ICSA 2026 · Lebensgarten

Resilience in an Age of Uncertainty

Conference Program   -   7-11 July 2026

Programme of Paper Sessions, Workshops, Panels & Events

This program gathers the conference's paper sessions, workshops, panels, and special events in the order they unfold across the week, from the pre-conference tour and the Taste of Lebensgarten immersion through to the closing sessions. Papers are grouped into thematic sessions, with contrasting themes paired in parallel slots so attendees rarely face a clash of interests. For every presenter you will find a short biography, and for every paper and workshop a clear summary of what it offers.

Tuesday • 7 July 2026   -   Pre-Conference

PRE-CONFERENCE EDUCATIONAL TOUR      Full day

Lower Saxony Community Tour

Flegessen & Friedenshof Arche   ·   transport & meals included   ·   open to attendees and non-attendees

Held on Tuesday 7 July, the day before the conference opens, this ICSA educational tour is a one-day field visit for scholars, practitioners, and friends of intentional community, ecovillage life, communal spirituality, and grassroots local renewal. The day pairs two contrasting communities in Lower Saxony. At Flegessen, participants encounter citizen-led village revitalization — participatory governance, a repair culture, shared mobility, a community newspaper, and a volunteer-run organic village shop. At Friedenshof Arche, a Peace Farm Ark shaped by Gandhi, Lanza del Vasto, and Benedictine and Taizé currents, they meet a community grounded in ecological practice, a shared economy, and simple living. The aim is to encounter living communities firsthand and to ask what villages, ecovillages, and lay monastic experiments can teach one another. Transport and meals are included, and the tour is organized by ICSA on a non-profit basis.

8:30 – 9:00 AM    Breakfast at Lebensgarten (Dining Hall)

9:00 AM    Depart for Flegessen

9:45 AM – 12:30 PM    Flegessen - tour & discussion (coffee & snacks)

12:30 – 1:45 PM    Lunch at Flegessen

1:45 PM    Depart for Arche Friedenshof

3:30 – 6:15 PM    Arche Friedenshof - tour & discussion (drinks & snack)

6:30 PM    Return to Lebensgarten

7:30 – 8:30 PM    Communal dinner at Lebensgarten

Wednesday • 8 July 2026   -   Pre-Conference

9:30 – 11:30 AM    ICSA Board Meeting (coffee & pastries)

PRE-CONFERENCE IMMERSION      8–9 July

Taste of Lebensgarten

A 24-hour immersion at Lebensgarten Ecovillage   ·   open to registered participants

Beginning the afternoon before the conference and running a full twenty-four hours into Thursday morning, Taste of Lebensgarten invites participants to step inside the daily life of the host community rather than simply visit the venue. The immersion unfolds through shared meals, guided tours, conversation, meditation, movement, and hands-on participation: guests meet community members, learn how decisions are made, take part in collective practices, and contribute to a service project alongside residents. The timeline below runs from Wednesday lunch through Thursday midday, just before the conference opens.

Wed · 1:00 – 2:00 PM    Lunch (Dining Hall)

Wed · 3:00 PM    Guided tour

Wed · 4:00 PM    Questions, answers, coffee & cake

Wed · 6:00 – 7:00 PM    Dinner

Wed · 7:30 PM    Meet the Members

Thu · 6:30 – 7:30 AM    Meditation & tea ceremony

Thu · 8:30 – 9:30 AM    Breakfast

Thu · 9:30 – 10:00 AM    Circle dance

Thu · 10:00 – 11:30 AM    Service project

Thursday • 9 July 2026

8:00 – 11:30 AM    Arrivals & Registration    ·    Taste of Lebensgarten (Day 2)

OPENING GATHERING & PLENARY · IN THE STUDIO      11:30 AM – 1:00 PM

Welcome & Panel on Resilience in Community

Moderator: Dan McKanan (USA)   ·   Panelists: Taisa Mattos (Brazil), Monica Bhatia (USA), Anton Marks (IL)

The conference opens with a welcome and a plenary panel on what resilience means for communities living through an age of uncertainty, setting the themes that run through the days to follow.

1:00 – 2:30 PM    ICSA Community Opening Lunch

2:40 – 4:00 PM

PAPER SESSION    ·    Main Studio

Communal Living in Denmark

Moderator: Deborah Altus

Redefining Communal Living in Denmark

Stephen Lloyd-Moffett

Stephen Lloyd-Moffett is a professor of religion and culture at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo, California), guest researcher at the Department of Built Environment (BUILD) at Aalborg University (Copenhagen), on the board of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA), and was a co-founder of the Lavra Community, an intentional community in California.

Summary

Denmark, long recognized as the birthplace of the cohousing movement and a global leader in communal living, is experiencing a renewed boom in collective forms of housing. Our ongoing research project to create an Inventory of Collaborative Living in Denmark shows that the number of housing units in communal environments has nearly doubled over the past decade (an 82% increase), rising by more than 10% in each of the last five years. In the past five years alone, over 7,000 new residences have been completed across 170 new cohousing (bofællesskab) and ecovillage (økosamfund) projects. Unlike earlier Danish models—typically resident-driven, owner-occupied communities or publicly supported senior cohousing—today’s developments are often large, developer-led projects. These new communities promote their low ecological footprint, employ community coordinators to organize activities, and are frequently offered as rental housing rather than privately owned homes. These shifts raise key questions about how we define intentional and collaborative communities today: • When market-rate housing emphasizes community, shared resources, and collaborative governance, but avoids labeling itself as cohousing or intentional community, where do we draw the boundaries? • If nearly all consciously-formed communities stress sustainability and living with a low ecological footprint, what truly defines an ecovillage? • When community coordinators are paid to facilitate interactions, how distinct are these communities from resorts, retirement communities, or “lifestyle” developments? • How does the profit motive by developers influence long-term community formation, especially when residents move in after construction is complete? This paper explores how definitions of collaborative living are evolving, drawing on new data and examples from Danish cohousing (bofællesskab), ecovillages (økosamfund), collective houses (kollektivehus), and communes (kollektive). It argues that our definitions and assumptions must adapt alongside the changing realities of contemporary housing.

Christiania and Denmark's Soft Power: Experimentation, Autonomy, and Democratic Liminality

Ana Margarida Esteves

Coordinator of the Sustainable Societies research group at the Center for International Studies of Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon, and Guest Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Economy of the same institution. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University and held visiting fellowships at Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve and Scuola Normale Superiore, as well as teaching and research positions in the USA (Tulane University, New Orleans, LA), Brazil and Malaysia. Her scholarship focuses on how place-based responses to the polycrisis, including strategies of commoning, forms of solidarity economy and transition initiatives, organize transnationally to impact economic, cultural and institutional regimes.

Summary

Christiania and Denmark's Soft Power: Experimentation, Autonomy, and Democratic Liminality In this presentation, I examine Freetown Christiania as a living experiment in collective self-governance that has developed through continuous negotiation with, but never full incorporation into, Denmark’s broader traditions of folk enlightenment and cultural democracy. I present Christiania as a long-standing democratic experiment whose global visibility both protects and challenges its autonomy, using participatory research to explore that unresolved tension from within. This presentation makes an exploratory analysis of an issue that remains controversial both within Denmark and internationally: the fact that Christiania has become part of Copenhagen’s identity and is often presented abroad as a symbol of Denmark’s reputation for democratic tolerance and social experimentation. Based on exploratory in-depth interviews with community members and relevant public officials, as well as media reports and public documents, I make a preliminary analysis of how Christiania’s everyday practices of self-governance—such as collective decision-making, shared responsibility for common spaces, and internal conflict mediation—are shaped by, and respond to, increasing public recognition through tourism, media representation, and cultural policy. I foreground ongoing controversies over whether such recognition—through tourism, cultural policy, or symbolic inclusion in narratives of “soft power”—risks undermining foundational principles of autonomy, non-instrumentalization, and resistance to normalization and commodification. Rather than treating Christiania as a model or case study to be explained from the outside, the presentation approaches it as a living community engaged in ongoing negotiation over autonomy, participation, and visibility, paying particular attention to internal disagreements and unresolved tensions around public and institutional recognition, co-existence with mainstream cultural and institutional norms, political participation and co-optation. I aim to understand these tensions from within, and to support reflection on what autonomy and public visibility mean for Christiania today, treating disagreement, ambivalence, and unresolved tension as central to the community’s democratic character.

Mapping collective living: resilience, heritage, and everyday resistance in Denmark

Katrine Stahlschmidt

Katrine Stahlschmidt is an architect from Copenhagen and a student of Nordic Urban Planning, currently based in Tromsø, Norway. Her work and studies center on citizen participation, co-living, and cultural heritage, exploring how these elements shape more inclusive and resilient urban spaces. Having lived in collectives for the past ten years, Katrine brings both personal and professional insight into communal living. She joined Kollektivforeningen in early 2025.

Anders Holsting

Anders Boss Holsting has spent the past fifteen years living in collective housing in Copenhagen, where shared living has shaped both his daily life and his outlook on community. As chair of Kollektivforeningen for the past five years, he has worked to strengthen and support communities across Denmark. His curiosity about how people create resilience together has also led him to Greenland, where his research focuses on strong local communities. Anders holds a degree in International Studies from Roskilde University.

Summary

In an age of housing insecurity and climate uncertainty, collective living offers a grounded form of resilience. This presentation explores Kollektivforeningen’s national mapping of Danish collectives (kollektiver), a collaboration with BUILD, and connects it with ongoing research on sustainable and heritage-conscious urban planning. Despite it being a widespread community-oriented housing form in Danish cities, kollektiver remain largely undocumented and under-researched. The mapping project, which has already identified over 500 collectives, seeks to make this invisible housing culture visible to researchers, planners, and policymakers. Building on the thesis “Resisting the Fast City: Housing Collectives, Heritage, and the Politics of Sustainable Urban Futures”, the presentation situates kollektiver as everyday acts of resistance to speculative urban development. Through shared responsibility, continuity, and adaptive reuse, they embody intentional community resilience—not as utopia, but as lived practice in an age of uncertainty.

PAPER SESSION    ·    Gallery

Environmental Resilience in Community

Moderator: Jan Bang

Intentional Communities and Ecovillages as Real-Life Experiments for Socio-Ecological Resilience and Sustainable Lifestyles

Iris Kunze

Iris Kunze, PhD, is a leading academic researcher in the fields of intentional communities, ecovillages, and sustainable ways of living since 2002 at universities in Europe. She has lived in various ecocommunities—including Sieben Linden. Iris a board member in ICSA and works internationally as a coach and facilitator. https://iriskunze.wordpress.com/

Summary

Intentional communities and ecovillages are grassroots initiatives that function as “real-life laboratories” for resilience and sustainable lifestyles. They pursue sustainability through practical, everyday experimentation, holistically redesigning housing, food systems, mobility, governance, and local economies. Drawing on more than two decades of research, this presentation conceptualizes these initiatives as intentional eco-communities and analyzes their ecological impacts, social innovations, societal influence, and transformative potential. Empirical studies show that ecovillages often achieve significantly reduced ecological footprints while maintaining or improving quality of life. This is enabled through communal organization, shared infrastructures, cooperative forms of production and consumption, and solidarity-based economic practices. At the same time, such communities face internal and external tensions, including pressures of individualization, processes of institutionalization, and challenges of conflict and collective decision-making. Many communities respond by developing innovative governance models, dialogue and conflict-resolution practices, and approaches to personal and collective development. Framed here as experiments in “Community 2.0,” intentional communities and ecovillages prefigure alternative socio-ecological futures while strengthening local resilience. As grassroots innovations, they generate practical knowledge, competencies, and narratives that increasingly inform policy debates, urban planning, and education for sustainable lifestyles. The presentation draws on a forthcoming chapter: Kunze, Iris (forthcoming 2026): Intentional communities and ecovillages as real-life experiments for sustainable lifestyles. In: Cohen, M., M. Bengtsson, R. Lambino, S. Lorek, and S. McGreevey (eds.) Handbook of Research on Sustainable Lifestyles. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (2026).

Learning to Live Together in Uncertain Times: Regenerative Ambiances in an Ecovillage Gathering

Beatriz Arruda

Beatriz Arruda is an architect and urban designer, a distance-learning specialist and educator, and a Zero Waste consultant. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Civil Engineering at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil, and a visiting researcher at the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE), Portugal. She leads the CASA Latina Education and Research Circle, focusing on Zero Waste events and ecovillage gatherings as educational spaces for transformative learning and circular economy practices.

Summary

How does learning for resilience emerge in explicitly temporary intentional communities, in the absence of formal curricula, institutional structures, or promises of permanence? How can such processes be analytically understood without reducing them to either infrastructure or individual learning outcomes? This paper examines how learning related to collective life and environmental care is configured in an ecovillage gathering. The analysis is based on a qualitative, exploratory case study conducted during the 5th Continental Gathering of Communities (ECCO 2025), a ten-day event held at La Espiral Ecovillage, in Argentina. The gathering brought together more than one hundred participants from thirteen Latin American countries and temporarily constituted an expanded intentional community within the host ecovillage. Empirical materials were produced through participant observation, supported by narrative and visual records, focusing on everyday practices, spatial arrangements, and collective organization. The analytical framework combines a phenomenological approach to ambiances with ecopedagogical perspectives and Félix Guattari's three ecologies. Rather than focusing on adaptive capacities or resilience to external shocks, the analysis foregrounds how learning and regeneration are enacted through everyday collective practices in contexts marked by temporality, self-organization, and the absence of predefined educational structures. The findings indicate that learning processes were shaped by the articulation of technical, relational, and symbolic dimensions, expressed through engagement with space and materials, collective organization and care practices, and rituals and affective atmospheres in shared spaces. These processes were consolidated through daily coexistence and embodied repetition. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes the concept of Regenerative Ambiances to describe situated configurations in which space, social relations, and embodied practices converge to support learning aligned with regenerative values. The study contributes to debates on intentional communities by offering an empirically grounded perspective on how regeneration can be enacted and learned in everyday collective life for resilience futures.

Cultivating Resilience Beyond the Microsystem: The Role of Intentional Communities in Promoting Personal and Community Resilience through Educational-Environmental Activism

Shoshan Barkan

Shoshan Barkan is a community social worker. She holds an MA in Social Work from the University of Haifa and an additional MA in Environmental Education from Kibbutzim College. She is a PhD student at the Open University, focusing on environmental education in the context of leadership, community, and technology.

Summary

The growing impact on the environment poses significant challenges for the current and future generations, necessitating a comprehensive response to the climate crisis and the sustainability challenges. Addressing these issues requires, among other measures, the cultivation of environmental responsibility and action, particularly at the local level. Intentional communities (IC) are place-based groups building alternative social structures to promote personal and social change, thus representing influential local actors responding to global challenges. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner's Ecology of Human Development Theory, this study examines how members of an urban IC in Israel perceive their sense-of-community, and how it shapes their opportunities to influence their immediate and broader social-ecological contexts. Conducted in 2024, this mixed-methods case study draws on interviews, questionnaires, social network analysis, observations, and documents, involving 23 adult IC members and five adolescents. Findings indicate that participation in the IC enhances members' environmental awareness, expands pro-environmental behaviors, and provides a platform for environmental activism and open environmental education for all. Resilience, defined as the capacity to adapt to adversity while maintaining core functions and identity, emerged as a central outcome. The IC was found to foster personal and community resilience among members and their children through supportive family networks and experiential, direct engagement with nature in educational and community settings. For the IC's children, this engagement strengthened autonomy and a sense of choice within a safe urban environment. This study contributes to scholarship on crisis and resilience by applying Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory of Human Development while shifting the analytical focus from individuals to the social group, offering an integrated framework that connects social and environmental dimensions. It further highlights the importance of ICs as agents of change in sustainable urban living and provides valuable insights for educators and policymakers seeking to promote more resilient and inclusive urban futures.

4:20 – 5:40 PM

PAPER SESSION    ·    Main Studio

Hutterites and the German Diaspora

Moderator: Amy Hart

From Cloistered Courts to Prairie Colonies: THE HUTTERITES. Five Centuries of Communal Architecture

Sibylle Becker Kilian

Sibylle Becker-Kilian is a German architect and researcher with a background in Environmental Design from the University of Calgary. In 1999, she co-founded Kilian Architekten with her husband in Dresden, where she continues to practice. Her work spans adaptive reuse of historical buildings to sustainable public and social architecture. Becker-Kilian is also a published author on urban growth and architecture, with a long-standing interest in the intersection of built form and communal life. Her practice blends conceptual depth with practical application, grounded in the belief that architecture both shapes—and is shaped by—cultural and social values.

Summary

Architecture not only reflects social values but also actively shapes how communities live, interact, and relate to the world around them. For the Hutterites—a communal Anabaptist group with roots in the Reformation—architecture has long embodied their religious principles and collective ethos. This paper traces Hutterite settlement from early Bruderhöfe in Moravia to modern colonies in North America, examining their origins in Eastern Europe, architectural adaptation in the Dakotas, and recent shifts toward individualization. It explores how their commitment to communal living (Gütergemeinschaft) has shaped community layouts, building use, and the organization of collective life. Drawing on case studies, site analyses, and archival sources, the paper argues that Hutterite architecture serves as a living expression of the Hutterites’ ongoing negotiation between maintaining tradition and accommodating change—and offers insight into how deeply held spiritual convictions continue to shape built environments across geography and time.

Observations on Hutterite Medical Manuscripts: A Historical Analysis of Leonhard Gagasser’s Writings

Jason Stahl

Jason W. Stahl is a doctoral researcher at the University of Regensburg, studying Hutterite and Haban settlements across Slovakia and Ukraine with a focus on early modern to contemporary history, architecture, and culture. A Fulbright alum, he holds an M.A. in Manuscript Cultures from the University of Hamburg where his research examined early modern Hutterite medical manuscripts, codicology, and the transmission of cultural heritage. As an oral historian and freelance journalist, Stahl co-founded The Hutterite Way Pilgrimage Project with Paul Hofer—a 5,000+ km embodied research journey retracing sixteenth-century Hutterite migrations through Central Europe by foot and kayak (derhuttererweg.com). He also served as Lead Coordinator of the 2025 International Symposium on Hutterite and Haban Heritage (July 4–5, Slovakia, derhuttererweg.com/symposium-2025). Born and raised on a Hutterite colony in north-central Montana, Stahl lived in an intentional community for 32 years before pursuing higher education at the University of Montana. His research combines academic inquiry with personal experience and community-based approaches to minority religious histories. His other interests include end-of-life doula work, somatic bodywork, and spiritual care of the soul (Seelsorge).

Summary

This paper examines the medical manuscript culture of the Hutterites, an Anabaptist communal society that emerged in the early modern period. Restricted from using printing technology under Catholic Habsburg rule, the Hutterites developed a rich tradition of handwritten texts that emulated the conventions of printed books. Focusing on the manuscripts of Leonhard Gagasser, the community’s most prolific medical writer, the paper explores how these texts functioned as both practical repositories of knowledge and expressions of communal identity. Gagasser’s writings demonstrate the Hutterites’ engagement with broader intellectual currents—including Paracelsian medicine—while adapting such influences to their theological and social framework. Through analysis of the manuscripts’ material features, textual composition, and intended use, this study situates Hutterite manuscript culture within wider European contexts of knowledge production. It argues that Hutterite book production exemplifies a form of creative resilience, in which adaptation and innovation became defining features of cultural and religious continuity.

Communal Groups of the German Diaspora

Dan McKanan

Dan McKanan is an ICSA board member who has been studying Camphill and other communal groups for the past quarter century. He is the Emerson Senior Lecturer and author of six books, three of them on intentional communities: Touching the World: Christian Communities Transforming Society; The Catholic Worker after Dorothy; and Camp;hill and the Future: Spirituality and Disability in an Evolving Communal Movement.

Summary

What do the Hutterites, kibbutzim, Harmony Society, Amana, Bruderhof, and Camphill? All are among the most resilient communal groups, having maintained practices of economic sharing for half a century or longer. And all were founded by German speaking migrants or refugees in locations far from Germany. As the International Communal Studies Association gathers in Germany, this paper will reflect on some of the resilient qualities held in common by communities with German roots. Perhaps their most obvious commonality is the experience of persecution: all left Germany because it had proven to be an unsafe place to realize their communal ideals, and this experience did much to bind members together in mutual support and commitment. At the same time, German diasporic communities brought much of German culture with them, and some understood themselves as custodians of the true spirit of Germany or of middle Europe. Simultaneously, German diasporic communal groups have often been decidedly internationalist in ethos, planting new communities in many different nations and recruiting members from all over the world. Because my own scholarship has focused especially on the Camphill movement, many of my examples will be drawn from Camphill’s 120 communities and 85 years of history. I will draw on other German diasporic communities to the extent of my ability, and will leave some extra time for scholars of other movements to add their insights to the conversation.

PANEL SESSION    ·    Gallery

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Moderator: Cheryl Coulthard

Community and nature regeneration and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: worlds apart or a necessary partnership?

Rehema White

Professor Rehema White has long been a sustainability generalist, and now develops sustainable development scholarship from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She works in sustainability governance, including multi-level, participatory and community approaches; knowledge and collaboration; and sustainability in practice. She remains grounded through local community initiatives.

Anne-Kathrin Schwab

Dr. Anne-Kathrin Schwab is a social scientist researching sustainability, rural transformation and intentional communities. Her work focuses on community-led initiatives, participatory governance and socio-ecological change, combining qualitative research with long-term engagement in European and international sustainability networks.

Summary

We face interconnected and unpredictable global challenges, resulting in part from deep social inequalities, a loss of respect for the capacities of nature and a culture of consumption. Such challenges manifest locally, and require human responses at community as well as national and international scales. The overarching global policy to deliver dignity for all and environmental integrity is currently framed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This framework offers a systems and liberal, rights based approach to counter growth narratives. However, the SDGs are flawed in their capacity to address interactivity, manage benefits with tradeoffs, include Indigenous perspectives and enable local interpretation. In this study, we asked how actively engaged communities perceive the SDGs; if and how communities contribute to the SDGs; and whether there are tensions and tradeoffs across the SDGs system manifesting at community scale. Finally, we sought to develop recommendations for future sustainability policy that integrated local, national and global scales of action. We drew on interviews with key informants and our experiences of developing tools and processes to support community collaboration for holistic community and nature regeneration. Community initiatives enabled action whilst the SDGs were seen to focus on theoretical debate. In communities, values, nature connection, spirituality and co-learning were emphasised, although these dimensions were less visible in the SDGs. Relationality and collective intention were seen to be important in human endeavours. It was concluded that there is potential to strengthen community contributions to the sustainability transformation envisioned by the SDG agenda, and that integration of community regenerative principles and practices in future global policy iterations would strengthen our capacity to tackle global challenges and their underlying causes.

6:30 – 7:30 PM    Dinner

7:30 – 8:30 PM

INTERACTIVE EVENT    ·    Main Studio

Game Show: Test your knowledge about Intentional Communities

Deborah Altus

I'm a retired professor with long-standing interests in communal societies. I'm a member of the ICSA Board and former president of the Communal Studies Association in the USA.

Summary

This session will consist of a Jeopardy-style game show where participants can test their knowledge of international intentional communities. The goal is to have fun, promote a sense of community, and learn something in the process!

WORKSHOP    ·    Gallery

Grief Circles as Resilience Infrastructure

Corey Buttry

Corey Buttry is a facilitator, community planner, regenerative designer, and coach. Their work is rooted in the practical realities of community life - how people gather, make decisions, care for one another, and translate shared values into everyday practices. They are particularly interested in how vision is operationalized through shared structures, and how care and connection are sustained amid complexity, risk, and change.

Summary

As communities face accelerating ecological, social, and political disruption, resilience is often framed in terms of governance, economics, or material infrastructure. This interactive session proposes collective grief work as a complementary and often overlooked form of resilience infrastructure within intentional and community-based contexts. Drawing on the work of Francis Weller, Martín Prechtel, and Joanna Macy, the session situates grief not as a problem to be solved, but as a vital communal process that restores emotional truth, relational depth, and connection to the wider web of life. Within these traditions, grief is understood as an expression of love and belonging, and as a necessary response to loss in times of ecological and social unraveling. Grief circles create structured communal spaces where sorrow, anger, fear, and longing can be named and witnessed collectively, countering cultural tendencies toward privatization, bypassing, or premature narratives of resilience. Rather than aiming to resolve grief or produce cohesion, these practices support communities in remaining emotionally alive and ethically responsive amid ongoing loss. Participants will be invited to reflect on how grief functions - or remains unaddressed - within their own communities, and to explore the potential role of collective grief practices in sustaining relational capacity over time. The session will include light participatory elements such as guided reflection, small-group dialogue, and shared inquiry, designed to foster learning and exchange without requiring personal disclosure or emotional processing. These elements are intended to model how grief work can be held communally while honoring consent, boundaries, and varied levels of experience. By situating grief circles within a broader understanding of communal resilience, this session contributes to conversations in communal studies about care, continuity, and life-affirming practices in times of collective loss.

8:30 – 11:00 PM    Social Gathering at the Pub

Friday • 10 July 2026

Sunrise

CULTURAL EVENT    ·    Main Studio

Flute to Forest: A meditative soundscape honouring nature

Meet outside the Studio.

Roy Amotz

I am a musician and soul activist. I grew up in Jerusalem and now live in Berlin, Germany. After 2 decades of an international performing career as a flutist, i am giving more and more space to one of my deep desires - using music as a means of personal transformation and healing, and especially as a mean to promote intimacy between humans and non-humans. I have been practicing living in community in different formats for 10 years now, and have been very impacted by reoccurring visits and courses in and of the Tamera healing biotope community in the last 4 years. I am deeply touched by the presence and work of Sabine Lichtenfels, one of the founders of the Tamera community. My artistic work goes hand in hand with a commitment to radical transparency and showing up fully, both on and off stage. Personal and collective grief work—especially inspired by the teachings of Francis Weller—has become a significant part of my path as well, and I have participated in and facilitated music-supported grief rituals in diverse contexts. I also resonate with The Work That Reconnects by Joanna Macy - seeing music as a way to awaken our interconnection with all life, to honor our pain for the world, and to nurture resilience through collective presence and heartfelt expression.

Summary

This site-specific offering will gather participants in the forest and meadows of Lebersgarten for a meditative flute performance, creating a bridge between human intention and the more-than-human world.

8:30 – 9:30 AM    Breakfast

9:30 – 9:45 AM    Morning Gathering

9:45 – 11:10 AM

FEATURED PAPER SESSION    ·    Main Studio

Kibbutz Life After October 7

Moderator: Stephen Lloyd-Moffett

The Role of Personal Testimony in Community Revival: Edut 710's Documentation of Nahal Oz After October 7th

Shalhevet Dotan Ofir

Shalhevet Dotan Ofir holds a Ph.D. in History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in early modern Jewish communities. She volunteers with “Edut 710” and serves as a research fellow at the institute for the Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative idea, University of Haifa, and at the Hebrew University. She is a lecturer in Hertzog College, and she is participating in the Yad Tabenkin group studying kibbutz identity after October 7.

Summary

Shortly after the events of October 7, the civilian initiative “Edut 710” (“Testimony 710”) was established with the goal of creating a video archive of testimonies from individuals who experienced the traumatic events in the Western Negev. Among the interviewees of this national project, particular prominence is given to the documentation of the testimonies of members of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which includes nearly 150 accounts. The filmed interviews are conducted according to a protocol developed by the psychiatrist Prof. Dori Laub for Holocaust survivors and adapted for individuals who have undergone trauma. The interviews are intended to enable witnesses to tell their stories and to shape their own narratives. Due to the extensive scope of documentation, the Nahal Oz community serves as a case study that illustrates the ways in which a community in general—and a kibbutz community in particular—copes with crisis. Moreover, in the testimonies from Nahal Oz, the theme of communal life is especially prominent, expressed in the descriptions of reality before October 7, in conduct during the events themselves, and in the processes of recovery that followed. The article presents the process of collecting the “Edut 710” testimonies within the Nahal Oz community, the data derived from the testimonies, and the conclusions that shed light on various aspects of community and communal resilience in the encounter with trauma and in coping with its aftermath. The research is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, employing an integration of tools commonly used in the digital humanities.

“We Don’t Want to Live in Auschwitz”: Negotiating Trauma, Space, and Narrative after October 7

Anat Marle

Anat Marle is a PhD candidate in Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a member of Kibbutz Nirim on the Gaza border. Her research examines collective memory and commemoration in post–October 7 Israel, focusing on the Western Negev. She studies how memorial spaces mediate trauma, local identity, civic participation, and democratic renewal.

Summary

Commemorating difficult pasts confronts communities with a fundamental dilemma: how to narrate, spatialize, and embody trauma and loss without allowing identity to harden around victimhood. The events of October 7, 2023 shattered core national and local ethoses in Israel. Across the Western Negev, homes and infrastructure were destroyed, tens of thousands of residents were displaced for prolonged periods, and the attack was quickly framed as the gravest national catastrophe since the state’s founding. In the aftermath, Western Negev communities entered an intense, ongoing process of debating and shaping the memoryscape of October 7. These negotiations reveal deep tensions: articulating experiences of abandonment by the state and army; integrating a narrative of massacre - often likened to the Holocaust and pogroms - into a long-standing ethos of Zionist settlement, resilience, and heroism; acknowledging trauma without transforming everyday space into a permanent memorial; reconciling pro-peace identities with extreme violence; and navigating struggles over narrative authority vis-à-vis the state while sustaining plural, community-based processes of recovery. This article examines these negotiations as they unfold in kibbutzim along the Gaza border. It offers a real-time analysis of memory formation, capturing early silences, conflicts, and uncertainties. Conceptually, it advances the notion of “trauma-space resistance”: the effort to commemorate loss without allowing place to be defined by trauma, linking memory studies with scholarship on resilience, identity reconstruction, and post-catastrophe place-making.

How Social Capital and Transformative Leadership Interact in the Resilience Process of a Traumatized Community: A Case Study

Yuval Achouch

Yuval Achouch has been a member of Kibbutz Hanita since 1984. He is a research fellow at the Institute for Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea at the University of Haifa, and teaches sociology at Western Galilee College and Safed Academic College. He participated in the 10th ICSA Conference in Israel and in the ICSA Conference in Findhorn in 2013.

Summary

The goal of this study is not to tell a story of trauma and recovery, but to critically examine how events align — or fail to align — with what the academic literature says about community resilience following disaster. The paper reflects on the events following the October 7, 2023 terror attack in Kibbutz Tamar, a rural community of approximately 700 residents that was relocated first to Eilat and later to central Tel Aviv for more than a year. More specifically, the paper focuses on three key dimensions of the resilience process: the role of the state in disaster contexts; the impact of social capital on community resilience; and the role of leadership in community resilience.

11:30 AM – 12:50 PM

PAPER SESSION    ·    Main Studio

Housing, Land, and the Commons

Moderator: Beatriz Arruda

Community-Led Housing Development in Northern Germany: Institutional Frameworks, Intentionality, and Resilience

Sara Reimann

Trained urban planner and researcher, facilitator for creative group processes and project manager in urban and regional development

Alistair Adam Hernández

Graduate in business administration with a master's degree in regional management and economic development, doctorate in geography on the resilience of rural areas and villages, provides sustainable impetus in research, competence building and consulting in various roles, moderates collaborations to design effective transformation processes in spaces and organisations.

Summary

This presentation and paper examines the evolution and current dynamics of community-led housing in Northern Germany, focusing on institutional frameworks and practical implementation models. We analyse how civil society initiatives, municipal agencies, and non-profit organizations have shaped collaborative living environments over the past four decades. Beyond presenting case studies from Hamburg, Hannover, Lüneburg, and Schleswig-Holstein, we explore the boundaries and connections between housing arrangements with stronger and weaker aspects of intentional community. This perspective allows us to understand the diversity of motivations and governance structures within the cohousing spectrum. Through comparative analysis of projects such as Stadtteilleben (Hannover), Mittendrin Leben eG (Harmstorf), and querbeet (Lüneburg), we identify critical success factors: public land allocation, cooperative financing models, and participatory planning processes. We argue that institutional frameworks and implementation strategies can significantly contribute to more resilient community living and housing approaches, fostering affordability, ecological sustainability, and social cohesion. Methodological tools like the Community Compass and the CLIPS incubator program are discussed as instruments for supporting group formation and project sustainability.

Commoning for Affordable and Sustainable Housing: Ecological Intentional Communities as Resistance to Market-Based Housing

Monica Bhatia

Monica Bhatia (Ph.D, she/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington State University in the USA. She lived in housing co-operatives from 2016 to 2024, an experience that shapes her research on intentional communities, housing, and environmental justice. Her work examines how different models of collective living can both advance and constrain efforts towards ecological sustainability and social equity. She is currently working on a book entitled "Working, Eating, and Living Together: What Ecological Intentional Communities Can Teach Us About Building a Just Sustainable Society." Her work on intentional communities has been published in Environmental Sociology, Research in the Sociology of Work, and Social Problems. Currently, she is investigating institutional barriers to starting new worker cooperatives and intentional communities, with a focus on non-extractive cooperative financing as a strategy for expanding access for marginalized groups.

Summary

The United States, like many other nations, faces a multi-faceted housing crisis: housing is increasingly unaffordable, social isolation is widespread, and dominant housing systems extract resources with little regard for ecological sustainability. These issues are often treated as separate problems, but they share a common structural root: a housing system organized around private property, speculative markets, and individualized consumption. This paper examines ecological intentional communities (EICs) as living experiments that attempt to reorganize housing around commoning, or the collective stewardship of land, labor, and resources, as an alternative to dominant market logics. Drawing on five months of ethnographic fieldwork and 73 in-depth interviews, I compare three EICs in the United States that represent different degrees of decommodification: an income-sharing commune, a housing cooperative, and a cohousing community. Together, these cases illustrate a continuum of commoning, from full withdrawal from the housing market to hybrid and market-embedded models. I analyze how each community attempts to produce affordability, social connection, and ecological sustainability, as well as the constraints they face from capitalist property regimes, wage labor dependence, and cultural norms centered on private homeownership and the nuclear family. The findings show that commoning can generate meaningful social and ecological benefits across institutional forms, but that the degree of insulation from the market strongly shapes who gains access to housing and how durable these benefits are. By foregrounding property relations, I argue that housing affordability, isolation, and ecological harm are not discrete policy problems but interlinked outcomes of privatization, and that addressing them requires rethinking housing as a collective good rather than a speculative asset.

Eco-Villages and the Limits of “Scaling Up” Climate Response: Urban Scale, Communal Influence, and Institutional Translation

Lauren Kulhanjian Conrow

Lauren Kulhanjian Conrow is an urbanist, activist and scholar working to mainstream communal perspectives within community development practice and policy. Curiosity and connectivity makes her world go ‘round; originally from San Francisco, her career has spanned four continents and six countries. Lauren is a Master’s candidate in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford, where she researches social capital’s effect on community resilience. Her work emphasizes collective-housing and participatory design approaches, as well as Indigenous and de-colonial perspectives in spatial development. Most recently, Lauren served as project Co-Lead for the New Urban Agenda Write-shop series at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in Nairobi, Kenya. There, she works to increase the inclusion of Indigenous stakeholders within Secretary General reporting processes. Lauren previously served as a U.S. Peace Corps Community Economic Development Facilitator, living and working within a highly communal, Indigenous Fijian village. Her experience living collectively and learning from her host-community’s land-based wisdom powerfully informs her current research and development practice. Lauren is grateful for learning experiences that challenge her Western training through sustained engagement with non-Western ways of knowing. Ultimately, she aims to develop spaces that foster interconnection and open-hearted dialogue between people, place, and planet. Her interests also lie in art history (particularly spirituality’s influence on the genesis of Abstract Expressionism), non-fiction literature, time spent in nature, writing, live music, and joyful dressing.

Summary

This paper examines how urban scale reshapes climate responses by transforming the conditions under which communal collective action can be sustained and made politically consequential. It argues that climate governance is too often framed as a technical problem of “scaling up” solutions, when the deeper challenge is that scaling can undermine the communal mechanisms that make responses durable in the first place. Using Los Angeles Eco-Village (LAEV) as an urban intentional community, the paper treats the eco-village not as a niche sustainability model, but as an analytically powerful site of communal governance, where shared norms and cooperative decision-making generate mitigation and adaptation practices maintained through relational enforcement rather than formal regulation. The paper traces how LAEV’s climate practices and organising repertoires travel beyond the community boundary, showing that what expands at metropolitan scale is rarely the eco-village itself, but the translation of its communal capacities into wider governance arenas. In this process, eco-village influence tends to travel through coalition-building and policy pathways that enable city-scale reach while reshaping the participatory texture of the original practices. This comparison highlights a central tension of interest to communal studies: communal climate response can be intensified in bounded settings, yet its wider relevance depends on institutional pathways that may thin participation, redistribute authority, or filter which forms of eco-village knowledge survive. By framing eco-villages as both laboratories of collective low-carbon practice and sites of contested metropolitan influence, the paper shows how communal responses can be strategically amplified without losing the participatory depth that defines them.

PAPER SESSION    ·    Gallery

Social Relations within Communities

Moderator: Paz Elnir

Intra-Class Differentiation in Closed Communities | The Kibbutz Society as a Case Study

Noa Hagay Gross

Noa Hagay-Gross holds an MSc in Architecture and is currently completing an additional MSc in Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. A fourth-generation kibbutz member, she is actively involved in kibbutz planning practice and research on communal space and social change.

Summary

Spatial and social inequality does not occur only between cities, neighborhoods, or regions, but also within communities commonly perceived as homogeneous and egalitarian. This study examines intra-class differentiation in closed communities, focusing on how social stratification emerges within socially enclosed middle-class collectives. The Israeli kibbutz serves as a case study of a communal society that historically emphasized equality and solidarity, yet has undergone profound social, economic, and organizational transformations. While existing research on stratification and communal societies has primarily addressed inequalities between social groups or across different spatial settings, less attention has been paid to internal mechanisms of inequality within closed or formerly closed communities. The study aims to identify and characterize intra-class differentiation through patterns of differential accumulation of economic, cultural, and social capital, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital. It examines the relationship between capital accumulation and individual biographical characteristics, as well as the ways in which internal stratification is reflected in everyday social practices and the use of communal space. In addition, the study explores how organizational and spatial features of closed communities shape emerging patterns of internal inequality. The research is based on a quantitative case study of the kibbutz society in Israel. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to a large and diverse sample of kibbutz members (n=790) from different regions and community types. The analysis includes factor analysis for constructing capital indices and statistical tests examining relationships between capital, biographical characteristics, and social and spatial practices. Findings reveal pronounced intra-class differentiation within kibbutz communities, challenging their historical image as socially homogeneous. Clear patterns of internal stratification are evident in perceptions of community cohesion, social support networks, and everyday routines. Certain biographical characteristics demonstrate predictive power for individuals’ future class positioning. Moreover, community size, geographic location, and degree of collectivism emerge as active factors shaping internal stratification. These findings contribute to comparative research on communes and intentional communities by highlighting the social and spatial dynamics through which inequality is reproduced within ostensibly egalitarian collectives.

The paradox of social life : a psychological perspective on wellbeing in intentional communities.

Alexandre Zénon

Alexandre Zénon has worked as a CNRS researcher on different topics in cognitive neuroscience, from visual attention to cognitive fatigue and burnout. He lives in an ecovillage and is now switching his field of research to intentional communities from a socio-psychological perspective.

Summary

Human beings are inherently social, yet the experience of living with others often generates as much tension as it does fulfillment. This paper examines the paradox of social life : the simultaneous need for connection and autonomy that shapes psychological wellbeing in communal contexts. We begin with a historical overview, from Aristotle’s notion of the "zoon politikon" to Rousseau’s reflections on dependence and freedom, and then draw on contemporary philosophy and psychological theory to explore how interpersonal proximity both nurtures and destabilizes individual equilibrium. Focusing on intentional communities, which offer a concentrated setting in which everyday social dynamics become more visible, we examine how people cooperate, experience conflict, and negotiate their sense of identity in shared living arrangements. Building on Self-Determination Theory, the concept of Sense of Community, and research on value and worldview alignment, we argue that wellbeing in communal living does not arise from resolving the inherent tension between autonomy and relatedness, but from developing adaptive capacities and supportive institutional arrangements that enable individuals to balance belonging and self-determination. By approaching this paradox through a psychological lens, the paper offers fresh insights into the emotional and social dynamics of collective life in intentional communities and opens new avenues for promoting wellbeing in communal settings.

1:00 – 2:00 PM    Community Lunch

2:00 – 3:00 PM

WORKSHOP    ·    Main Studio

Living Together Across Cultures: Intercultural Communication in International Communities

Kathrin Bremer

Kathrin Bremer is a freelance trainer for Intercultural Communication. She holds a degree in Geography and currently collaborates with universities and organisations in Spain and Germany. One of her main clients is the European Commission, for which she trains young people participating in humanitarian and community-based projects within the European Solidarity Corps. Kathrin has published numerous articles on intercultural competence, communal living, political engagement, and sustainability. She has lived in different regions of Spain for more than 13 years and is an active member of an international community in Catalonia, where she combines lived communal experience with professional training and research.

Summary

International intentional communities often bring together people from diverse cultural and national backgrounds. While this diversity can be a great strength, it can also become a source of misunderstanding, conflict, and frustration if differences in communication styles, values, and social norms are not consciously addressed. This workshop explores the role of intercultural communication as a key factor for the resilience and long-term sustainability of international communities. Participants will reflect on how cultural differences shape everyday interactions within communal living settings, including approaches to direct and indirect communication, concepts of privacy and sharing, perceptions of time and punctuality, emotional expression, and expectations of reliability and responsibility. Drawing on both theoretical models of intercultural communication and the facilitator’s long-term experience living in an international community in Catalonia, the workshop combines short inputs with interactive exercises, case examples, and group reflection. Particular attention is given to how individual adaptation, collective learning, and explicit communication practices can help prevent conflict and foster mutual understanding. The workshop aims to provide participants with practical tools and reflective frameworks that can be applied in their own communities to strengthen cooperation, inclusion, and communal resilience in culturally diverse settings.

WORKSHOP    ·    Gallery

Nurturing Peace and Kindness through Gratitude, Compassion and Responsibility an OTM approach

Vincent Reynolds

Vincent has been a co-worker at the Camphill Community Glencraig in Northern Ireland since 1983. He has a wide range of experience in supporting international volunteers and is the Volunteer Co-ordinator at Glencraig.

Summary

Camphill Community Glencraig (Glencraig) was established in 1954 to provide a unique approach to supporting children, young people and adults with learning disabilities. Over the years, Glencraig has developed a reputation for providing a special holistic approach, which enables everyone to reach their full potential and live a content and meaningful life. Since the turn of the 21st Century Glencraig has developed from a community run by vocational volunteers to an organisation managed by professionals in paid employment. Volunteering has always been a fundamental aspect of life at Glencraig. Each year 20 - 30 international volunteers come and live at Glencraig. Most of these volunteers come from Africa, Asia, South America and Europe. This workshop will share how positive relationships have been nurtured between people from diverse cultural backgrounds through the Outcomes that Matter (OTM) approach. OTM was developed by Dr Leon Fulcher and Dr Thom Garfat as a support for young people in a care setting. Glencraig has adapted the OTM approach for the following reasons: • Support and accompany the volunteers on their learning journey at Glencraig • Reflect on their experiences at Glencraig from different perspectives • Enable the volunteers to record how they nurture Gratitude, Compassion, Responsibility, Peace and Kindness in their activities and interactions with other people

INTERACTIVE EVENT    ·    Forest Oasis

The challenges of being a scientivist

Anne-Kathrin Schwab

Dr. Anne-Kathrin Schwab is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vechta and a co-director of the International Ecovillage Research Institute (IERI)

Iris Kunze

Iris Kunze, PhD, is a leading academic researcher in the fields of intentional communities, ecovillages, and sustainable ways of living since 2002 at universities in Europe. She has lived in various ecocommunities—including Sieben Linden. Iris a board member in ICSA and works internationally as a coach and facilitator. https://iriskunze.wordpress.com/

Summary

The challenges of being a scientivist: an interactive exploration of activist–researcher entanglements In this interactive session, we explore the promises and pitfalls of being a “scientivist”: a person who is at once academic researcher and engaged activist. Drawing on experiences from ecovillage research and other intentional community contexts, we ask how far it is possible – and sustainable – to combine deep field engagement with the structural constraints of academia, care responsibilities and personal emotional limits. While many of us enter the field with a strong desire to contribute to socio‑ecological transformation, we face time poverty, precarious contracts, teaching loads and family commitments that make long‑term participation in communities extremely difficult. At the same time, immersion in conflict‑laden, power‑sensitive settings challenges our emotional capacities and raises questions of boundary‑setting, responsibility and self‑care. The session will start with a brief, dialogical input by the convenors, who share their own trajectories as scientivists moving between universities and ecovillages. We then invite participants into structured interactive formats (small‑group conversations, story circles, embodied reflection exercises) to surface dilemmas and creative strategies: How do communities perceive researchers who “also want to help”? When does engagement become extractive, and when is it genuinely reciprocal? How can we be accountable both to academic standards and to movements and communities we care about? Rather than offering ready‑made solutions, this interactive event aims to co‑create a shared vocabulary and practical repertoire for navigating the double role of activist and researcher. Participants will leave with a clearer sense of their own positionalities, with peer‑derived strategies for managing overload and emotional labour, and with inspiration for theoretical and methodological work on scientivism as a distinct mode of knowledge production in times of socio‑ecological crisis.

3:20 – 4:40 PM

PAPER SESSION    ·    Main Studio

Wellbeing and Resilience

Moderator: Deborah Altus

The Power of Community: Social and Ideological Influences as Shaping Factors of the Involvement of Religious Kibbutz Members in the Struggle for Soviet Jewry.

Liza Vasserman Slutsky

Liza Vasserman-Slutsky is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University. Her research focuses on the effort of Religious Kibbutz Movement members on behalf of Soviet Jewry and examines the unique intersection of Jewish life on both sides of “the iron curtain”, religious kibbutz ideology, and transnational Jewish solidarity. Her methodology combines archival work with oral history, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of this chapter in modern Jewish history. Alongside her academic pursuits, she is actively involved in history and civic education and community volunteer engagement, bringing historical research into dialogue with contemporary social issues.

Summary

The proposed paper examines the dynamics of participation in civic action based on community and social networks, and it’s influence on construction of community narrative. The paper uses a case study of the activity for the Soviet Jewry in the Religious Kibbutz Movement in Israel in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, to offer a model for examining the processes that lead joint action to shape collective identity during periods of social changes. During the 70’s, the Religious Kibbutz Movement drifted away from the centers of influence, which led to questions about the relevance and meaning of pioneering among the movement's members. At the same time, generational changes and the decline in recruitment to Nahal groups from among Bnei Akiva members in Israel, as well as the reduction in the scope of overseas groups arriving in kibbutzim, marked the beginning of a crisis in the movement's identity. Against this background, the activity of the movement’s members for the Jews of the Soviet Union, which began on a smaller scale in previous decade, offered a new channel for pioneering and Zionist-religious action. The activity was conducted under the auspices of "Nativ" (Liaison Bureau), and headed by Aryeh Karol and Sarah Hamel, both members of Kibbutz Saad. During more than two decades, they recruited dozens of members of the movement, both for secret trips to the Soviet Union and for long-term correspondence with Refuseniks and Prisoners of Zion. The study identifies several central mechanisms that enabled such a widespread recruitment of members of the movement, including ideological, social and geopolitical factors. The activity expanded and intensified until the fall of the Iron Curtain, and beyond, and the proposed paper will examine the combination of various factors that caused the activity to thrive, and it’s influences on the Religious Kibbutz Movement, and it’s networks in Israel and abroad.

Exploring Poetic Inquiry and Creative Methods: Investigating the Role of Ecovillages in Shaping Relational Wellbeing.

Erin Molyneux

I am a PhD researcher in Human Geography at Keele University (UK). Spending my childhood in New Zealand a close relationship with the natural world was nurtured through visiting intentional communities. This ultimately led me towards researching ecovillages and communities throughout my Undergraduate and Master’s degrees.

Summary

This presentation condenses the work completed for a master’s thesis and focusses on how ecovillages nurture spaces for creative methods to uncover alternative ways of ‘knowing wellbeing.’ Wellbeing is reconceptualised beyond its dominant operationalised narrative as a dynamic and embodied state we unconsciously come into and out of contact with through interacting with human and non-human lifeworlds. Wellbeing research in geography is extensive but much of it treats wellbeing as something personal that can be measured or achieved through external practices and fixed standards. In this presentation I interpret wellbeing as an emergent feeling that develops through interactions with our surroundings and relationships. Geographers describe this as an ‘affective environment’ (Andrews, Chen and Myers, 2014). From this perspective wellbeing is more than individual happiness, it is how feelings and experiences emerge through connections between humans, non-humans and the natural world. To uncover alternative ways of ‘knowing wellbeing’ I built upon creative methods including autoethnographic drawings, storytelling and poetic inquiry. The research was carried out in Findhorn ecovillage, which provided a space to apply these methods as they foster and nurture individual and community resilience through creative expression such as music, art and dance alongside spirituality. In my analysis I used poetic inquiry to illuminate and foreground these emotional and affective experiences of wellbeing. In this presentation I will show how poetic inquiry was applied within an autoethnographic study to draw out relational and felt aspects of wellbeing. It will explain how this was made possible through the creative expression of everyday life at Findhorn ecovillage and help to mitigate the loneliness crisis by reconceptualising wellbeing. A combination of poems and drawings will be shared from this research to illustrate how creative methodologies facilitated the reconceptualisation of wellbeing and the production of more accessible research.

Personal Wellbeing and Happiness through Community Law and Normative Practice

Nimi Langer

I am a lawyer and scholar of community and cooperative law based in the kibbutz where I was born and where I live with my family, Kibbutz Gesher Haziv in the Western Galilee. My research examines how legal and governance frameworks shape happiness, trust, wellbeing, relationships, and resilience in intentional and cooperative communities. I hold a PhD in law focused on the impact of public policy and internal regulation on the well being of cooperative members. Alongside my academic work, I have extensive practical experience as chairman and manager of different types of cooperative organizations, including a kibbutz. I have worked closely with cooperative boards, general meetings, and management teams on governance design, conflict resolution, and institutional change. My work seeks to bridge theory and practice, exploring how law can function not only as regulation but as a shared framework that supports participation, responsibility, reciprocity, and sustainable communal life, rooted in care for people and for the communities they choose to build together.

Summary

ntentional communities are built first and foremost on relationships, and personal wellbeing and happiness are deeply rooted in these relationships. Happiness in communal life is not only an individual experience, but a shared condition shaped by norms, decisions, and everyday practices. Law and governance are often experienced as technical or bureaucratic frameworks, yet in communal life they play a central role in shaping trust, belonging, happiness, and the everyday sense of safety. This session grows out of doctoral research and lived experience within a cooperative community and explores how legal structures can either support or weaken happiness and resilience among community members and within the community itself as a living social body. Drawing on a case study of an Israeli kibbutz, the presentation invites a shift in perspective. Community law is examined not as a contractual or corporate mechanism, but as a shared normative space grounded in care, dignity, and mutual responsibility. Through concrete examples, the session reflects on how different legal layers, including state regulation, cooperative law, bylaws, community treaties (Vision Statements), management decisions, and General Meeting resolutions, are experienced in daily life and influence relationships, trust, and collective happiness. Insights from happiness and wellbeing research are woven into the discussion through specific directives, public policy choices, and budgetary decisions, presented in an accessible and grounded way. The focus is on elements communities often recognize intuitively, such as trust in one another, willingness to listen, responsibility beyond the self, reciprocity, and the courage to revise rules when they no longer serve the happiness of the people living under them. Particular attention is given to post crisis situations, where communities are asked to combine inner work with institutional change. The session includes an applied workshop component. Participants will be invited into a shared process of reflection, working at the level of vision, governance decisions, General Meeting resolutions, and electoral processes that reduce mistrust. The aim is not to draft perfect rules, but to practice seeing law as a living tool for strengthening happiness, trust, participation, reciprocity, and collective resilience.

PAPER SESSION    ·    Gallery

The Approaches of Social Sciences in Communal Studies

Moderator: Dan McKanan

Community as a social praxis of belonging: a sociological research perspective

Matthias Grundmann

Matthias Grundmann was a full professor at the University of Münster, Germany, from 2000 to 2025. He now holds a senior professorship in socialisation, community, and sustainability research.

Summary

This lecture outlines a sociological research perspective on communal living, examining shared activities, co-constructive doing, and the visions and values that guide them — as well as the social added value and communicative exchanges that sustain everyday life in communities. Understood this way, community represents a small-scale yet significant dimension of social life: a concrete practice of coexistence shaped by cultural, regional, and experiential environments, generated through sustained action that creates distinctive spaces of shared experience. This multi-perspective view encompasses everyday practices, relationship-building, and the co-construction of living spaces that can enable sustainable and just ways of life, while also bringing lived differences to light that enrich coexistence. At the same time, communal life carries risks of idealization and the generalization of particular worldviews, making an ideology-critical perspective essential — one capable of identifying totalitarian tendencies and, through a socio-ecological research matrix, empirically mapping the complex network of effects inherent in communal living, including the social and political positions of the communities analyzed.

Cultures of Consensus and Debate: Intentional Communities as Models for Collaborative Problem-Solving

Kelly Hayes

Dr. Kelly E. Hayes, Professor at Indiana University, studies new religious movements in the Americas. Since 1997, she has researched marginalized spiritual practices in Brazil. Her books include Holy Harlots (2011) on gender and Afro-Brazilian spirituality, and Spirits of the Space Age (2024) on Brazil's Valley of the Dawn movement.

Knut Graw

Dr. Knut Graw is an anthropologist and a permanent research fellow at Friedrich Alexander University. His research focuses on divination, migration, and religious practices in West Africa. He co-edited The Global Horizon and has published widely, holding positions at institutions including University of Leuven and Nordic Africa Institute.

Summary

Intentional communities have long experimented with radical alternatives to mainstream economic, political, environmental, and social arrangements. But one of their most valuable innovations may be the least visible: systematic practices for fostering cooperation among people who share core principles but bring diverse perspectives and life experiences. Successful communities have developed sophisticated methods—structured dialogue, collective discernment, participatory decision-making—that strengthen communal bonds and ensure decisions reflect collective values. Yet these practices remain little known outside the communities themselves. Drawing on preliminary research conducted at two intentional communities: the New Meadow Run Bruderhof (Farmington, PA), which uses collective discernment rooted in Anabaptist traditions, and Tamera (Portugal), a New Age community practicing "Forum" dialogue methods, we examine how these practices work, what makes them effective, and whether they can be adapted to broader social contexts. We focus on three dimensions: • Practices and Mechanisms: How do these communities design, implement, and maintain structured consensus-building and conflict-management practices? What specific techniques make them effective? • Foundations: How do these practices relate to communities' moral teachings, worldviews, and rituals? What role does character formation play in building collaborative capacity? • Adaptation: Which elements can transfer to broader social settings experiencing polarization and institutional distrust? How can comparative ethnography inform theory on civic participation and collective action in pluralistic contexts?

"The Wheat Grows Again": Thoughts About Resilience of Kibbutz Communities Following October 7

Alon Gan

Dr. Alon Gan is a senior lecturer at Seminar Hakibbutzim College, Director of Research at Yad Tabenkin, And chairman of the Kibbutz and Labor Movement Researchers Forum. His research deals with the shaping of Israeli identity in general and the shaping of kibbutz identity in particular, from the inception of the Zionist enterprise to this day.

Summary

On October 7, 2023, the kibbutz movement experienced one of the hardest times in its history: how to cope with the depths of grief, pain, fury and uncertainty following the reality of murders, kidnappings and whole communities that were uprooted from their kibbutz homes for a long period. Following the failure of October 7, the kibbutz research institutes (Yad Tabenkin, Yad Yaari, and the Institute for the Research of the Kibbutz) decided to initiate meetings for documentation and discussion with kibbutzim, in order to try to understand the mechanisms of kibbutz resilience. The discussions began with the kibbutzim in the south and continued with the kibbutzim in the north. The goal of the discussions was to try to examine questions dealing with kibbutz identity and the ways in which the kibbutzim coped with the intensity of the rupture resulting from the failure and from being communities uprooted from their homes. We asked questions such as: • What was the kibbutz for you up until October 7 and what is it for you after October 7? • What are the current consequences of what happened to the kibbutz for your personal life specifically and for the kibbutz in general? • What do you want (your aspiration) for what will be here in one year / five years and what do you think will happen (your estimation)? In this lecture I will try to indicate the sources of resilience and strength of the kibbutz community. I will examine how in a complex situation of uncertainty, displacement, and experiences of shock, pain and bereavement, the kibbutz communities learned to create inspiring mechanisms of resilience. To create supportive frameworks of mutual responsibility and assistance, to create kibbutz culture and to establish communication systems and decision making in the difficult conditions of uprooted communities. In this lecture, I will present the key insights, dilemmas and characteristics that were raised during dozens of discussions that the kibbutz research institutes conducted with kibbutz members out of desire to understand the sources of the strength and resilience of the kibbutz community.

5:00 – 6:00 PM

WORKSHOP    ·    Main Studio

Destructive Social Media in Community

Albert Bates

Albert Bates is a member of The Farm ecovillage, past-president of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), and author of more than 20 books on history, ecology and the future. He is co-recipient of the first Right Livelihood Award for the work of his organization and the 2024 EcoHero Award.

Summary

Social media has been weaponized to destroy individuals (the so-called “cancel culture”) and threatens to destroy even one of the better-known ecovillages, The Farm. The causes of its divisiveness are not merely algorithms that favor engagement over harmony, but the modern environment of adolescent aculturation through screen-time, pandemic isolation, factionalism, and growing unease about the shadows our future casts. This workshop examines in greater detail the paper given by Albert Bates, Virtual Community is no Virtue for Community. It will elaborate on these themes, exploring more case studies and drawing upon the knowledge and experience of the participants. Strategies to combat the threat will be welcomed.

INTERACTIVE EVENT    ·    Gallery

Meaning, Ritual, and Resilience: The Role of Lived Spirituality in Communal Life

Griet Hellinckx

Griet Hellinckx is a coach, facilitator, and author of Kraftquelle Spiritualität: Wie gelebte Spiritualität Resilienz stärkt. With over fifteen years of experience in intentional and spiritual communities and four decades of personal spiritual practice, she explores the intersections of spirituality, health, and resilience. Since April 2026 she has been a research assistant at the University of Witten/Herdecke, Chair of Medical Theory, Integrative and Anthroposophic Medicine.

Summary

In times of collective uncertainty and fragmentation, spirituality has re-emerged as a vital source of resilience and meaning. Beyond religious doctrines, lived spirituality — the ways in which people embody faith, ritual, and inner practice in everyday life — can sustain both individual and communal health. Yet spirituality also carries risks: spiritual bypassing, moral superiority, and subtle forms of exclusion can undermine the very resilience it seeks to foster. Drawing on the facilitator's years of life in an intentional community and a spiritually oriented local community, and on insights from the book Kraftquelle Spiritualität: Wie gelebte Spiritualität Resilienz stärkt, the session offers an interdisciplinary framing that links spirituality with salutogenesis, self-regulation, meaning-making, and relational connectedness. It opens with a short conceptual framing of how lived spirituality — as embodied practice, ritual, and shared worldview — supports resilience through orientation, connection, and regeneration. While examples may draw from spiritual communities, the questions raised are equally relevant for any co-living or intentional community seeking to foster belonging, health, and sustainable collaboration; the discussion also addresses shadow aspects such as spiritual bypassing, conformity pressure, and the tension between belonging and autonomy. Participants engage in small-group dialogues to exchange experiences from their own contexts, followed by a plenary synthesis. The aim is to co-create a nuanced understanding of how communities can integrate spiritual dimensions of life without losing reflective awareness or critical balance — bridging scholarship and practice, and inviting researchers and community practitioners to reflect on spirituality as a lived, relational, and sometimes paradoxical force in collective resilience.

WORKSHOP    ·    Forest Oasis

Story telling in community

Jan Martin Bang

I have been associated with ICSA since the first conference in 1985, and been active on the ICSA Board since 2010. I teach Permaculture and have 25 years experience of communal living in Kibbutz and Camphill. I live in Norway.

Anton Marks

Urban kibbutz member for over 25 years, and active in the ICSA for most of that time. Active member of the Internatiuonal Communesa Desk of the Kibbutz Movement, now coordinates the ICSA office.

Summary

Story Telling In Community proposal for 2026 ICSA Conference at Lebensgarten “We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel, "Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it." You're not as alone as you thought.” John Steinbeck This workshop session will give those participating a chance to share stories about communal living. It will be an open session facilitated by Jan Martin Bang and Anton Marks, who between them have many decades of communal living. Stories can be prepared beforehand, and there will also be opportunities for structured and spontaneous storytelling on various communal themes. Our aim is to create a space where members, residents and observers of communal living can share the rich tapestry that intentional fellowship creates. We have access to a range of “triggers” that will help us to find stories based upon our own experiences. Participants will have an opportunity to tell stories about their own lives. Because storytelling is basically a shared experience, we will limit numbers. If more than 20 or 30 sign up we will probably split into two groups. “Remember on this one thing, said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put stories in each other’s memories. This is how people care for themselves.” Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel. 1998.

6:20 – 8:00 PM    Kabbalat Shabbat & Community Dinner

SYMPOSIUM · IN THE STUDIO      8:00 – 9:00 PM

Lebensgarten Symposium

Hosted by Dr. Anne-Kathrin Schwab

An evening gathering hosted by our colleagues at Lebensgarten, reflecting on the community's own decades-long experiment in ecological and communal living.

9:00 – 11:00 PM    Social Gathering at the Pub

Saturday • 11 July 2026

7:45 – 8:45 AM    Morning Yoga (10 Euros donation)

8:30 – 9:30 AM    Breakfast

9:30 – 9:45 AM    Morning Gathering

10:00 – 11:20 AM

PAPER SESSION    ·    Main Studio

Belief, Ritual, and the Search for Meaning

Moderator: Jan Bang

Death and Dying in Community: Hutterites and the Final Rite of Passage

Jason Stahl

Jason W. Stahl is a doctoral researcher at the University of Regensburg, studying Hutterite and Haban settlements across Slovakia and Ukraine with a focus on early modern to contemporary history, architecture, and culture. A Fulbright alum, he holds an M.A. in Manuscript Cultures from the University of Hamburg where his research examined early modern Hutterite medical manuscripts, codicology, and the transmission of cultural heritage. As an oral historian and freelance journalist, Stahl co-founded The Hutterite Way Pilgrimage Project with Paul Hofer—a 5,000+ km embodied research journey retracing sixteenth-century Hutterite migrations through Central Europe by foot and kayak (derhuttererweg.com). He also served as Lead Coordinator of the 2025 International Symposium on Hutterite and Haban Heritage (July 4–5, Slovakia, derhuttererweg.com/symposium-2025). Born and raised on a Hutterite colony in north-central Montana, Stahl lived in an intentional community for 32 years before pursuing higher education at the University of Montana. His research combines academic inquiry with personal experience and community-based approaches to minority religious histories. His other interests include end-of-life doula work, somatic bodywork, and spiritual care of the soul (Seelsorge).

Summary

How do communal groups navigate death and dying, and what can they teach us? This paper offers an intimate examination of contemporary death rituals among the communitarian Hutterites, a German-speaking minority in North America, drawing on immersive audio-visual documentation and over thirty years of firsthand experience within these communities. It explores how communal practices—preparing burial clothing, constructing coffins, hosting wakes and meals, and conducting burials by hand—shape grief, sustain social bonds, and guide collective mourning. The paper provides a rare perspective on how Hutterite traditions give structure and meaning to death, in contrast to broader Western contexts where the topic is often treated as taboo. It concludes by considering how collective approaches to mourning help communities grieve and heal together while inviting broader reflection on how societies might engage more intentionally with the end of life.

75% Heaven and 5% Hell: Narratives of the Elderly Kibbutz Members in the Gaza Envelope on 7.10.23

Ilana Mizrahi Naor

Dr. Ilana Mizrahi Naor is an anthropologist specializing in aging and a faculty member at the Academic Center for Law and Business in Israel. Her research focuses on identity among young and older elderly individuals in kibbutzim, elderly lesbians, and Holocaust survivors who are kibbutz members.Her current research focuses on kibbutz members in the Gaza border area who were evacuated after October 7, 2023, following Hamas's invasion of their communities.

Summary

Background: The kibbutz is traditionally viewed as a paradise for children and the elderly. This study examines the traumatic experiences of kibbutz members aged 75 and older from kibbutzim in the Gaza Envelope, whose communities were invaded by Hamas. Many family members and friends were killed or abducted, and their homes were looted or destroyed, forcing them to abandon the kibbutz they built. Purpose: The significant exposure to personal and national trauma in advanced age, often accompanied by deteriorating health, raises the question of how these individuals cope with the trauma, especially considering the impact on their community. Do they exhibit psychological resilience through finding meaning in life, engaging in community and family activities, or do they reveal vulnerabilities? Alternatively, do they demonstrate a combination of vulnerability alongside resilience? Methods: In-depth narrative interviews were conducted approximately one year after the event with 20 elderly kibbutz members (ages 75-91) residing in various locations (assisted living, hotels, temporary residences of the kibbutz). Findings: The findings indicate a mixture of resilience and vulnerability among participants. Some adapt to their temporary circumstances, redefining home and community, while others contribute to rebuilding efforts but remain uncertain about their future. Many participants expressed a strong sense of belonging and community support. The sense of temporariness and liminality sometimes undermines their well-being and accelerates their feelings of aging, especially since not all the abducted have returned. Despite the challenges, their spirits endure, exemplified by a 91-year-old member stating, “The kibbutz is home, but if I want to continue living, I must adapt.”

Zizians Adrift: Communal Living, Rationalism, and the Search for Utopia in the San Francisco Bay Area

Stephen Lloyd-Moffett

Stephen Lloyd-Moffett is a professor of religion and culture at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo, California), guest researcher at the Department of Built Environment (BUILD) at Aalborg University (Copenhagen), on the board of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA), and was a co-founder of the Lavra Community, an intentional community in California.

Summary

This paper examines the communal life of the “Zizians,” a fringe offshoot of the Bay Area Rationalist community that rose to international notoriety in the last decade as a “trans-vegan death cult” after being linked to a series of grisly murders. Initially formed around the figure known as Ziz (Jack LaSota), the Zizians combined rationalist philosophy, radical vegan and trans ethics, and a utopian drive to transcend human limitations. They coalesced around a mission to save the world from AI and, particularly, from the tech leaders they viewed as accelerating its nefarious rise. Less appreciated, however, are their experiments in communal living, which arose in the context of the Bay Area’s extreme affordability crisis and the search for community among marginalized identity groups. This paper explores their multiple attempts at collective habitation as both social and ideological projects. The techno-utopian circles behind the Rationalist and Effective Altruism movements have long imagined stateless communities free from the constraining influence of conventional society. The Zizians first sought to put this vision into practice with their “Rationalist Fleet,” a series of boats tethered to a rusting tugboat floating off California’s coast. When that plan went adrift, the movement turned to a cargo-van commune—a potentially mobile epicenter from which to live out their anti-AI mission. Ultimately, their struggle for communal living proved to be one of the central forces that shaped, and perhaps accelerated, the group’s descent into violence. While headlines reliably condemn the Zizians as a “death cult,” this paper instead aims to understand their more grounded origins in communal living. These roots lie in less-controversial and broader critiques of affordability, the search for belonging among marginalized identities, and the destructive potential of apocalyptic group-think when idealism turns inward and morality goes adrift.

PAPER SESSION    ·    Gallery

Dialogue & Conflict

Moderator: Iris Kunze

Community Resilience and the Tension between Fiscal Accountability and Sacrifice for the Greater Good in Sun Myung Moon's Widow Hakja Han’s Family Federation for World Peace and Unification

Nicholas Chiaia

As a practicing attorney in the United States since 1990 and in-house legal counsel for one of the factions of the Unification movement since 1995, I offer insight and understanding about legal and political dimensions, and current controversies within the charismatic-led, messianic and providential movement founded by the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Since 2022, I have undertaken independent research of the movement from a sociological perspective and I have self and peer review published focused primarily on the legal, financial and political dimensions of this movement. My peer review publication is focused on the various cohorts amongst the second generation within the movement. I have presented at the Communal Studies Association and CESNUR multiple times. I have a Bachelor's in political science and a Juris Doctorate from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Summary

This presentation will focus on the Unification Church movement of the late Reverend Sun Moon and the serious mounting civil and criminal controversies in Japan and South Korea at the schismatic factions headed by Moon's widow Hakja Han. It will address (1) motives for individuals joining and contributing to a world saving movement such as the Unification Church movement; (2) the tension between fiscal and legal accountability on the one hand, and unconditional religious devotion, on the other; and (3) paths forward for this worldwide movement amidst the crises that it faces. In September 2025, Han and two other Family Federation executives have been indicted in South Korea on various charges including bribery of public officials, evidence spoliation, election interference, and misuse of charitable assets. In Japan, the government has revoked the Japanese Family Federation’s status as a religious nonprofit and, pending an appeal, seeks to liquidate all of the Federation’s assets in Japan. The Japanese government’s actions were triggered by the assassination of its longest standing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by an individual who suffered child neglect as a result of his mother’s massive donations and volunteerism at the Japanese Family Federation. This presentation will draw from sworn testimony and authenticated documents from a more-than-decade-long evidentiary record, existing academic, news, and social media texts about the Unification movement, participatory observation as a member and as an attorney, and interviews of first and second generation former and current members. It will be framed by Max Weber' economic ethic which points to the practical impulses for action found it in the psychological and pragmatic context of religion. Will this multi-billion dollar worldwide messianic, providential, and religious movement founded in 1954 survive its schism and serious legal and fiscal challenges?

Conflicts and Conflict Management in Intentional Communities

Michal Palgi

Professor emerita and a former president of ICSA, and a senior researcher at the Institute for the Research of the Kibbutz, University of Haifa. She is co-editor of Conflicts and Conflict Management in Intentional Communities (De Gruyter, 2025).

Shlomo Getz

Ph.D, kibbutz member, senior researcher at the institute for the reaserch of the kibbutz, University of Haifa. Co-editor of "conflicts and conflicts management in intentional communities" De Gruyter. 2025.

Summary

This lecture presents the edited volume Conflicts and Conflict Management in Intentional Communities by Palgi and Getz, a comprehensive exploration of how conflicts emerge, unfold, and are addressed within intentional communities. Bringing together theoretical analyses, empirical research, and practitioner-oriented insights, the book challenges the common assumption that conflict represents a failure of communal ideals. Instead, it conceptualizes conflict as an inherent and structurally significant feature of collective life in value-driven, participatory residential communities. Drawing on classical sociological theory and contemporary organizational research, the contributors frame intentional communities as social systems in which dense interpersonal ties, shared moral commitments, and overlapping social roles both heighten the likelihood of conflict and amplify its implications for group cohesion. The book's theoretical framework integrates perspectives from community sociology, organizational theory, and conflict studies. A central argument is that conflicts in intentional communities arise from the tension between their dual identity as formal organizations and intimate social networks. Justice emerges as a key mediating concept, with the book distinguishing among distributive, procedural, and interactional justice; these dimensions help explain why some conflicts escalate into crises while others become opportunities to reaffirm trust, legitimacy, and shared purpose. Across its chapters, the book treats conflict resolution not as a purely technical or managerial task but as a culturally embedded practice. Drawing on invitational theory, it identifies four recurring elements that support effective conflict resolution: trust, respect, optimism regarding members' commitment to communal norms, and intentionality as a shared moral orientation. Empirical and practice-based contributions illustrate how these principles are enacted through mechanisms such as consensus-building, sociocracy, cooperative culture development, and restorative practices. The volume concludes that no single conflict resolution model fits all intentional communities; successful approaches depend on alignment between cultural values, governance structures, and chosen strategies. By foregrounding culture, justice, and participation, the book offers broader insights into alternative social organization and contributes to ongoing debates on democracy, power, and collective resilience in small-scale communities.

The Hidden Resource of Resilience: Emotions, Family, and Industrial Recovery

Paz Elnir

Dr. Paz Elnir is the CEO of Yad Tabenkin, the research and documentation institute of the Kibbutz Movement. She is a member of the cooperative kibbutz Ramat Yohanan and is actively involved in community life in the fields of culture and education. In addition, she lectures at Oranim College of Education.

Summary

Community resilience comprises interrelated social and economic dimensions that are often examined separately in the literature. This lecture contributes to resilience research by demonstrating how personal and emotional support mechanisms, combined with attention to the family contexts of managers and industrial employees, function as a critical linkage between social well-being and economic continuity during crises. Drawing on an in-depth case study, the lecture analyzes the implementation of professional emotional support for managers and employees following a severe organizational crisis. This intervention enabled the rapid return of the workforce, the full reactivation of industrial operations, and the prevention of substantial economic losses. At the individual and collective levels, employees reported renewed feelings of value, agency, and functional capacity after an initial period of shock and paralysis. The findings offer applied insights for organizational and community resilience frameworks, suggesting that emotional support interventions should be conceptualized not only as welfare measures but also as strategic components of crisis management and economic recovery. The case study provides a transferable model that can inform research and practice in other industrial and community settings, subject to adaptation to local events and cultural contexts.

11:40 AM – 1:00 PM

PANEL    ·    Main Studio

Navigating Research On, In, With and For Intentional Communities: Ethical, Methodological and Relational Challenges

Moderator: Anne-Kathrin Schwab

Anne-Kathrin Schwab

Dr. Anne-Kathrin Schwab is a social scientist researching sustainability, rural transformation and intentional communities. Her work focuses on community-led initiatives, participatory governance and socio-ecological change, combining qualitative research with long-term engagement in European and international sustainability networks.

Iris Kunze

Iris Kunze, PhD, is a leading academic researcher in the fields of intentional communities, ecovillages, and sustainable ways of living since 2002 at universities in Europe. She has lived in various ecocommunities—including Sieben Linden. Iris a board member in ICSA and works internationally as a coach and facilitator. https://iriskunze.wordpress.com/

Ana Margarida Esteves

Coordinator of the Sustainable Societies research group at the Center for International Studies of Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon, and Guest Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Economy of the same institution. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University and held visiting fellowships at Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve and Scuola Normale Superiore, as well as teaching and research positions in the USA (Tulane University, New Orleans, LA), Brazil and Malaysia. Her scholarship focuses on how place-based responses to the polycrisis, including strategies of commoning, forms of solidarity economy and transition initiatives, organize transnationally to impact economic, cultural and institutional regimes.

Summary

4. Intentional communities and other community-led initiatives play a significant role in advancing climate action and socio-ecological transformation. As living laboratories of alternative practices, they attract growing scholarly attention across the social sciences. However, conducting research on, in, with and for such communities raises distinct ethical, methodological and relational challenges that are insufficiently addressed in mainstream research methodology debates. This paper draws on the collective experiences of an international group of researchers who have conducted long-term qualitative research in ecovillages and community-led initiatives across Europe, Latin America and Southern Africa. Building on ethnography, participant observation, interviews, autoethnography and participatory approaches, the paper reflects on the practical realities of entering communities, building trust, negotiating researcher positionality and balancing analytical distance with relational proximity. We argue that intentional communities constitute a particularly sensitive research field because private life, political practice, economic organisation and moral commitments are deeply intertwined. Researchers are therefore often confronted with blurred boundaries between observation and participation, scholarship and activism, empathy and critique. Moreover, research in these contexts easily becomes implicit evaluation, as community members often position themselves as pioneers of “better” or more sustainable ways of living. The paper systematises key challenges around informed consent, confidentiality in small and identifiable settings, reciprocity and “giving back”, participation fatigue, and the emotional and normative involvement of researchers. Drawing on comparative reflections, we propose a set of practice-oriented recommendations for conducting rigorous, ethical and respectful research in intentional communities. These recommendations emphasise reflexivity, transparency, relational ethics and methodological pluralism. By contributing to ongoing debates within community studies and the study of intentional communities, this paper seeks to support both early-career and experienced researchers in navigating the complexities of researching communities that are not only objects of study, but also sites of lived values, critique and hope for socio-ecological futures.

PAPER SESSION    ·    Gallery

Community and the Modern World

Moderator: Amy Hart

Virtual Community is no Virtue for Community

Albert Bates

Albert Bates is a member of The Farm ecovillage, past-president of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), and author of more than 20 books on history, ecology and the future. He is co-recipient of the first Right Livelihood Award for the work of his organization and the 2024 EcoHero Award.

Summary

Thirty years ago, internet enthusiasts and contemporary communitarians shared optimism for the prospects of virtual community bringing about a new age of human empathy and virtuous cultural improvement. In the intervening years, that promise has diminished due to many factors, among them social media algorithms that favor engagement over harmony, adolescent aculturation through screen-time, pandemic isolation, factionalism, and growing unease about the shadows our future casts. Social media has been weaponized to destroy individuals (the so-called “cancel culture”) and threatens to destroy even one of the better-known ecovillages, The Farm. This paper examines the phenomenon from its history to the present day.

Composing a World: Embodied Mediation, Storytelling, and the Balancing Function in Intentional Communities

Zachary Reyna

Zachary Reyna is a Senior Researcher at the Observatory of Higher Education Innovations

Sergey Dmitriev

After a decade in high-tech industries fostering collaborations between industry and academia, Sergey changed his path to living and researching in back-to-the-land communities in post-Soviet countries, Northern Europe, and the Balkans. He now prepares pilot locations for Symbiocenic Environments — a framework for cooperation between ecovillages, universities, and nature-protected areas.

Summary

Research on intentional communities and ecovillages has shown that they are not single-issue sustainability projects but attempts to build integrated forms of life through governance, ritual, conflict processes, shared work, and the often invisible labor of community maintenance. This paper offers a political-theoretical account of that work: how communities compose the conditions and limits of earthly life — scarce water, exhausted soil, finite energy, aging bodies — into worlds durable enough to inhabit and open enough to change. Drawing on Hannah Arendt's distinction between earth and world, alongside phenomenological and new materialist critiques, we describe intentional communities as sites of embodied mediation: the recursive activity through which material and ecological conditions are encountered, interpreted, composed into worldly forms, and carried forward through repetition, inheritance, and revision. Drawing also on Arendt and Walter Benjamin, we treat storytelling as the reflexive and transmissive form of this process, through which lived experience becomes communal memory, practical judgment, and a resource for later action: a shortage becomes a rule; a founding crisis becomes a story; and through retelling, inherited norms can be questioned and reopened. Finally, we recast the balancing function as the distributed work of holding exposure, interpretation, institutional composition, storytelling, and revision in relation. We ask where this work is located, who performs it, and why it so often remains invisible.

Pacifism in the Face of War: Conscientious Objectors in American Communal Societies

Cheryl Coulthard

Cheryl received her PhD in History from Texas A&M University. In 2024, Cambridge University Press published her book, Communal Societies and New Religious Movements. Her newest book is in the editing phase. Cheryl serves as Vice President of the Communal Studies Association and Associate Editor for Communal Societies.

Summary

Pacifism is a common value held by members of intentional communities. Historically, in the United States many communards have chosen the path of conscientious objection in perhaps the greatest moments of uncertainty, that is, in times of war. This presentation will draw on historical examples from the War of 1812 and the American Civil War, to illustrate the use of this path as a means to uphold values of pacifism and the institutional and social responses to that choice.

1:00 – 2:00 PM    Community Lunch

2:00 – 3:00 PM

WORKSHOP    ·    Main Studio

ow do you build community resilience in a war zone and living under ongoing violence?

Nomika Zion

One of the founders of the urban kibbutz in Sderot in 1987, which was among the pioneers of the cooperative community movement in Israel. Managed projects in the education system and the Center for Social Justice and Democracy at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. Peace and social activist.

Summary

The urban kibbutz Migvan in Sderot was founded in 1987, seeking to design a pioneering new model in Israel: a kibbutz within a city, living a full cooperative life based on the principle of “from each according to his ability and each according to his needs”. Migvan was among the "founding fathers" who laid the foundation for the establishment of a new communal movement in Israel, which today numbers over 300 communities. The models are diverse, the level of cooperation varies, but all of them have one thing in common: they all define themselves as mission communities. Strive to shape a different model of human relations based on mutual guarantee and solidarity, alongside commitment and social responsibility to the environment in which they live. In 2001, Hamas began firing rockets at the residents of Sderot and the surrounding area, which was another phase in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. Sderot became a war zone that fluctuated between escalations, wars and military operations. The "peak" for the Israelis came on 7.10.2023 and continues to this day. All this while the Gazan have been struggling for decades with humanitarian catastrophe and unimaginable suffering. Living in a bleeding war zone had a dramatic impact on the life of the urban kibbutz. In 2006, one of the kibbutz houses was hit by a rocket and the family was miraculously saved. The talk will address questions such as: What does life look like for a community that has been dealing for decades with ongoing violence and trauma with no post? What are the physical and emotional implications for the members and the children? What are the added value and strengths of an intimate community, and what tools and support can it offer its members in a period of ongoing uncertainty and crisis?

WORKSHOP    ·    Gallery

Being Seen: Embodied Awareness in Relational Contexts

Beatriz Arruda

Beatriz Arruda is an architect and urban designer, a distance-learning specialist and educator, and a Zero Waste consultant. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Civil Engineering at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil, and a visiting researcher at the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE), Portugal. She leads the CASA Latina Education and Research Circle, focusing on Zero Waste events and ecovillage gatherings as educational spaces for transformative learning and circular economy practices.

Summary

This proposal presents an experiential workshop focused on a key aspect of communal life in times of uncertainty: how bodies sense and adjust when relational contexts change. The workshop explores how movement, posture, and bodily attention may differ when a person is alone, when being observed, and when acting in relation to others. The experience begins with a short grounding exercise. Participants are invited to focus inward and to move freely, minimally, or not at all; at this stage, no one is observing, and the emphasis is on self-perception and bodily awareness without external reference. Relational context is then introduced step by step. The group is divided into two: one group occupies the space through stillness or minimal movement, while the other observes in silence, with no interaction or feedback. After a short pause, roles are exchanged, allowing participants to notice how their bodies respond to being seen or not seen. Next, all participants enter the space together, sharing the space at the same time without speaking, so that individual presence becomes part of a shared relational field and bodily attention shifts when acting as part of a group. Only after these embodied phases do participants move to language: bodies leave the centre of the room and are replaced by single words written on cards, describing sensations or qualities experienced during the exercise and placed where bodies were before, so participants can observe how perception shifts when bodily experience is replaced by representation. The workshop ends with a short sharing circle, focused on noticing how the body senses and reacts to changes between being alone, being observed, and being in relation within a wider socio-environmental context.

WORKSHOP    ·    Forest Oasis

Emotional Health as a Shared Resource

Dave Booda

Dave Booda is a writer, musician and social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of IntimacyFest and hosts the Darkness Experiment, a 5-day relational retreat in the complete dark. He has led over 450 workshops on connection, touch and relationships and has consulted for and facilitated experiences for companies, communities, retreats, festivals, conferences, birthday parties, weddings, funerals, and gatherings of all kinds — with the intention to inspire authenticity, connection and group cohesion. He has published over 200 essays for boodaism.com and played over 1000 shows as a touring singer/songwriter. As a musician he also moonlights as his alter-ego “Boodananda“, an over-the-top spiritual sex shaman who performs at festivals with the purpose of educating the public about abuser and predator warning signs. He is also a former Naval Officer and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, currently serving on the board of directors for the Foundation for Intentional Community while living in rural San Diego, California.

Summary

How do we best care for the emotional commons of a community? How does the emotional health of individual members affect the collective? What would it mean to hold the mental and emotional health of people in a given community, not just as a shared resource, but as an essential element of what keeps a community healthy, stable and prosperous? This workshop and associated teaching will explore what it would mean to care for the emotional health of a community in an intentional and diligent way. This will include distinctions and concepts on how to think about people's needs, as well as exercises, games, and strategies for implementing this in a group. Creating safe and comfortable spaces for vulnerability, personal sharing and people to be real and authentic. We will even practice these together! Research for this work includes The Tavistock Institute and Group Relations Conferences (I'll be attending the 2 Week Leicester Conference in England August 2026), as well as Elinor Ostrom's work on governing the commons and interviews done with various intentional communities around the U.S. in 2025 and 2026.

3:20 – 4:20 PM

WORKSHOP    ·    Main Studio

Imagining the Future of Community

Daniel Greenberg

Daniel Greenberg, Ph.D. was Founding Director of Living Routes, which partnered with the University of Massachusetts Amherst to run study-abroad programs based in sustainable communities, including Auroville and Findhorn. Daniel co-founded Gaia Education, served as President of the Global Ecovillage Network, and was Director of Education at the Findhorn Foundation until its closure in 2023. He currently co-directs the Foundation for Intentional Community and facilitates storytelling and future-visioning processes internationally. He is currently writing a speculative science-fiction novel exploring collective transformation.

Summary

In polarized communities, attempts to “fix” conflict often deepen division—especially when imagination collapses into ideology, persuasion, or control. This experiential workshop explores storytelling as a non-coercive practice for collective imagination, particularly relevant to groups navigating power, belief, identity, and rupture. Drawing on participatory work from Auroville Stories: 2068, participants will engage in a brief embodied and narrative process that helps groups hold paradox without forcing consensus. Rather than debating beliefs or prescribing futures, the workshop invites participants to notice how new possibilities enter awareness through experience, image, and story—before they harden into positions.

WORKSHOP    ·    Gallery

Retracing Ancestral Paths: Pilgrimage as Lived Historiography

Paul Hofer

Paul Hofer is an independent scholar, pilgrim, and co-founder of Der Hutterer Weg / The Hutterite Way Pilgrimage Project, a 5,000+ km embodied research journey retracing historic Hutterite migration routes through Central and Eastern Europe. Raised in a Dariusleut Hutterite colony in Alberta, he brings an insider's knowledge of Anabaptist communal life to his work on memory, history, trauma, and reconciliation. A polyglot and extensive traveler, Hofer has supported his independent research through years of reforestation work in western Canada, planting more than half a million trees. His work explores pilgrimage as lived historiography: a way of recovering cultural memory not only through archives and texts, but through movement, landscape, labor, and encounter.

Summary

In 2022, I co-founded the Hutterite Way Pilgrimage Project with Jason Stahl — a 5,000+ km journey by foot and kayak retracing the ancestral migration path of our Hutterite forebears across Central and Eastern Europe, from Switzerland to Ukraine. This ongoing, embodied research initiative, inspired by the Camino de Santiago (Jakobsweg), aims to reconnect diasporic descendants with the landscapes their ancestors once inhabited, exploring how movement, memory, and material culture intersect in shaping communal identity. As a former Hutterite, I reflect on how this pilgrimage (with 2,000 km still to complete) transforms lived experience into a method for historical inquiry and a model for participatory scholarship. In this workshop, participants will explore themes of ancestral displacement, the search for belonging, spiritual bypassing, and the role of collective memory. Through presentation and discussion, we will examine how embodied practices — walking, reflecting, storytelling — can strengthen connections to heritage (Erinnerungskultur), reanimate community narratives, and support pathways for healing intergenerational trauma. The session encourages attendees to reflect on how physically retracing historical paths can inform research, raise awareness, and enhance community engagement in their own work.

INTERACTIVE EVENT    ·    Forest Oasis

Truth or Dare: Communities v Communities

Anton Marks

Anton Marks is the Executive Director of ICSA and the general secretary of the Intentional Communities Desk. He is a member of Kibbutz Mishol, a full income-sharing urban kibbutz of 150 people.

Summary

This interactive workshop welcomes communities to gather together in order to meet other communities across the world for a fun, interactive getting-to-know-you session where communities can choose to share with each other what really goes on when community visitors are not looking!

CLOSING PLENARY & CLOSING GATHERING · IN THE STUDIO      4:40 – 6:00 PM

Panel on The Future of Communal Studies

Moderator: Stephen Lloyd-Moffett (DK/USA)   ·   Panelists: Dan McKanan (USA), Anne-Kathrin Schwab (DE), Alon Gan (IL)   ·   Recognition of the Oved-Pitzer Awards

The conference closes with a plenary panel on the future of communal studies, where the field is heading and how scholarship and practice can sustain one another, followed by recognition of the Oved-Pitzer Awards.

6:30 – 8:30 PM    Celebration Dinner

8:30 – 11:00 PM    Social Gathering at the Pub

Sunday • 12 July 2026   —   Post-Conference

9:30 – 10:00 AM    Wrap-Up Board Meeting

Practical Information

Venue    Lebensgarten Ecovillage · Ginsterweg 3, 31595 Steyerberg-Dunk, Germany

On-call    Lebensgarten on-call phone +49 160 996 833 93

ICSA contact    Executive Director Anton Marks — WhatsApp +972 52 534 8550

Wi-Fi    Network lebensgartengast · no password required

Emergency    Life-threatening emergency / fire: 112

Police    110

Public transport    From Nienburg/Weser station: lines 10 and 17

Parking    Guest parking lot, or the edge strip at Borsteler Weg (in front of the playground)