In Seeing Like a Commons, Joshua P. Lockyer traces the development of one of the United States’s oldest intentional communities from its founding in 1937 to the present. Lockyer examines how community members have developed flexible sets of cooperative processes for the stewardship of the land and other resources.

Part I: Introduction and HistoryIntroduction: Intentional Community, Commons, and UtopiaChapter 1: Arthur Morgan, Utopianism, and the Founding of Celo CommunityChapter 2: Cultivating Intentional Community Commons: A History of Celo CommunityChapter 3: A Commons Community Today: Celo through the Lens of Transformative UtopianismPart II: Design Principles for a Commons CommunityChapter 4: Common Land and Community Membership: Celo’s Social and Spatial BoundariesChapter 5: Creating Our Own Commons RulesChapter 6: Governing Ourselves and Our CommonsChapter 7: Keeping Each Other HonestChapter 8: When One of Us is Not HonestChapter 9: Dealing with Disputes on the CommonsChapter 10: Gaining Official RecognitionChapter 11: The Commons and Larger Democratic SystemsChapter 12: Beyond the Design Principles: Other Factors that Make Celo WorkConclusion: Cultivating Commons Subjects in and Beyond Intentional Community

Seeing Like a Commons is the definitive study of the famous Celo community founded by TVA director Arthur Morgan. Now, after Celo’s first 80 years, Joshua Lockyer’s research reveals the processes that make it one of the longest enduring secular communal utopias in America. Lockyer’s effective application of the Community Design Principles identified by Nobel Prize winning political economist Elinor Ostrom provide both a practical and theoretical framework for his on-sight ethnographic observations, interviews, and for the book itself. Seeing Like a Commons is the first work to apply Ostrom’s commons concept to the field of communal studies. Lockyer’s own theory of transformative utopianism and use of the theory of developmental communalism also add to a deeper understanding of Celo’s success. Engaging vignettes, with which Lockyer opens chapters, personalize for the reader the inner workings of Celo’s governance and resolution of interpersonal conflicts. In all, Seeing Like a Commons is ethnography, history, and communal utopian studies at their best.