A Thirst for Moretakes the reader on a journey into self-development culture around Portland, Oregon. The author attends events devoted to personal growth to try to understand how this culture shapes our lives and the way we think. Along the way, she encounters psychics, mystics, an alleged cult leader, and seekers and self-reinventors of all stripes. As participants in this culture work to build their own philosophies and define their own spirituality, they also create their own communities--intentionally and otherwise. These communities form the heart of this exploration. Chapters 1 and 2 explore the spontaneous communities that arise during afternoon events in which participants pay for goods, services, and information pertaining to personal growth and spirituality. Chapter 3 delves into a sacred art and music festival in which participants gather outdoors for a handful of days in the hopes of connecting with each other and transforming themselves--and society--in the process. The final chapters explore the lives of two communities. In Chapter 4, a woman devotes her life to starting up an eco-village in the foothills of Mt. Hood. In Chapter 5, the author visits a 41-year-old commune in which residents and visitors have abandoned former lives in their search for meaning, fulfillment, belonging, and a place to call home. As the author questions others about their beliefs, she begins to question her own. Why do we believe what we believe?

Characteristic features of today's society include fast way of life, mobility of people, change the way of life and social scenarios. Nowadays, at the time of the information society, life is closely connected to the development of information technologies (for example, people are not attached to workplace in the office anymore and can work from home). Urban and settlement development is influenced, as well, by a high and ever increasing degree of urbanization, globalization, increasing environmental devastation. Demographic and social structure of the population are changing. Society is constantly changing so intensely that housing fases with new requirements that it should be able to meet. The aim of this project is to find urban and architectural possibilities for solution of current housing issues in the context of the former Kohn brick building in the city of Brno. This project is my effort to understand how approach to housing design changes or how it should change, as well as on my tries to understand how to create a high quality desing which will be able to satisfy current housing trends and needs. Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic. It has features of post-industrial city with a large number of unused industrial sites. One of such sites is former Kohn's brickyard, which was selected for developing in this master's thesis. The site of the former Kohn's brickyard is located on land belonging partly to the cadastral area of Bohunice, partly to the cadastral area of Štýřice, and this is a very potential area for further development.

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Through a case study, this study examines the organizational structure of group homes for the mentally retarded. The case study is found to represent a new form of communal organization according to Hillery's theory of communal organization (1968; 1978). As a communal organization, the structural measures utilized to maximize freedom in this group home are examined. A discussion of the implications of this study towards community theory and the management of group homes follows. / Master of Science

The Rainbow Family of Living Light is an intentional society devoted to achieving world peace through spiritual healing. A loose association of spiritual seekers that explicitly rejects all forms of leadership and imposed authority, it represents an interesting example of an anarchist and communal society. Rainbow Family events regularly draw thousands of people. These take place all over the world. While some participants may question the label, it can be described as one of the biggest and most geographically diverse New Age groups on the planet. As such, it is a very important factor in shaping the entire present day New Age movement. I conducted fieldwork with the Rainbow Family between the autumns of 1998 and 2002, traveling with the nomadic group throughout the United States. The Rainbow Family rejects any sort of official membership, accepting anyone who attends its events as an equal participant. Spending extended periods of time in the field, I became immersed in this alternative society. The distinction between ethnographic researcher and informants was highly problematic under such circumstances. This made me acutely aware of the issues surrounding fieldwork and anthropological authority. My own work began to seem quite similar to the spiritual seeking of other participants. As such, I began to consider the commonalities between anthropology and the spirituality encountered within the Rainbow Family. The spiritual discourses produced by Rainbow Family participants are uniquely eclectic and ludic in tone. In a setting explicitly championing individual freedom rather than coercion, there is no sense of spiritual orthodoxy. The ways in which spiritual discourses are treated by the Rainbow Family display interesting attitudes towards truth, authority, and reality. These attitudes are reminiscent of epistemological orientations within postmodernist anthropology. Rainbow Family participants find noteworthy solutions to the apparent ontological dilemmas postmodernism presents. It is my hope that looking at the Rainbow Family of Living Light will suggest a viable way for anthropology to productively deal with its current crisis of identity.

Thesis (Ph.D. (History)) --University of Limpopo, 2009 / Key to this study is the history of Makgabeng, mainly focusing on creation of rural communal identities in that area. Defining identity will be an important aspect for this study in which a deduction will be made on how the Makgabeng communities viewed themselves and were also viewed by those outside their area. The various aspects which shaped and led them to view themselves and be viewed that way over time will all be explained. The history of Makgabeng was never included in the mainstream just like the history of most of the previously marginalised communities in South Africa. The early history of such communities was documented by Europeans, while those communities did not participate in the production of their own histories and the history of South Africa in general. The history of indigenous communities has been told from the other people’s perspectives resulting in huge gaps as well as distorted, prejudiced and subjective accounts of the past. The past of these indigenous communities was mostly preserved in oral traditions and oral history. Therefore, one of the principal aims of this study is to work towards filling the gaps as well as attempting to rectify distortions and myths prevailing in the current texts which were made by authors alien to the indigenous people.

Out of the politically charged atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s emerged a migration to "the land" and communes, which popularly became known as the back-to-the-land movement. This migration occurred throughout the United States, as well as many other countries, and included clusters of land based communities in southern Oregon. Within these clusters, lesbian feminist women created lesbian separatist lands and communes. These women were well educated, and politically active in movements such as the New Left, Civil Rights, Women's Liberation, and Gay Liberation. These lands or communes functioned together as a community network that developed and commodified lesbian art, which impacted and influenced the development of lesbian art over time. In Oregon, as of 2011, at least ten known lesbian lands still existed. This cluster belonged to an extended community that stretched down into California and over into New Mexico. Over a two-year period I collected, transcribed, and studied the oral histories of eight of the elders of the women's land movement in southern Oregon. The purpose of this study is to better understand this movement of lesbian feminists the development of lesbian art and culture over time. The lesbian feminist back-to-the-land movement made the conscious choice to disengage from the patriarchal mainstream rather than continue participation in their own oppression. They viewed lesbian feminist separatism and the creation of safe lesbian land as a way to reconstruct their self-identity and influence the continued self-perception of lesbians the world over through art and literature. Based on these oral histories and archival materials, it became evident that the women within the lesbian land communities developed and maintained land on which they could re-examine who they were, re-educate themselves and each other, learn practical skills, construct new identities, create art, and broadcast their creations out into the world through organized media networks. One of the key features of this construction of lesbian land culture was the desire to share--share power, share money, share responsibilities, share knowledge, share land, share lovers. On the one hand, ownership was eschewed as elitist and patriarchal, while simultaneously important to the continuity of women's land and its protection from what could be described as patriarchal profit motives. They developed infrastructure, altered language, created a spiritual practice, and made art. The material and artistic culture was created in concert with modes or mediums of transmission, casting it out to a much wider audience. These creative activities influenced and impacted women beyond Oregon, beyond the lesbian land communities, and beyond the 1970s. By examining the lesbian land movement in southern Oregon, we can better understand the impact on LGBTQ culture, and the continued albeit unintentional impact on the questioning of the gender binary and sexual identity. In other words, the feminist and queer questioning of identity construction and symbolic language began here.

Bibliography: leaves 103-106. This research is concerned with rural land sharing communities in South Australia. The state's planning system is examined to see what mechanisms it possesses for dealing with communal or any other unconventional development, and what the main planning constraints are. A case study of an actual development application for a rural land sharing community is examined.

German text / In dieser Forschungsarbeit werden Merkmale eines missionalen Lebensstils und deren transformatorische Auswirkungen erforscht, um gesellschaftliche Formen der Gemeinde- und Glaubenspraxis zu entwickeln. Im Zentrum steht eine empirisch-theologische Untersuchung einer Wohn- und Lebensgemeinschaft in einem sozialen Brennpunkt. Mit den Mitgliedern wurde in einen Zeitraum von über einem Jahr regelmäßig eine Gruppendiskussion durchgeführt, deren Auswertung mit Hilfe der Methode der Grounded Theory (Strauss/Corbin) erfolgte. Die Ergebnisse der Datenanalyse wurden dann mit den aktuellen praktisch-theologischen Ansätzen zur Thematik sowie mit lerntheoretischen Ansätzen in Beziehung gesetzt, um Folgerungen für eine transformatorische und ganzheitliche Gemeinde- und Glaubenspraxis im sozialen Brennpunkt zu ziehen. Die erzielten Ergebnisse zeigen die Chance, Wichtigkeit und Herausforderung die diese Arbeit mit sich bringt. Die vorliegende erste qualitative Studie zu dieser Thematik möchte Wohn- und Lebensgemeinschaften in der Ausübung eines missionalen Lebensstils Orientierung und Hilfestellung bieten und einen Forschungsbeitrag zur aktuellen Debatte um den Begriff „missional“ im Kontext der Praktischen Theologie geben. / This research study examines characteristic traits of a missional lifestyle and its transformatory effects, in order to develop societal forms of church and faith practice. At the centre of the study is the empirical-theological exploration of a communal living project in a socially deprived locality. Members regularly took part in group discussions over the course of more than a year, the results of which were evaluated with the help of the Grounded Theory Method (Strauss/Corbin). The results of the data analysis were then set in relation to the current practicaltheological approaches to the topic, as well as to learning theoretical approaches, in order to draw conclusions for a transformatory and holistic church and faith practice in a socially deprived locality. The results reveal the opportunities, challenges and significance of this work. This research, the first qualitative study on the topic, intends to provide communal living projects with the orientation and support required for a missional lifestyle, and to contribute to the current debate about the term "missional" through an exploration of practical theology. / Practical Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

German text / In dieser Forschungsarbeit werden Merkmale eines missionalen Lebensstils und deren transformatorische Auswirkungen erforscht, um gesellschaftliche Formen der Gemeinde- und Glaubenspraxis zu entwickeln. Im Zentrum steht eine empirisch-theologische Untersuchung einer Wohn- und Lebensgemeinschaft in einem sozialen Brennpunkt. Mit den Mitgliedern wurde in einen Zeitraum von über einem Jahr regelmäßig eine Gruppendiskussion durchgeführt, deren Auswertung mit Hilfe der Methode der Grounded Theory (Strauss/Corbin) erfolgte. Die Ergebnisse der Datenanalyse wurden dann mit den aktuellen praktisch-theologischen Ansätzen zur Thematik sowie mit lerntheoretischen Ansätzen in Beziehung gesetzt, um Folgerungen für eine transformatorische und ganzheitliche Gemeinde- und Glaubenspraxis im sozialen Brennpunkt zu ziehen. Die erzielten Ergebnisse zeigen die Chance, Wichtigkeit und Herausforderung die diese Arbeit mit sich bringt. Die vorliegende erste qualitative Studie zu dieser Thematik möchte Wohn- und Lebensgemeinschaften in der Ausübung eines missionalen Lebensstils Orientierung und Hilfestellung bieten und einen Forschungsbeitrag zur aktuellen Debatte um den Begriff „missional“ im Kontext der Praktischen Theologie geben. / This research study examines characteristic traits of a missional lifestyle and its transformatory effects, in order to develop societal forms of church and faith practice. At the centre of the study is the empirical-theological exploration of a communal living project in a socially deprived locality. Members regularly took part in group discussions over the course of more than a year, the results of which were evaluated with the help of the Grounded Theory Method (Strauss/Corbin). The results of the data analysis were then set in relation to the current practicaltheological approaches to the topic, as well as to learning theoretical approaches, in order to draw conclusions for a transformatory and holistic church and faith practice in a socially deprived locality. The results reveal the opportunities, challenges and significance of this work. This research, the first qualitative study on the topic, intends to provide communal living projects with the orientation and support required for a missional lifestyle, and to contribute to the current debate about the term "missional" through an exploration of practical theology. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)