Commitment and Community in an Indian Utopia

FAIN: FT-12562-75

Larry Shinn
Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA 17837-2005)

Past experience indicates that the death of the founder of a utopian community often precipitates a crisis of commitment within the community. In Madras State in Southern India, a community called Auroville has recently experienced the death of its founder. While studies of utopian commitment done in the context of Western utopias have often stressed the sociological dimensions of commitment (i.e. social mechanisms which create and maintain adherence to communal ideals), P.I. explored the personal and human nature of commitment in Auroville. P.I. is including in his seminar an examination of utopian theories of commitment derived from Western contexts (e.g. R. Kaner and B. Zablocki and their application to non-Western examples such as Auroville.