Page 4 - C.A.L.L. #29 - Winter 2007

International Communal Studies Association
Conference at Damanhur by Bill Metcalf

This June I met with 120 communitarians and academic researchers from more than a dozen countries
at the 2007 International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) conference. We met at Damanhur
Federation, a 32-year-old spiritual community near Turin, Italy. Every three years ICSA members meet
and share research findings at an intentional community or university: in 2004 it was the Amana
Colonies in Amana, Iowa; in 2001, ZEGG community in Germany; in 1998 at University of Amsterdam,
and in 1995, at Yad Tabenkin Research Centre, Israel.

One of the most interesting and dynamic intentional communities in
the world, Damanhur started with a small group in 1975 and has
grown to about 600 members, or ‘citizens’, as well as several hundred
affiliated members living in Damanhurian centers throughout Europe.

Damanhur members own and operate numerous businesses: making
silk scarves, jewelry, specialist cheeses, and high-quality handmade
goods. The community is involved in the government in the
Valchiusella Valley: a Damanhurian is mayor of the local town, and 22
Damanhurians sit on other town councils in the valley.

Damanhur citizens live in small communal households, called ‘nucleos,’ of 12-30 adults, plus children.
Nucleo residents eat and socialise together, and share expenses and responsibilities for children and
work. Some nucleos comprise more than one house, and all 20 nucleos constitute the Damanhur
Federation. Each nucleo appoints a member to sit on the Damanhur Federation Council, and this
Council selects two senior members, their ‘King and Queen Guides,’ for a six-month period to co-serve
in the executive director role for the Federation. These officers can be re-elected or replaced, offering
the community both continuity and change. Damanhur has a sophisticated range of governance
facilities to make and implement decisions and resolve conflicts. The community is famous for their
‘The Temple of Humankind,’ a complex of seven linked underground temples characterized by beautiful
stained glass domes, mosaics, carvings, and tiles.

The ICSA conference was formally opened on June 29th by Professor Dennis Hardy of the UK, ICSA’s
retiring President. We were then welcomed by Damanhur’s King and Queen Guides, Uria Sedano and
Testuggine Cacao. Our first formal address was by Albert Bates, director of Ecovillage Training Center
at The Farm in Tennessee, whose talk, “Communal Economics in a Post-Petroleum World,” emphasised
the importance of sustainability to the intentional communities movement - a theme which ran
through the rest of the conference.

Over the next three days about 40 speakers covered topics about current and historical intentional
communities, community networking, and a wide range of philosophical and theoretical issues.

Presentations about contemporary intentional communities included: “The Utopianism of Longo Mai
Co-operatives,” by Saskia Poldervaart (Holland); “Camphill: A Spiritual Community,” by Jan Martin Bang
(Norway); and “Shri Ram: a Modern Path to Enlightenment,” by Tatiana Ginzberg (Russia). The talks
about historic intentional communities included “An Owenite Community in Flotey-lès-Vesoul, Haute-
Saône,” by Megali Fleurot (France); “Visions of Peace: The Shakers, the Bruderhof, and the World,” by
Etta Madden (US); and my own presentation, “Ethnically Based Utopian Intentional Communities: The
Example of New Italy, Australia.”

Philosophical and theoretical presentations included “Intentional Community, Modernity, Post-
Modernity, and Globalization,” by Michael Livni (Israel); “All Things Common: Comparing Christian
Interpretations of Biblical Communism,” by Deborah Altus (US); “Integrated Ecovillage Design: A New
Tool for Physical Planning,” by Hildur Jackson (Denmark); “We Have Nothing to Hide: Public Nudity in
North American Communes,” by Tim Miller (US); and “The Sound of Communal Living” by Chris Coates
(UK). Talks about networking to promote and sustain intentional community included: “RIVE: Network
of Italian Ecovillages,” by Mimmo Tringale (Italy); “Ecovillages,” by Jonathon Dawson (UK); and
“Experimental Fields for Sustainable Lifestyle Models” by Iris Kunze, (Germany).

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