Diggers and Dreamers
Diggers and Dreamers
D&D Collective
For many people another way of living has started with Diggers & Dreamers. Perhaps you're fed up with living in a little box. Maybe just by yourself. Maybe with your family. Just being a docile consumer alongside the billions of other docile consumers. And the combined outcome of it all is a wrecked planet. Isn’t there something more to life than this? Couldn’t we have access to many of the best things in life without doing such harm if we were prepared to share more with our neighbours? Perhaps in an intentional community – that’s a community that has come together by intention rather than by chance. Believe it or not, many people have been living in intentional communities like this for decades. And it’s not all hippy crash pads where nobody does the washing up! Diggers & Dreamers will open your eyes to the multifarious ways in which communal living happens in the 21st century. It’s your way into the future!
Jonathan How – bringing co-operation to a wider audience
In this episode we're going in-house and speaking to Jonathan How – one of the original members of the Diggers & Dreamers team. As well as communal living he's had past involvements in radical bookshops, wholefoods, publishing, co-op development and more recently local government. Following his path from the British urban squatting movement of the 1970s to the present day we hear how his conclusion is that the hippies were right all along – they just needed to be a bit more organised! If we're ever going to achieve anything then we all need to rebalance our mindsets so that they're made up of equal parts digging and dreaming. Diggers & Dreamers Timeline:https://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk.about/timeline Spaceheads: https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/
Jul 4, 2024
58 min
Bill Metcalf – a Lifelong Communitarian
This month we welcome Dr Bill Metcalf both a lifelong communitarian and an academic based in Australia.  Bill starts us off by exploring the definition of intentional community and the utopian goal of living a ‘better’ life. This prompts the question of what we mean by better, who gets to decide this, how is this shaped by the politics and history of communities?  Dr William Metcalf: https://hpi.uq.edu.au/profile/4546/bill-metcalf Shared Visions Shared Lives Bill Metcalf 1996, ISBN 13: 9781899171019 Spaceheads: https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/
Jun 2, 2024
44 min
Whiteway Colony - Anarchy in the Cotswolds
In this episode host Kirsten Stevens-Wood interviews David Harris, who is a resident and archivist from an extraordinary community called Whiteway Colony. Whiteway was founded in 1898 by Tolstoyan anarchists, and has been going strong for over 125 years. David shares some of Whiteway’s most interesting stories, including intrusions from spies, accusations of “beastly morals”, and sharing taken to the next level! He also explains how Whiteway residents live together today, and how he is archiving Whiteway’s rich history. Whiteway Colony:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteway_Colony Utopia Britannica: https://www.utopia-britannica.org.uk/pages/whiteway.htm Whiteway Colony: Social History of a Tolstoyan Community Joy Thacker 1993, ISBN 13: 9780952176008 Spaceheads: https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/
Apr 30, 2024
55 min