Kristine Maassen is a PhD Student in the Anthropology Department at Rutgers–New Brunswick campus working with Dr. Lee Cronk. Maassen studies human evolution and cooperation, with a focus on how people organize interdependence in everyday life. Her research examines intentional communities, such as communes, ecovillages, and cohousing communities, as voluntary residential groups where residents deliberately structure shared labor, collective decision-making, resource sharing, and mutual support. By studying these communities, Maassen asks what helps people sustain trust, participation, and shared responsibility over time, and how these systems shape residents’ wellbeing and physical measures of stress.

Sharing More Than Space: Democracy and Interdependence in Communal Living

Many groups struggle to keep people involved after initial enthusiasm fades. Maassen’s project studies intentional communities, such as communes, where people choose to live together and organize daily life collectively. She examines how these communities organize work, support, and decision-making, and how those arrangements shape residents’ sense of stability and wellbeing. Because participation in these communities is woven into everyday life, they offer a useful way to study democracy beyond elections and formal politics. The findings can help show what makes collective participation more sustainable in a range of settings, including community organizations, civic groups, and mutual aid efforts.