ToGather archive index

A field research archive documenting how intentional communities and ecovillages govern themselves, share resources, hold land, handle money, and navigate conflict. Built on primary fieldwork by Sharon Avraham: multi-day visits, first-person interviews, and photography across Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, India and Israel-Palestine.

This index holds 35 communities, 40 published interviews, 6 research themes, 91 library entries and 348 field notes.

Communities (35)

Vidàlia Spain. Vidàlia operates through Sociocracy 3.0. Governance is structured in circles and tiered membership levels.
Kibboutz Akiva France. Decisions are made by a council or group of elders/leadership representing the community.
Life Itself France. Life Itself’s governance includes an evolving membership and board structure with a nucleus and board guiding alignment to mission, voting, and contribu
Feÿtopia France. Feÿtopia operates under a hybrid governance model. Legal authority and strategic direction remain centralized within the ownership structure. During the
Spirala Ecovillage Portugal. Decisions are made collectively by the community members, fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment.
Ruigoord Netherlands. Ruigoord operates as a cultural free haven, with a strong tradition of mutual collaboration among artists and a wide circle of related creative min
Nieuw en Meer Netherlands. Managed by the Foundation Nieuw en Meer, with tenant involvement through the 'Niks Minder' association.
ADM Netherlands. Self-organized community with collective decision-making processes.
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage USA. Modified consensus with ecological covenant requirements
Suderbyn Ecovillage Sweden
Sólheimar Ecovillage Iceland. Decisions are made collectively by the community members.
Schloss Tempelhof Germany
Earthaven Ecovillage USA. Council-based consensus with neighborhood autonomy
Findhorn Ecovillage Scotland, UK. Consensus-based decision-making with working groups
Cloughjordan Ecovillage Ireland. Democratic company structure with working groups
Damanhur Italy. Living Constitution with Federal structure - evolved from 130 articles (1981) to 15 core principles
The Farm Community USA. Democratic governance with community agreements
Lammas Ecovillage Wales, UK
Auroville India. Participatory governance through working groups and Residents' Assembly
Huehuecoyotl Mexico
Crystal Waters Eco Village Australia. Incorporated association with elected board and community consensus
EcoVillage at Ithaca USA. Democratic cooperative with neighborhood and village councils
ZEGG Germany
Sieben Linden Germany. Consensus-based with council and working groups
Los Angeles Eco-Village USA. Democratic cooperative with neighborhood councils
Lakabe Spain
Twin Oaks Community USA. Direct democracy with rotating leadership roles
Traditional Dream Factory Portugal. DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) with weighted voting based on tokens, presence, and contribution
Essencia Portugal
House of the Rising Mojo Portugal
Sunseed Desert Technology Spain
Tamera Portugal. Council-based with spiritual and ecological guidance
Ananda Kalyani Portugal
Kibbutz Samar Israel-Palestine. Weekly general assembly - direct democracy
Sadhana Forest India. Consensus-based decision making

Interviews (40)

Shelby McAuliffe on Opening the Gates to Someone’s Dream Shelby McAuliffe, Feÿtopia
Lucy Foster on Holding Space Without Authority Lucie Foster, Feÿtopia
Jessica Flor Angel on Affordability, Risk, and the Art of Compromise Jessica Flor Angel, Feÿtopia
Jessica Flor Angel, Founder of Feÿtopia Jessica Flor Angel, Feÿtopia
Hyperstition, the Embassy Network, and the Care Field: Seven Years of Intentional Community Tony, Feÿtopia
Proximity, Psychological Safety, and the Nail Salon: Conditions for Creative Collaboration at Feÿtopia Tuuli, Feÿtopia
Are We Just Twits Having Fun in the Château? Parties, Philosophy, and the Sonic Sphere Ed Cooke, Feÿtopia
From Outsider to Beyonder: Activism, Planetary Health, and the Freshness of a Seasonal Community Rita Issa, Feÿtopia
The Incubator That Ends: Co-founding Feÿtopia and the Art of Community Without Capital Mathieu, Feÿtopia
A Community of Weirdos, in the Best Sense: Cooking, Care, and Belonging at Feÿtopia Elena, Feÿtopia
The Membrane Structure: AI, Governance, and the Accelerated School for Feelings Poli, Feÿtopia
Feÿtopia as Liminal Space: Governance, Co-founding, and the Art of Human Curation Primavera, Feÿtopia
The Spores of Feÿtopia: How a Castle in France Rewired a New York Matchmaker Amy Van Doran, Feÿtopia
If the Land Does Not Benefit, You Are Doing Something Wrong Nitzan, Spirala Ecovillage
We Surrendered Ourselves to the Project: A Family in Auroville Renana and her family, Auroville
Since 1971: Johnny on Trust, Craft, and What Real Education Looks Like Johnny, Auroville
Peter on Yoga, Collective Consciousness, and What Lies Ahead Peter, Auroville
Empty Land to Living Forest: Aviram on Building Sadhana with Love Aviram, Sadhana Forest
No Water, No Electricity, Two Children: Reina on the Early Days Reina, Nieuw en Meer
We Are Very Individual, We Are Very Independent: Twenty Years of Art Kamil Proost, Nieuw en Meer
Flamethrowers, Startups, and the Disappearance of Free Space Erik Hobijn, Nieuw en Meer
Renovating a Chicken Farm with Strangers: Tias on Collective Building Tias, Traditional Dream Factory
People See You All the Time, Even in Bad Conditions Julia, Traditional Dream Factory
Maybe Searching Is Not the Answer: Tonya on Choosing to Stay Tonya Gorman, Traditional Dream Factory
Loneliness Inside Community: Anandeshvarii on Devotion and Belonging Anandeshvarii, Ananda Kalyani
The Project Is Not the Land, the Project Is the People Parkash, Ananda Kalyani
From Palestine to Peace Village: Aida on Justice, Race, and Reconciliation Aida Shibli, Tamera
The Activist Who Came to Protest a Wall and Stayed to Find Himself Uri Ayalon, Tamera
A Photocopied Letter, Free Love, and Learning to Say No Joshua Gottenko, Tamera
When a Broken Love Life Becomes a Political Question Bori, Tamera
The Moment I Walked Through the Gate I Knew I Was Home Ayla, ADM
Eleven Years Without Rent: Daan on Anarchy as Organization Daan, ADM
Twenty Years of Squatting: What Cooperation Actually Looks Like Eugene, ADM
A Kurdish Refugee Finds Family in a Dutch Shipyard Ahmed, ADM
Twenty Artists, a Mafia Eviction, and the Birth of Robodock Maik Ter Veer, ADM
You Want to Be Here, Be Here: Eileen on 35 Years Inside Samar Eileen Mascot, Kibbutz Samar
Growing Up Without Fences: Nir on Intimacy and Change in Samar Nir Menachem, Kibbutz Samar
Dismantling and Rebuilding: A Carpenter on the Kibbutz Economy Uriel, Kibbutz Samar
Thirty-One Years of Freedom Without a Rulebook Nirit and Yuval Ketner, Kibbutz Samar
The Junkyard That Taught a Kibbutz About Itself Yaniv, Kibbutz Samar

Research themes (6)

Belonging Belonging defines who is inside, who is peripheral, and how commitment is sustained over time. It shapes identity, trust, and responsibility.
Conflict Conflict is a core structural dimension of collective life. It reveals how power, emotion, trust, and responsibility circulate within a group.
Land & Joining Land provides physical grounding and legal continuity. It anchors collective vision across generations and shapes daily practice.
Economy Economy in collective life extends beyond money. It includes labor, care, time, attention, and recognition. Economic arrangements shape daily experience as much as ideology or governance.
Governance Governance shapes how authority, responsibility, and participation circulate in collective life. It is expressed not only through formal decision systems but through everyday coordination.
Culture & Vision Vision provides coherence and direction across time. It shapes meaning, motivation, and collective identity.

Living Library (91)

The Uncooperative Society We were trained to be customers, not collaborators. On why cooperation feels so hard, and what relearning it inside intentional communities reveals about the rest of us.
What I Took From Watching Communities Hold Through Conflict On shared rituals, Forum work, and the practices that keep people together long after the founding dream has been accomplished or quietly faded.
The Community You Build at Forty Is the One That Holds You at Eighty On building a place to grow old in before you need one. How Kibbutz Samar and Tamera handle aging, care, and the generational handoff.
The Conversation That Breaks Them The conversation communities avoid, usually the one about money, is the one that decides whether they hold. Drawn from interviews across the archive, including Kibbutz Samar and ADM Amsterdam.
What Happened When a Dozen Community Hubs Met for a Weekend in Spain A closed-door weekend with the people who run Europe's community houses, and why their stuck points, money, power, and belonging, are everyone's stuck points.
You Have to Build It Before You Need It What field research tells us about the part that comes after the run club: building the social infrastructure of a community before the moment you actually need it.
Nobody Taught Us How to Fight Communities rarely fall apart because they fight. They fall apart because no one ever taught them how. On conflict practice, drawn from Tamera, Traditional Dream Factory, and others.
The Tools Exist. We Rarely Use Them. The same three things break intentional communities, and the toolkits that address them have sat on a shelf for forty years. On why proven governance and conflict tools go unused.
The Invisible Architecture: Why We Gather Sharon Avraham's founding letter for the ToGather Project, on growing up in a fading socialist village, finding Burning Man, and turning fifteen years of community fieldwork into a living archive.
What I Got Wrong About Intentional Communities After dozens of field interviews, Sharon's assumption that people who choose community have it figured out gave way to a harder finding: the hard parts are the same everywhere, and the answers are unglamorous.
The Triad of Commoning The framework from Helfrich and Bollier (2019) describing any living commons through three entangled spheres: Social Life, Peer Governance, and Provisioning, with 27 named patterns.
Free, Fair and Alive The 2019 synthesis by Silke Helfrich and David Bollier that reframes the commons as a living social process built on the Triad of Social Life, Peer Governance, and Provisioning, with 27 named patterns.
Twelve Design Principles of Permaculture A design system for sustainable human settlement and agriculture, grounded in three ethics and twelve operational principles. Practiced directly by communities in the ToGather archive across Portugal and India.
Member Transitions and Departure The practices through which community members navigate change: seasonal cycles, role shifts, planned departure, and invited exit. Documented from the ToGather archive.
Membership and Selection The practices through which a community decides who joins, on what terms, and how new members are integrated. Documented across three communities with divergent approaches.
Community Purpose-Setting A deliberate practice in which a community articulates, tests, and revises the shared purpose that holds it together. Documented across four communities in the ToGather archive.
The Homo Faber Trilogy Richard Sennett's three-book project on craftsmanship, cooperation, and the open city. The Craftsman (2008), Together (2012), and Building and Dwelling (2018) read together as one extended argument about the skills people need to live together.
The Craft of Cooperation A framework distilled from Richard Sennett's Homo Faber trilogy: cooperation as a craft, the dialogic-dialectical distinction, three rituals of exchange, and the open-city design principles for communities that hold difference without forcing synthesis.
Emergent Strategy A framework for organizing and community-building built on six elements (fractal, adaptive, interdependent, nonlinear, resilient, generative) and nine principles, developed by adrienne maree brown.
Emergent Strategy adrienne maree brown's 2017 book reads movement strategy through Octavia Butler, Grace Lee Boggs, and complexity science, naming six elements and nine principles for shaping change at the speed of trust.
Tuckman's Stages of Group Development Bruce Tuckman's 1965 model of how small groups move through forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. A useful map with documented limits when applied to long-running communities.
Closing and Commitment Cycle The sequence of practices that lands a week-long gathering: Forgiveness, Commitment Circle, Goal Setting, Closing Check-in, and the Appreciation Circle. The last 36 hours of a JAM.
Gender Day at a JAM A day-long fishbowl structure for working with gender, patriarchy, and conditioning. Single-gender inner circles, cross-gender witnessing from the outer circle, with the structure flipping after lunch.
Class-Race Stand-Up and the Heart Exercise Three linked embodied practices for working with race, class, and privilege in a residential group: the Heart Exercise, the privilege walk, and the Racism Stand-Up.
Truth Mandala Joanna Macy's whole-group grief ritual. An altar with four symbolic objects, a witnessing circle, and a structure for speaking what we carry about the state of the world.
Deep Partner Sharing A family of two-person practices, structured around a question or a sentence stem, that bring strangers into honest contact faster than a group circle can.
The Daily Check-In Practice A morning circle where each person speaks in turn and gets listened to. The heartbeat of a week-long gathering, and the most portable practice from the JAM tradition.
Setting the Container at a JAM The opening ritual stack at a week-long JAM. Six small moves on the first evening, with an altar at the centre, that turn thirty strangers into a working group.
The JAM Method A week-long residential gathering for 30 young change-makers built around two principles, uncompromised truth and unconditional love. Developed by YES! since 1990.
The Mietshaeuser Syndikat: A Network Against Selling A German network of 170-plus collectively owned housing projects that can never be sold. Founded in Freiburg in 1992 by housing activists from the autonomous left and squatter movements. Each house is a GmbH with two shareholders: the residents' association and the Syndikat, which holds one share carrying a permanent veto over any decision to sell. Financing comes from Direktkredite, direct loans from solidarity lenders at below-market rates, typically 0.5 to 2.5 percent.
Steward-Ownership: Separating Profit Rights from Voting Rights A legal structure in which a company's voting rights and profit rights are permanently separated. Stewards hold the voting shares and cannot sell them; profits above a capped return are reinvested in the mission or donated. The structure dates to Ernst Abbe's 1889 transfer of Carl Zeiss in Jena; the Purpose Foundation named and systematized it around 2015. Patagonia completed the most visible contemporary transfer in September 2022, directing roughly $100 million per year in profits to the Holdfast Collective.
Les Pas-Sages: The Cooperative of Uses Model A non-speculative housing cooperative in Lyon, France, legally constituted in 2016, housing 36 households on the Presqu'ile peninsula. Members hold usage rights rather than property titles, pay a monthly charge d'usage instead of rent or a mortgage, and cannot capture any appreciation in the building's value when they leave. One of the first documented instances of the French cooperative d'habitants form created by the 2014 loi ESS.
Community Land Trust: Non-Speculative Land Ownership A land trust model in which a nonprofit holds land permanently and leases it to residents who own the buildings above it. When a resident sells, a formula limits what they can take out, keeping the home affordable for the next buyer. New Communities Inc. in Georgia launched the first CLT in 1969; the Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, Vermont, is the most documented case with more than 650 homes held permanently affordable.
The Communitarian Economy: Trust-Based Donation Funding at Tamera The financial model that has sustained Tamera, a peace research village of around 100 people in southern Portugal, since 1995: no membership fees, no salaries, no ownership of the land. The community runs on donations and on income from week-long seminars on love, water, and peace research. Diogo Serras Lopes and Vera describe it as a political will-based economy: the funding exists because people who share the vision choose to sustain it.
Pay Solidarity: Wage Ratios in Worker Cooperatives The practice of capping the ratio between the lowest and highest paid workers in a cooperative, most famously established at Mondragon in 1956 at 3:1 by Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta. The ratio has since drifted to 9:1 at Mondragon following international expansion; other cooperatives hold ratios from 1:1 (Suma Wholefoods) to 8:1 (Organic Valley). Documented across the worker cooperative movement as the primary mechanism for institutionalizing economic solidarity.
Labor Credit Systems: The Twin Oaks Model The contribution-tracking system developed at Twin Oaks, Virginia, in 1967, in which every approved task carries a credit value and members sign up for roughly 42 hours of credited work per week. Credit balances determine standing; no cash changes hands between members. Documented in Kat Kinkade's A Walden Two Experiment and still in use at Twin Oaks after more than five decades.
Pooled Income and Needs-Based Maintenance: The Commune Economy The income-sharing model used by Twin Oaks, Acorn, and the Federation of Egalitarian Communities: all earned income goes into a common fund, all needs are met from it equally, and no member holds personal savings. Documented in Kat Kinkade's 1973 account and practiced at Twin Oaks for more than fifty years. Kibbutz Samar in Israel's Arava desert ran an open-money variant for its first decade before partially privatizing.
Pour Tous: The All-Goods-Free Economy Auroville's community provision system: contribute five or more hours of daily work, receive food, housing, and healthcare without cash exchange between residents.
Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice (1990 onward) Three overlapping frameworks for addressing harm without incarceration. Restorative Justice (Howard Zehr, 1990, Mennonite tradition) asks what harm was done, who is responsible, and how it can be repaired. Restorative Circles (Dominic Barter, mid-1990s, Brazilian favelas) adds a three-stage community facilitation structure. Transformative Justice (INCITE! and Generation FIVE, 2000s, abolitionist feminist) adds the question of what conditions produced the harm and how to change them. Used in schools, criminal justice, and intentional communities navigating consent and accountability.
Holacracy (Brian Robertson, 2007; Constitution v5.0, 2021) A full-scale governance operating system built around a published Constitution now at version 5.0 (2021). Brian Robertson developed it at Ternary Software in Philadelphia from 2001 and co-founded HolacracyOne in 2007 to implement and license it. All authority flows through explicitly defined roles nested in circles; two meeting cadences, governance and tactical, are kept strictly separate. Zappos adopted it in 2013 for 1,500 employees; roughly 260 employees took a buyout rather than comply, and the company had quietly modified the system by 2019.
Sociocracy For Communities (SoFA + FIC, 2016 onward) A 10-hour pre-recorded course on sociocracy governance, taught by Ted Rau and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez of Sociocracy For All (SoFA) and hosted by the Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC). Five classes covering linked circles, consent decision-making, feedback design, meetings, and implementation strategies. Built for residential and forming communities. $79-$129 USD sliding scale.
The Tyranny of Structurelessness (Jo Freeman, 1970/1972) Jo Freeman's foundational 1970 essay (delivered as a talk in Beulah, Mississippi; published in The Second Wave 1972, Berkeley Journal of Sociology 1972-73, Ms. magazine 1973) that delivered the structural critique of leaderless organizing from inside the women's liberation movement. The argument: there is no such thing as a structureless group, and the rhetoric of structurelessness becomes a way of masking power. The seven principles of democratic structuring that close the essay are the operational ancestor of every contemporary participatory governance framework.
Liberating Structures (Lipmanowicz & McCandless, 2014) An open Creative Commons library of 33 named facilitation methods developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless and incubated at the Plexus Institute. Each method is defined by the same five design elements (Structuring Invitation, Space and Materials, Participation Distribution, Group Configuration, Sequence and Time) and is designed to be picked up and used by anyone, not only by trained facilitators. The motto: including and unleashing everyone.
Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987) A strengths-based method for group inquiry and organizational change developed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva at Case Western Reserve University in the 1980s. The 4D cycle (Discover, Dream, Design, Destiny) is built around the premise that organizations evolve in the direction of the questions they most persistently ask. Now one of the foundational practices in dialogic organizational development and the Art of Hosting facilitation family.
Theory U (Otto Scharmer, 2007) Otto Scharmer's 2007 book introduces presencing, an awareness-based approach to leading deep change drawn from 150 interviews with innovators and thought leaders. The U-process moves a group from downloading past patterns, through seeing and sensing, to presencing at the bottom of the U, then up through crystallizing, prototyping, and performing. The line at the heart of the book, from the late Bill O'Brien: the success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.
Circle / The Way of Council An ancient meeting form gathered into modern shape by two parallel lineages: the Way of Council (Ojai Foundation, Zimmerman & Coyle, 1980 onward, codified 1996) and The Circle Way (Christina Baldwin & Ann Linnea, PeerSpirit, 1994 onward, codified 2010). A center, a rim, a talking piece, a guardian, and three principles plus three practices that make a different kind of speech possible.
ProAction Café A small-group facilitation method that turns a roomful of personal projects into structured peer coaching, in three rounds of twenty-five minutes each. Designed in Brussels around 2005 by Rainer von Leoprechting and Ria Baeck as a blend of Open Space Technology and World Café, now a core method in the Art of Hosting network worldwide.
World Café Juanita Brown and David Isaacs's 1995 method for large-group conversation. Small tables, three rounds, rotation between rounds, paper tablecloths, gallery-walk harvest.
Open Space Technology Harrison Owen's 1985 meeting format for groups of 5 to 2,000 people gathering around a single compelling question. The participants build the agenda themselves and self-organize the conversation.
Reinventing Organizations Frédéric Laloux's 2014 book mapping the developmental progression of organizations from Red through Teal, with Buurtzorg, Morning Star, and FAVI as flagship self-management cases.
Plurality Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl's 2024 book arguing for a third way in digital democracy: bridging social capital, rough consensus, broad listening. Authored as a CC0 commons.
Burning Man's Ten Principles The cultural document Larry Harvey wrote in 2004 to articulate Burning Man, eighteen years in. Now used as a touchstone by intentional communities, hackerspaces, and theme camps worldwide.
DAO Governance Governance through on-chain voting, weighted by token holdings, often layered with off-chain deliberation. Documented in the ToGather archive at Traditional Dream Factory in Portugal.
Doocracy A governance pattern where authority flows to whoever shows up and does the work. Common in open-source projects, Burning Man camps, and seasonal communities like Feÿtopia.
Sociocracy 3.0 (S3) A pattern library of more than 70 modular practices for governance, collaboration, and structuring, designed to be adopted piecemeal rather than as a whole system. Released as Creative Commons in 2015.
Dreamship Co-Ownership LLC Agreement The publicly-shared LLC operating agreement template that four families used to co-own a home together as the Dreamship intentional community in Berkeley, California. One of the few cases where a working co-living constitution has been published as a downloadable, adaptable document.
Embassy Network: Design Patterns and Do-ocracy The published design patterns and do-ocracy governance model of the Embassy Network, a network of urban co-living houses that ran a famous 8-month live-in governance experiment in 2013, rotating through four different decision-making structures.
Supernuclear: A Guide to Coliving The published guidebook to co-living by Phil Levin and Gillian Morris, drawing on their experience starting three co-living communities and living in seven. Functions as the meta-framework for the contemporary co-living movement.
Radish: The FriendLLC Model Phil Levin's published two-entity legal and governance structure for Radish, a 20-adult, 8-child co-living compound on a third-acre lot in Oakland, California. A landlord LLC owns the property, the resident community governs daily life, and the same person can be both an owner and a resident with different decision rights in each role.
Mietshäuser Syndikat (MHS) The legal architecture binding the Mietshäuser Syndikat, a German federation of 191 housing collectives serving over 3,800 residents, with a two-entity structure (resident association + property LLC) that contains a built-in veto preventing any project from ever being re-privatized.
Kibbutz Movement: Degania and the Constitutional Tradition The constitutional tradition of the kibbutz movement, beginning with Degania Alef in 1910 and running through the 20th-century kibbutz movement bylaws, with their commitments to common ownership, democratic assembly, and the separation of work and compensation.
Catholic Worker: The Aims and Means The aims and means of the Catholic Worker movement, founded in New York City in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, organized around houses of hospitality, voluntary poverty, nonviolence, and Christian personalism.
Foundations of Our Faith and Calling (Bruderhof) The 1926 founding manifesto of the Bruderhof, a communal Anabaptist Christian movement now numbering around 3,000 members across communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Paraguay.
The Rule of Saint Benedict The 73-chapter rule written by Benedict of Nursia for the monastic community at Monte Cassino around 530 CE, governing virtually every Western monastic community for the next 1,500 years and shaping European institutional design more broadly.
Hutterite Gemeindeordnungen The Gemeindeordnungen (congregational orders and church disciplines) that have governed the Hutterite communities since the 16th century, through expulsion from Moravia, migration through Eastern Europe, and the establishment of more than 500 contemporary colonies in North America.
The Great Law of Peace (Gayanashagowa) The oral constitution binding the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Six Nations (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and after 1722 the Tuscarora), one of the oldest continuously functioning constitutional systems in the world.
Ostrom's Eight Design Principles Elinor Ostrom's eight design principles for long-running community governance of shared resources, derived from more than 800 case studies and published in Governing the Commons (1990).
Social Contract of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) The 134-article Social Contract of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, governing roughly 5 million people across the Kurdish-majority and multi-ethnic regions of northern Syria, structured around democratic confederalism, gender equality, and ecological commitment.
Zapatista Juntas de Buen Gobierno The Good Government Councils governing the Zapatista autonomous communities in Chiapas, Mexico, organized around the principle of mandar obedeciendo, to govern by obeying, with rotating, recallable representatives drawn from the communities.
Cooperation Jackson: Principles and the Jackson-Kush Plan The cooperative principles and the Jackson-Kush Plan that frame Cooperation Jackson, a network of worker cooperatives in Jackson, Mississippi, building a Black-led solidarity economy in the U.S. South.
The Rochdale Pioneers Rules (1844) The 1844 Rule Book of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, the founding document of the modern consumer cooperative movement and the source of what the International Cooperative Alliance later codified as the Rochdale Principles.
The Ten Basic Principles of Mondragon The ten principles guiding the Mondragon cooperative federation in the Basque Country, Spain, the largest worker cooperative system in the world, with around 70,000 worker-owners across more than 80 cooperatives.
Cecosesola: Self-Management Through Consensus The flat, consensus-based, anti-hierarchical operating principles of Cecosesola, a Venezuelan federation of around 50 cooperatives serving 100,000 families, awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2022.
Federation of Egalitarian Communities: Constitution and Seven Principles The seven principles all member communities of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities must hold as core values, and the federation's own constitution governing how those communities relate to one another.
Twin Oaks Bylaws The Bylaws of Twin Oaks, a 100-person income-sharing community in Louisa County, Virginia, founded in 1967 and one of the longest-running secular communes in the United States.
ZEGG: Seven Values, Forum, and Sociocracy The constitutional practice of ZEGG, a 37-acre community in Brandenburg, Germany, held together by seven values, the ZEGG Forum communication method, and a sociocratic decision structure.
Lakabe: The Three-Step Decision Practice The three-step decision practice of Lakabe, an ecovillage of around 50 people in the Pyrenees of Navarra, Spain, where major decisions are processed across three separate meetings (emotional, logical, community impact) developed and refined over four decades.
Earthaven: A Federation of Neighborhoods The federated legal structure of Earthaven, an ecovillage of around 100 people on 329 forested acres in the mountains of western North Carolina, where 12 residential neighborhoods organize as separate housing cooperatives and LLCs under a common homeowners association.
Christiania: Mission Statement and Common Statutes The mission and consensus-based governance of Christiania, a 19-acre self-declared free town inside Copenhagen, founded in 1971 on the site of an abandoned military barracks.
Sieben Linden: Guiding Principles The guiding principles, four-dimensional sustainability frame, and association-based governance structure of Sieben Linden, an ecovillage of around 150 residents in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
Findhorn Common Ground The shared values, principles, and behavioral guidelines that bind the residents of the Findhorn ecovillage in Scotland, structured as Principles, Essence, and practical Guidelines.
The Constitution of Damanhur (2007) A 15-article constitution governing the Federation of Damanhur, a community of around 600 people in northern Italy, distilled from a 1981 draft of more than 130 articles.
The Auroville Charter (1968) Four sentences, written by The Mother and read aloud at Auroville's inauguration in 1968, that frame the township as belonging to humanity rather than to any nation, religion, or owner.
The Healing Biotopes Plan (Tamera) The founding charter of Tamera, an 800-person peace research village in southern Portugal, framing the community as Healing Biotope 1 in a planned global network of replicable peace research sites.
Tamera Forum A ritualized practice of transparent self-disclosure inside a witnessing circle, developed in the Black Forest in 1978 and held daily at Tamera since the community's founding.

Field notes (348)

The Invisible Architecture: Why We Gather 2026-03-15
What Actually Kills Village Projects? We're Finally Getting Data 2026-03-08T13:24:32.000Z
MEV March Updates 🌿 2026-03-06T09:50:19.000Z
Abundance of the commons 2026-02-27T16:58:46.000Z
Our Supernuclear experience running Island Time 2026-02-27T19:11:30.000Z
Case Study: Tall Pine 2026-03-04T14:25:18.000Z
The Pulse of a Living System - March Ecovillage Network Digest 2026-03-03T17:04:57.000Z
Israel–Palestine: Our Updated Visitor Guidelines 2026-03-03T12:01:38.000Z
What does the Global Ecovillage Network do? 2026-03-02T15:56:29.000Z
How To Exit The Empire (Without Burning Out Or Going Off-Grid) Pt. 3 2026-03-01T22:06:37.000Z
CoLab Newsletter - February 2026-02-28T08:12:56.000Z
SRI2026. IPBES Plenary. "Digital Twins". 2026-02-27T14:53:49.000Z
Flourishing at Findhorn: Growth, Gathering & Governance🌱 2026-02-27T16:21:17.000Z
Upcoming community courses and events at the FIC 2026-02-26T18:00:26.000Z
New Earth collaboration + 5 Wellbeing Initiatives + 2 Places to Visit 2026-02-25T13:22:33.000Z
Projects, People, and Places in Motion 2026-02-12T16:24:07.000Z
Our Next Residency: House of Games 2026-02-14T01:24:51.000Z
Why your communication skills disappear during conflict 2026-02-17T19:00:24.000Z
How a new movement takes root in times of darkness 2026-02-17T19:05:08.000Z
[Repost] Babies @ Radish: The early review 2026-02-16T16:34:34.000Z
Winter Magic and Community News 🔮 2026-02-06T15:14:52.000Z
If You’re Building Community, You Should Be Reading These Magazines 2026-02-08T18:10:17.000Z
What is the MEV? 2026-02-08T18:54:44.000Z
In Case You Missed it - Your February Ecovillage Digest 2026-02-05T18:16:50.000Z
What’s been happening at The MEV 🌿 2026-02-05T12:29:42.000Z
Finding light together—your February ecovillage digest 2026-02-03T18:15:09.000Z
Real change doesn't happen all at once 2026-02-03T23:45:00.000Z
The Metacrisis and The Metasolution 2026-02-01T10:12:17.000Z
CoLab Newsletter - January 2026-02-01T08:05:39.000Z
Shaping climate policy. SRI2026. AI & sustainability. 2026-01-30T15:33:26.000Z
Upcoming community courses and events at the FIC 2026-01-28T20:03:30.000Z
Northern Lights and Ideas Bright! 🌌 2026-01-23T19:51:58.000Z
A new phase for the New Earth field 2026-01-22T14:40:53.000Z
How you can participate and get involved 2026-01-22T15:20:23.000Z
How to Exit the Empire (Without Burning Out of Going Offgrid) Pt. 2 - Resources 2026-01-22T22:56:09.000Z
A little update from The MEV, things are really coming together !☀️ 2026-01-21T18:48:18.000Z
Welcome to the New Earth Ecosystem Pulse 2026-01-20T15:47:15.000Z
What's the best legal structure for communities? 2026-01-20T22:12:25.000Z
How We Lived with an AI - And What It Taught Us About Being Human 2026-01-19T19:11:28.000Z
A Car-Free Village - Without Losing the Comfort 🌳 2026-01-15T18:16:02.000Z
The Ecovillage Movement in 2026: A Turning Point for Regeneration 2026-01-13T16:01:05.000Z
How to Kill a Commune in 8 Easy Steps 2026-01-12T19:23:40.000Z
How to Exit the Empire (Without Burning Out or Going Off-Grid) Pt. 1 2026-01-12T21:15:44.000Z
A community shaped by listening rather than planning 2026-01-08T22:00:16.000Z
Care, Collaboration and Continuity 🤝 2026-01-09T18:09:00.000Z
News from the Campus and Last Chance to Join the New Online Course 2026-01-08