Unintelligible institutions: neoliberal rationality and the restructuring of relational social care in Botton village

This article uses social care provision in Botton Village as a case study to show how neoliberalism renders alternative institutional forms structurally unintelligible. Botton, an intentional community founded in 1955 in the UK as part of the Camphill movement, operated for decades on non-market principles. These principles were consistent with a relational model of social care, under pinned by a non-individualistic conception of the self, whereby residents with and without learning disabilities lived together, pooled resources, and organised work around communal need rather than wages or contracts. In the 2010s, regulatory and legal pressures forced a partial restructuring of the community to align it with mainstream neoliberal norms. This article argues that this transformation advances our understanding of how neoliberalism operates not only through markets or policy but as a hegemonic rationality that defines which institutions are thinkable, fundable, and legally sustainable. Unlike most case studies of neoliberalism’s influence, which trace its encroachment into domains where market principles have long exerted some influence (such as education or healthcare), this article examines a community organised entirely around a non-neoliberal rationale. The pressures it faced thus offer a uniquely clear lens through which to observe how neoliberal governance renders alternative institutional forms structurally illegible.