INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES: PLACE-BASED ARTICULATIONS OF SOCIAL CRITIQUE A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN GEOGRAPHY DECEMBER 2014 By Jaya Priya Reinhalter Thesis Committee: Reece Jones, Chairperson Hong Jiang Priyam Das © 2014 Jaya P. Reinhalter All Rights Reserved 2 Acknowledgements This project was truly a collective endeavor. As a storyteller, I hope this work honors the singularity of every single story, while reminding us that no story is the only one. In addition to the narrators who have shaped this paper, I wish to honor the many individuals who have tangentially molded this work through their intimate influences on my own story… First, thank you to the hospitable, passionate, committed, and purposeful communities of Kashi and Auroville. To Kashi for raising me. To Auroville for reminding me. Thank you to Ma and the Mother; without your dreams, dedication, and talent to manifest, this project would never be this project. Many, many, many thanks to all of my participants for trusting me with your stories, your hearts and your minds. Thank you for never demanding a particular shape, size, or color from this project; for allowing it to be mine, although its life is dependent upon your own. To Reece Jones, for your almost alien rapidity and precision in feedback. Your firmness in encouragement and expectations are the kind students and writers dream about. I cannot imagine a better advisor or intellectual inspiration. To Hong Jiang and Priyam Das for your time, encouragement, and thoughtful insights. For reading it, for ‘getting it’, and finally for supporting it. Your wisdoms are heavily present. For Monisha Das Gupta, thank you for your unexpected but life-giving support of this project and myself. Your readiness to stand behind me won’t be forgotten. To Dominique Pagas, for the serendipity of my project at Savi. For your trust, your time, and boundless will to share. To my beautiful sisters, my tribe: Kwang Mae, Ayu, and Maya. The laughter and joy you all pour into my life makes any challenge or sadness pale in your presence. The gratitude I feel to have your collective wit and heart in my life is unparalleled. To my Mom, for being my most adoring friend. Thank you for your all around ‘unconditionality’ and love. To my Poppa, thank you for your astounding ability to be the most loving, patient, supportive, shrewd, and exacting critic all at once. Thank you for making me feel like anything is possible and teaching me how to keep my own unworthiness out of my way. Your wisdom and heart are daily reminders of what I aspire to. To Shakti, for teaching by example. Thank you for showing me what it is to be an intellectual with a head in the sky, two feet in the mud, and a heart on the mine field. For Shanti, my ‘biggest fan’. Thank you for taking the time to read or listen to my every whimsical inspiration, passionate idea, or intellectual outpouring. Your determination to ‘understand’ never fails to 3 amaze me. Thank you for being my friend/aunty/mommy/daughter/sister. Thank you Varaxy Yi, for being my most easygoing and thoughtful soundboard. Even when this entire project was only an inchoate intuition, you already seemed to know and trust its future. But mostly, thank you for being my true home in a new land. For Will, my friend and travel companion. Thank you for your ear that you so readily lent me; for long days and hard discussions; for your resolute patience; and for being the intellectual yang to my yin. To Durga Das, for trusting me from the beginning, even when you didn’t have to. Especially when you didn’t have to. Your “go-ahead” and ensuing support made this project possible. To Jaya Devi, for your encouraging words that reminded me the journey is filled with excitement and not fear. For your letters and attentiveness. Mostly, for your implicit understanding. To Rudra Das for the nourishment of such life-giving food. But even more, for your unshakable commitments to kindness, smiles, and ‘check-ins’. To all of the residents of Kashi House; thank you for your words of encouragement, your daily acts of kindness and support, your laughter, and your green soup! Lastly, to all of those who have shown me support, love, or even hardship along the way. I hope you all know who you are, how much you are appreciated, and how you have shaped this project. 4 Abstract The purpose of this project is to understand the processes through which intentional communities (ICs) embody and articulate critiques of society at large. To do so, I have researched two communities: one in the United States, named “Kashi”, and a second in India, named “Auroville”. Drawing on theories of place, space, performance, and place-making, I analyze the multi-layered ways in which these two ICs make place through the physical bounding of space, the material and ideological manifestation of place, and the daily making and re-making involved in performing place. Second, I observe the ways in which place is deployed as social critique, specifically through the lens of their two central critiques of environmental exploitation and community disintegration and inequalities. Lastly, I contemplate the role of ‘self’ at all levels of intentional community living. While the portrayal of both Auroville and Kashi are typically associated with their spiritual foundations, my project will deviate from these depictions. This project will ask more socially critical questions regarding their commitments to environmental sustainability and challenging community fragmentation and inequities. Primarily, the body of my research comes from field research and primary sources. Qualitative methods including one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and participant observation have been used for their ability to unpack the ideological motivations of intentional community members, offer insights into the daily making and re-making of place, and to understand the subtle complexities of a place-based social critique. Ultimately, by observing two intentional communities with stated ambitions to integrate collectivism, social equality, and environmentally sustainable design, this research will contribute to the growing body of literature exploring alternative avenues to development and human and environmental welfare. It is my hope that this study will also contribute to our understanding of the capacities of intentional communities and will speak to geographers interested in the significance of ‘making-place’ for the purpose of mediating social critique and transformation. 5 Table of Contents 1. Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………3 2. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………5 3. Chapter #1 – Introduction……………………………………………………..8 a. Chapter Structure………………………………………………………...14 4. Chapter #2 - Literature Review & Theoretical Overview…………………...16 a. A Brief History of Intentional Communities………………………………...16 b. Defining Community, Place, and Place-Making……………………………..19 c. Performance and Performativity in Place-Making…………………………...24 d. Place-Based Social Critiques: Two Central Critiques………………………..29 e. “Utopia’s” and the Utopian Imagination…………………………………….33 f. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….37 5. Chapter #3 - Site Descriptions………………………………………………..39 i. Auroville…………………………………………………………39 ii. Kashi…………………………………………………………….48 iii. Conclusion……………………………………………………….53 6. Chapter #4 – Methodology…………………………………………………...56 a. Site Specific Methods: KASHI……………………………………………..58 b. Site Specific Methods: AUROVILLE……………………………………….59 c. Positionality and Situated Knowledge………………………………………60 d. Situated in KASHI…………………………………………………………62 e. Situated in AUROVILLE…………………………………………………..63 7. Chapter #5 - Place Making: Bounding Space and Performing Place………..66 a. Bounding Space and Defining Place…………………………………………66 b. Performing Place…………………………………………………………..68 c. ‘Place Making’ in Kashi and Auroville………………………………...........70 i. Consolidating Life………………………………………………….70 ii. The Collective……………………………………………………..74 iii. Imbuing the Built Environment and Physical Landscape with Meaning...77 iv. Instrumentality of the Individual…………………………………….81 6 8. Chapter #6 – Deploying Place-Based Social Critiques………………………..82 a. The Community/Society Interface: Responsive Critiques and Conversations…...88 b. Seeking Consonance: ‘Living the Critique’……………………………………92 i. Critiquing Community Disintegration and Inequalities………………..93 ii. Critiquing Environmental Degradation and Exploitation………………100 c. Deploying the Critique: Education, Life-Long Learning, and Activism………..104 i. Education and Life-Long Learning Environments…………………….106 ii. Activism and Outreach……………………………………………..111 9. Chapter #7 – The Role of ‘Self’ in Intentional Community…………………..114 a. The Individual ‘Self’ within the Collective…………………………………..115 b. Aspirational Utopia’s of Harmony………………………………………….122 10. Chapter #8 – Conclusion………………………………………………………127 a. Summary of Findings.……………………………………………………..127 b. Implications and Suggestions for Further Research…………………………..128 11. Appendices – Auroville Vision Documents……………………………………134 a. A – A Dream………………………………………………………………134 b. B – To be a True Aurovilian………………………………………………..135 12. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….136 a. Internet Sources……………………………………………………………141 7 Chapter #1 Introduction Buckminster Fuller famously said, “In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete”. Today, there