Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Christiania is the name of a Danish alternative community. In this article I investigate how Christianites, members of Christiania, deal with internal tensions and conflicts. My empirical data suggests that Christianites have developed social mechanisms and practices, in which conflicts accumulate without being resolved. I suggest that these practices are related to the dominant position of community old-timers. In my discussion I employ situational analysis as means to presenting one crisis situation in Christiania. The crisis situation occurred during my fieldwork in Christiania in 2005 and 2006. The first part of my article is about the general features of social life in Christiania. In the second part, one ethnographic example will show how old-timers operate in a specific crisis situation. I use Max Weber’s ideas on traditional authority to explain the dominant position of community old-timers.