In the late 1970s, at the age of 17, Olive Jones joined a communal living experiment in Nelson, living in a kind of Anarchy with each other and off the land. Later, that Community purchased a piece of land in Motueka Valley that came to be known as Graham Downs.
There, they experimented radically with communal living: anybody could join whenever they wanted for as long as they wanted. They farmed the land with horses, milked cows, butchered their own meat, built their own houses, made their own clothing, all without any governance structure.
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Olive became a pillar of that community and lived there for 13 years. She wrote the book "Commune: Chasing a utopian dream in Aotearoa" about her experience of that time, as well as about the deterioration and falling apart of the Community. In this episode, Olive shares some of her life experiences:
- How they thought they were creating an alternative culture but ended up reproducing patriarchy;
- What did not work;
- How living in Community requires a level of emotional maturity and conflict resolution processes;
- How choosing an interesting life over a comfortable life makes life worth living;
- How women playing small contributed to the patriarchal culture;
- How women's work can be invisible;
and more.
Today, Olive lives in Auckland and is a trustee of the Trust holding the land.
This interview was held by Julia Neumann, who spent several weeks of living on the land in March & April 2024.
Read more about:
Archiarchy: https://archiarchy.mystrikingly.com
Guardianship: https://earthguardian.mystrikingly.com
Radical Responsibility: https://radicalresponsibility.mystrikingly.com
