Leo Edmonds-Doberenz | 2026 I.S. Symposium
Name: Leo Edmonds-Doberenz
Title: Looking Beyond Productivity: Camphill Communities and the Question of Living Socially Well
Majors: Philosophy; History
Advisors: Evan Riley; Margaret Ng Wee-Siang
Camphill, an intentional community that emerged from the tensions of mid century Europe, provides an alternative example of what it may look like to live socially well. Drawing on Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and its threefold account of economic, political, and cultural spiritual life, Camphill organizes “life sharing” communities in which intellectually and developmentally disabled people are not segregated as dependents but participate as co-members in shared work, decision making, and ritual. This thesis argues that Camphill functions as a fragile but durable proof of concept for an alternative social logic: one that resists eugenic and productivity driven measures of human worth without withdrawing entirely from capitalist and statist structures. Through a combination of History, Philosophy, and ethnographic material from Camphill Triform, the analysis situates Camphill alongside Smithian, Marxian, and Anthroposophical social theories to ask whether its social logic is self sufficient, merely sheltered, or pragmatically viable under contemporary conditions. The thesis concludes that while Camphill cannot be universalized as a template, its eighty year persistence discloses a lived possibility of organizing belonging around development and reciprocity rather than output and thus offers a significant resource for thinking what it might mean to live socially well after eugenics.
Posted in Symposium 2026 on May 13, 2026.
