Remaking Communities
Reconstructions and restorations at intentional community sites, such as Shaker and Moravian villages, are popular tourist destinations and valuable resources for public education. How do these sites present past groups' ideals within a modern societal context that largely contradicts many of their fundamental principles? How can visitors seek inspiration from intentional communities' unique efforts to enact or embody societal change when modern reconstructions often focus on quaint agrarian lifestyles that celebrate nostalgia for a shared, uncontested past, or highlight small innovations and inventions that align with our American ideals of individualism and entrepreneurial spirit? This chapter seeks to open a broad conversation among archaeologists about our role in interpreting and presenting community pasts as acts of social critique. Moving forward, we must acknowledge the modern social and political assumptions and motivations behind our interpretations of past communities, whether they are picturesque visions of an imagined simpler time, critical reflections on the discriminatory beliefs entwined with many group's histories, or calls to rekindle a movement or spirit from which we can learn today.