Barrett "Deconstructing Community"

Question 1

What are two relevant questions in Barrett’s text?

Answer 1

1. How is the internal structure of the community framed? Cohesive of conflict-ridden? Homogenous or diverse and conflict about how things should be understood?
2. What is the impact of exogenous societal structures on community?

Question 2

How can you connect Bauman and Massey to Barrett?

Answer 2

Does globalisation have a disintegrative impact on communities or does it present possibilities for community revitalisation (progressive)?

Question 3

What does ubiquitous community mean according to Barrett?

Answer 3

• It’s everywhere and always around you (omnipresent)
• This is how community is used in policy documents. How the community can cure problems.
• This is not true for everyone because of dissensus (not everyone is equal)
• If you frame a community like this conflict must originate from the outside, because the community solves everything for everyone. The Stranger is the problem (Simmel)

Question 4

What is the myth of community according to Barrett?

Answer 4

• Is the community really there or is it imagined?
• False assumption about community: homogeneity and internal unity. Communities are made of individual people. The community is defined by one set of features. The features are lived and expressed differently by different people.
• Heaven and hell: The internal unity (heaven) is false, but also the thought that nothing works in communities and everything is at the expense of the individual (hell) is false.
• You should study both attachment and exclusion (unmaking of place)

Question 5

What does dead community mean according to Barrett?

Answer 5

It’s not true that communities are no longer relevant because of time-space compression (Massey) since globalisation.
The local still matters. New communities are stille being formed (e.g. online communities)