Professor and Alum Present at Conference

Summer Jones ’16 and Professor Jon Andelson ‘70 attended the annual conference of the Communal Studies Association at Zoar Village State Memorial, Zoar, Ohio, on October 5-7, 2017, where both presented papers. Jones’s paper, “Falling Short of Eden: Negotiating Egalitarianism at Twin Oaks and Acorn” was based on her Anthropology Senior Thesis at Grinnell, completed in the fall of 2016. The abstract reads:

This research analyzes two communes in rural Virginia that have as a central goal achieving a completely egalitarian lifestyle. I provide an in-depth look at Twin Oaks and Acorn communities, the history and the structures of each, and demonstrate how both communities negotiate their core value of equality with the day-to-day realities of inequality.  I argue that, while pure egalitarianism is not possible, Twin Oaks and Acorn effectively confront and limit threats to it, though in very different ways compatible with other values held in each community.

Jones, who graduated in December 2016, is from Charlottesville, Virginia, located about 30 miles from the two communities. Her research on Twin Oaks and Acorn included stays in both during the summer of 2016. 

Jon Andelson’s paper, “The Problem of Equality in Intentional Communities,” built off Jones’s paper and extended some of her observations about Twin Oaks and Acorn into a broader framework about the challenges that egalitarian communities in general face in maintaining equality. He drew on his extensive research on the Amana Colonies and from other intentional communities, arguing that, although different communities embrace different definitions of equality and emphasize different aspects of it, all must deal with forces from within that undermine egalitarianism.