deeper understanding of Celo’s success. Engaging vignettes, with which Lockyer opens chapters, personalize for the reader the inner workings of Celo’s governance and resolution of interpersonal conflicts. In all, Seeing Like a Commons is ethnography, history, and communal utopian studies at their best.


— Donald E. Pitzer, professor emeritus, University of Southern Indiana


Lockyer’s study goes into rich detail about the lives of Celo’s members and how Celo deals with such perennial community issues as decision-making, rule enforcement, new members, interactions with neighbors, and stewardship of natural resources. Seeing Like a Commons is much more than an ethnography, for Lockyer skillfully contextualizes Celo’s goals of creating a more just, resilient, and sustainable world. Lockyer’s hope that Celo can show all of us ‘a different way of living in the belly of the beast’ is sure to be realized in this excellent book.


— Jonathan G. Andelson, Grinnell College


With rich ethnographical and historical material from Celo, North Carolina, this book illuminates efforts to re-animate heritages of long-term cooperation in contexts dominated by competitive individualism and utilitarian market relations. Drawing on Ostrom’s studies of commons that have evolved over millennia among place-based communities managing socio-ecosystems worldwide, Lockyer engages work by Bollier, Escobar, Scott, and Gibson-Graham to elegantly theorize contemporary practices of commoning and community. Lockyer motivates students and scholars to ally with endeavors to reestablish local commoning, arguing that, in a world facing deep socio-environmental crises, such efforts contribute toward sociocultural changes necessary to revive our global commons.


— Susan Paulson, University of Florida


• Winner, Timothy Miller Outstanding Publication Award (Communal Studies Association, 2021)

Seeing Like a Commons

Eighty Years of Intentional Community Building and Commons Stewardship in Celo, North Carolina

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • In Seeing Like a Commons, Joshua Lockyer demonstrates how a growing group of people have, over the last eighty years, deliberately built Celo Community, a communal settlement on 1,200 acres of commonly owned land in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Joshua Lockyer highlights the potential for intentional communities like Celo to raise awareness of global interconnectivity and structural inequalities, enabling people and communities to become better stewards and citizens of both local landscapes and global commons.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 278 • Trim: 6½ x 9
    978-1-4985-9288-8 • Hardback • May 2021 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
    978-1-4985-9290-1 • Paperback • January 2023 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
    978-1-4985-9289-5 • eBook • May 2021 • $38.00 • (£30.00)
    Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General, Nature / General, Social Science / Regional Studies
Author
Author
  • Joshua Lockyer is associate professor of anthropology at Arkansas Tech University.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Part I: Introduction and History

    Introduction: Intentional Community, Commons, and Utopia

    Chapter 1: Arthur Morgan, Utopianism, and the Founding of Celo Community

    Chapter 2: Cultivating Intentional Community Commons: A History of Celo Community

    Chapter 3: A Commons Community Today: Celo through the Lens of Transformative Utopianism

    Part II: Design Principles for a Commons Community

    Chapter 4: Common Land and Community Membership: Celo’s Social and Spatial Boundaries

    Chapter 5: Creating Our Own Commons Rules

    Chapter 6: Governing Ourselves and Our Commons

    Chapter 7: Keeping Each Other Honest

    Chapter 8: When One of Us is Not Honest

    Chapter 9: Dealing with Disputes on the Commons

    Chapter 10: Gaining Official Recognition

    Chapter 11: The Commons and Larger Democratic Systems

    Chapter 12: Beyond the Design Principles: Other Factors that Make Celo Work

    Conclusion: Cultivating Commons Subjects in and Beyond Intentional Community

Reviews
Reviews
  • 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.


    — Choice Reviews


    Seeing Like a Commons is the definitive study of the famous Celo community founded by Arthur Morgan, the Tennessee Valley Authority chairman. Now, after Celo’s first eighty years, Joshua Lockyer’s research reveals the processes that make it one of the longest enduring secular communal utopias in America. Lockyer’s effective application of the Community Design Principles identified by Nobel Prize winning political economist Elinor Ostrom provide both a practical and theoretical framework for his on-sight ethnographic observations, interviews, and for the book itself. Seeing Like a Commons is the first work to apply Ostrom’s commons concept to the field of communal studies. Lockyer’s own theory of transformative utopianism and use of the theory of developmental communalism also add to a deeper understanding of Celo’s success. Engaging vignettes, with which Lockyer opens chapters, personalize for the reader the inner workings of Celo’s governance and resolution of interpersonal conflicts. In all, Seeing Like a Commons is ethnography, history, and communal utopian studies at their best.


    — Donald E. Pitzer, professor emeritus, University of Southern Indiana


    Lockyer’s study goes into rich detail about the lives of Celo’s members and how Celo deals with such perennial community issues as decision-making, rule enforcement, new members, interactions with neighbors, and stewardship of natural resources. Seeing Like a Commons is much more than an ethnography, for Lockyer skillfully contextualizes Celo’s goals of creating a more just, resilient, and sustainable world. Lockyer’s hope that Celo can show all of us ‘a different way of living in the belly of the beast’ is sure to be realized in this excellent book.


    — Jonathan G. Andelson, Grinnell College


    With rich ethnographical and historical material from Celo, North Carolina, this book illuminates efforts to re-animate heritages of long-term cooperation in contexts dominated by competitive individualism and utilitarian market relations. Drawing on Ostrom’s studies of commons that have evolved over millennia among place-based communities managing socio-ecosystems worldwide, Lockyer engages work by Bollier, Escobar, Scott, and Gibson-Graham to elegantly theorize contemporary practices of commoning and community. Lockyer motivates students and scholars to ally with endeavors to reestablish local commoning, arguing that, in a world facing deep socio-environmental crises, such efforts contribute toward sociocultural changes necessary to revive our global commons.


    — Susan Paulson, University of Florida


Awards
Awards
  • • Winner, Timothy Miller Outstanding Publication Award (Communal Studies Association, 2021)

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