Discuss the definition of and development of community and arising the definition of community development: Outline and discuss the contemporary issues affecting Community Development. Critique one community development project with which you are familiar

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Community Development Module Assignment AD509

In groups of not less than 2 and not more than 4 please address the following assignment:

Community and how we interact with community is undergoing fundamental change. In this assignment you are required to address the following:

Discuss the definition of and development of community and arising the definition of community development

Outline and discuss the contemporary issues affecting Community Development

Critique one community development project with which you are familiar and draw conclusions relating to 1 & 2 above from an applied perspective.

Include a personal reflection on the task, process and learning.

Introduction 

In social sciences it is believed that one’s philosophical underpinning determines or influences h/her views, foundational values, conceptual and theoretical framework that tend to inform professional practice in one’s chosen discipline. Therefore, this essay will attempt to analyse Community and community development based upon the author’s ontological and epistemological stand, which is predicated upon constructivism, interactionism, interpretive perspective and critical theory. The essay will also outline contemporaneous issues affecting community development and analyse them in light of current understanding and knowledge. This assignment is a group work comprising four members and we have adopted to analyse a well-known case study project, whose author happens to be fellow course-mate Caroline Farrell a librarian/writer, and also a group member in this assignment. Finally my reflection on how this assignment was handled as a group work will be presented.

Philosophical and Classical Underlay

Since the dawn of history human beings have lived in communities the world over. The study of community has always been a huge challenge to social scientists, most especially with the kind of change that characterise modernity. The advent of modern philosophy, which began with Rene Descartes’ (1596-1650) mind/body (rational/emotional) split was linked to the enlightenment, modernisation, industrialisation, modernity, and then technoscience, and thus, established a new world order, which many contend has eroded “social capital”, traditional authority, solidarity and weakened communal bonds, local ties/links and threatens survival (Putman, 2000) - thus, giving rise to “fears about the supposed contemporary loss of community” (Wellman, 1999). The fear surrounding the breakdown of community is captured in Putman’s (2000) ‘Bowling Alone’ very clearly. Wellman, a proponent of network analysis argues that community undergoes transmutation (transformation). Therefore,

     Community, of course, had never been lost. Yet since the industrial revolution, most  

     people have believed that large-scale technological and social changes destroyed

     community in the developed world and were well on their way to killing it in

     developing countries (Wellman, 1999).

 

Many studies also supported this view that it is wrong to attribute this change entirely to the Industrial Revolution, its antecedents and the aftermath because as early as the Renaissance a fundamental shift occurred in society (Hareven, 1982); and also Wirth (1938) suggests that even in the so-called “pre-industrial society” nuclear families began to supplant extended community links. Nevertheless, modernity brought with it unprecedented social changes that have influenced or resulted in diversified opinions, views, understandings, conflicting ideologies and underpinnings between the modernist, critical theory and the so-called postmodernist thought. Herbrechter and Higgins (2006) noted “That community is returning can be seen in the proliferation of its current ‘postmodern’ or ‘posthumanist’ conceptualisation: phantom communities, deterritorialised communities, virtual communities … etc” (p.10).

The postmodernist argues that the ‘ideals of modernity’- objectivity, universality and truth, give rise to grand narratives or metanarratives that tend to generalise and universalise our social conditions through their high level theories and views (Birden, 2003). Notable metanarratives in social sciences include Durkheim (functionalist), Marxism (conflict approach), and Webber (rationalisation/interactionist approach). Classical theorists analysed communities using the rural and urban continuum. For instance, Cooley believed that rural community is characterised with primary relations due to homogeneity and the social control tend to be informal, while urban community characterised by heterogeneity has secondary relations and its mode of social control is formal. Also, another classical sociological theorist Tonnies spoke about rural community as traditional society characterised by “gemeinschaft” social relations, those based on long standing traditional ties or links, and view modern society (urban community) as having “gesellschaft” relations, “where people are drawn into larger networks of impersonal and instrumental relations” (Tonnies, 1935). In this continuum paradigm, the communities’ distinctive characteristics are teased out to determine their type and categorisation, and the criteria applied depends on what one chooses, such as degree of networks, size, connectedness or even occupation and so on.  

The Nature of Community, its Definition and Description

The term community is said to have multiple or numerous definitions. Hillary (1955, notes from class) noted that the term community has been used more than ninety different ways. Bulmer (1989, notes from class) described community as “a notoriously slippery term in social science” because it “is far ranging and difficult to define” (Mullen, 1998, notes from class). This suggests that community is a complex, ambiguous, difficult, contradictory, elusive or slippery word, term or concept to conceptualise, and thus is relative to situationalities and contextual (personal, social, cultural, historical, political, and economical) factors.

Due to multidimensionality of community, contemporary social scientists apply diverse methodology and use multiple criteria or lenses to analyse and understand community. Because of the transitory nature of community, it has become axiomatic that though people are embracing notion of place-based community they are still in many ways attached to their foregone, ideal, or imaginary communities. It is not surprising therefore, that attempts are made to develop typologies of communities - such as, distinguishing between the “community lost”, “community saved” and “community liberated” (Wellman and Leighton, 1979). Also, on the trail is what (Webber, 1963, 1964 and 1968) predicts as the emergence of “community without propinquity”, which share similar causality with the emerging virtual world that is creating “cyber communities”. However, Walmsley (2000) views cyberspace not as placeless but as “spaceless place” that could be altering the so-called time-space continuum and thus, may represent the ultimate example of non-place urban realm. This new vogue of cybersociety, which is premised upon inherently transitory cyberspace links according to McLaughlin, et al (1995) encourages superficiality in relationships and thus, viewed as the ultimate form of “community of limited liability” (Schiefloe, 1990).

Furthermore, some theorists have differentiated transitory, parochial, integral, diffuse, stepping-stone, and anomic communities, which they base on the degree of local interaction between residents, the extent of identification with the locality in question, and the pattern of connections between the local neighbourhood and society at large (Warren, 1978).

The communitarian theorists also attempt to view community from three strands: community of place, community of memory and psychological community (e.g., family). It is the interactionist relationship between the state and civil society that concerns the communitarian politics and movement.

Contemporary social scientists attempt to view community in a continuum spectrum, which helps in analysing distinctive characteristics, differentiation and categorisation. Based on such paradigm, a spectrum of definitions emerges between two extremes, and perhaps, helps in bringing into focus critical awareness to which community is place-based, and also placeless. Thus, at one end of the spectrum of definition (place-based), community according to Dalton and Dalton (1975) is viewed as

     a relatively homogeneous human population, within a defined area, experiencing  

     little mobility, interacting and participating in a wide range of local affairs, and

     sharing an awareness of common life and personal bonds.

At the other end of the spectrum (placeless), community is defined in an ideological sense to describe what should be rather than what is (Bell and Newby, 1976). This side of the spectrum includes the virtual world, and also the imagined communities dating back generations, known as community of memory or groups of strangers who share a morally significant history (Bellah, et al., 1985). Webber’s (1963, 1964, 1968) proposed “community without propinquity” is today gathering momentum as our social world in recent times, continues to be influenced by technoscience bringing about unprecedented technological changes, advanced telecommunications and accessibility of the internet thus, making it lot easier to interact at a distance. Webber has argued that as mobility improves, and affluence also increases there will emerge a “non-place urban realm” – communities of concern having a widespread shared interests and values but spatially far-flung. Smith (1989) also argues that even indigenous community is no longer based on propinquity. Wellman (1999) supported this view saying, “In short, communities are far-flung social networks and not local neighbourhood solidarities.” He argues that,

     The principal defining criterion for community is what people do for each other  

     and not where they live” - thus, community should be treated “as a social network

     rather than as a place.

However, the salience of place in conceptualising and defining community cannot be easily overlooked and thus, continue to generate debates and controversies, and many attempt to manipulate or politicise the notion of community. Therefore, the role of place in community has been the central focus of contention among social scientists. Hence, some theorists tended to be pessimistic, sceptical and suspicious about the general notion of community and therefore, argue that it is “a controlling myth” (McFarlane, 1989, notes from class); and “an illusion in societies dominated by international structures of economic control” (Sinnett, 1977, notes from class). Nevertheless, many optimistically view community as an indispensability that has intrinsic value in the social world of mankind. It therefore, continues to stimulate and provoke studies and theories amidst contention between collective and individual interest. Herbrechter and Higgins (2006) captured what they call “precarious equilibrium between particularism and universalism, (individual) freedom and (collective) security” (p.9). The fear of overly pluralism and it consequences in our contemporary society has triggered heated debates between libertarianism and conservatism, which the proponents of communitarian ideology attempt to draw a line between individual freedom and social collective concern. According to a prominent communitarian thinker, Putnam, (2000) "We need to connect with one another. We've got to move a little more in the direction of community in the balance between community and the individual."

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It is also important and imperative to note the centrality of emotion or affective in mediating the definition of community in both extremes. People tend to be both physically and/or emotionally attached to a particular place, village, town, or city, artefact, networks, aesthetics, historical sites, festivals. All these sometimes could provoke or evoke memories of past, forgone, ideal or imaginary community, which

     Besides tying us to the past, such communities turn us towards the future —

     members strive to realize the ideals and aspirations embedded in past experiences of

     those ...

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