Lecture: The Community

Question 1

Why is community a relevant concept for human geography or planning?

Answer 1

• Founding concept of sociology and geography
• Intrinsic association with place
• Emergent quality that embodies structures, institutions and social processes (Barrett)
• People enter and exit communities. We also meet multiple communities per day
• Communities are about group behaviour. Can be beneficial for some, but not for all.

Question 2

What is the definition of community?

Answer 2

1. Oxford dictionary: A group of people living in the same place or having a specific characteristic in common. A particular area considered together with its inhabitants.
   Lesson: Dynamic definition that allows for change and diversity, because the group of people is not prefixed to understand community.
2. Oxford dictionary: The condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common.
   Lesson: This is about a community based on values and attitudes, so not place-based (e.g. online community, church)
3. Ecology: A group of interdependent plants or animals growing or living together in natural conditions or occupying a specified habitat.
   Lesson: Not very relevant, but the most dynamic definition.

Question 3

What is the origin of the word community?

Answer 3

From the word common. So things that are shared by two or more people. You are looking for unity or a recurring theme.

Question 4

What are things we associate with community?

Answer 4

• a group of people
• sense of belonging
• sense of community: Do all the people who are there experience that they are part of the community?
• Gatekeepers: Who determines who is part of the community?
• Gemeenschap: Your local ties also has specific norms and values. Place-based: It’s easier to be part of the community if you play by the rules of a place.
• Bubble: When people are secluded from other things. They’re not really a part of the rest of society (disconnection from society)

Question 5

How does Tönnies define Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft?

Answer 5

Gemeinschaft: small-scale and neighbourhood-based
Gesellschaft: large-scale and globalising market

So there’s a dichotomy (two extremes).

Internal vs. external: us and them. In the external you don’t know the people. If you want the sense of community you need to find a mutual enemy.

Question 6

Why are communities imagined according to Anderson?

Answer 6

Especially on national level. We imagine that people living within the same borders have the same features. Also related to nationalism.

Question 7

Why can communities be described as a process?

Answer 7

• Places continuously change and so do communities
• Massey’s progressive notion of place: places need to link to the outside world and develop further
• More interconnected, new resources
• Communities are produced but also reproduced (people reproduce the notion of what the community is presented as)

Question 8

What is the definition of epistemic communities?

Answer 8

• Communities formed around ways of viewing and understanding the world
• Can be online and offline
• Can cause tribalism: we understand the world in a right way and the other frames we don’t accept

Question 9

What are communities of practice?

Answer 9

Everyday life requires everyday performances (ont various stages and different roles)

Negotiated performances: Who do I want to be and what kind of performance is expected from me?

There’re particular ways of working and communicating that you agree on.