Is the idea of community nostalgic?

September 30, 2009 by
Filed under: Education Matters 

“Now you’re telling me, you’re not nostalgic. Well give me another word for it, you who are so good with words”

- Joan Baez, Diamonds and Rust(in reference to her relationship with Bob Dylan)

I am still too young to get nostalgic on a regular basis, but this Baez line always made a deep impression on me, and comes to mind when thinking of community. The idea of neighbours coming together, looking out for each other, having a common sense of identity, values and purpose, and such neighbourhoods bridging with others like them to form some sort of civic whole….Well, has there ever been such a place? Is community an inherently nostalgiac notion?

Before pondering this question I surfed for quotes on nostalgia and my favourite was by American engineer Charles F Kettering:

“You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time”

If community is going to be a non-redundant concept, we need to stop looking back to a bygone pre-globalized, pre-digital age and reimagine community as something that people with multiple parts can still feel some belonging to, and desire to contribute to. So what kind of community do we want here and now?

Part of the problem is that community seems to be at least three things today:

1) Your geographic neighbourhood (where you live, the streets you walk)

2) Your social network (who you meet, go out with, do things with)

3) Your digital network (who you email, who you text and call etc)

Community is all of these things and more, but the calls for stronger communities is tied up with an understandable conflation of 1 and 2, plus
a growing awareness of the importance of 3.

Part of what we are doing here at the RSA connected communities project is to understand how best to frame the idea of community in a way that makes it fit for purpose, and the purpose we have in mind is an idea of citizens of the future in which people are informed, engaged, other regarding, capable of handling complexity, and posessing greater self-reliance.

But citizens are embedded in communities of various sorts, and our informed hunch, based on findings detailed at social networking blogs is that the best way to create such citizens is to have strong social networks and the best way to make sense of community in the 21st century is to get a better grasp of how these networks operate. This seems to us to be the pattern that best connects the three forms of community outlined above- let us know whether you agree.

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  2. Going beyond schmoozing? Social networks and community development

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Comments

  • http://yomo.co.uk/ mas

    nostalgiac/nostalgic?

    “The idea of neighbours coming together, looking out for each other, having a common sense of identity, values and purpose” – I don’t know that that kind of idealism is what people talk about when they mention a sense of community in local terms. I think most would recognise that kind of unity tends to happen in brief moments, often through a common need or goal. What is often lacking though is people simply talking to each other and knowing about each other – caused by among others people not walking the streets where they live (just to the car & back), not working where they live and in too many cases being fearful (rightly or wrongly) of where they live.

    I think the idea of considering community afresh is very relevant – personally though I prefer to think about how increased connectivity can assist in better local connections. It’s interesting at how what was once an isolated activity – people playing games on their own on computers, is now a hugely social activity both in people getting together and through online connections. It’ll be interesting to see if something similar happens in terms of sense of community in that being online is seemingly all about being connected across vast distances, but maybe it will now go the other way and become much more about local connections – particularly through mobile phone location based services.

    To go back to some of those issues I suggested that prevent a sense of local community – not walking the streets because of car use – imagine a local social network for car sharing, not working locally – freelancers and homeworkers networking to meet up and work in shared spaces, people fearful of where they live – better awareness of what there actually is and isn’t to fear locally through access to information online. Some or all of these of course already exist but not everyone’s connected…… yet…….

    hm turned into a bit of a ramble that – bottom line though is that we surely belong to communities, not community?

    • http://www.thersa.org/ Jonathan Rowson

      Thanks Mas.

      On the spelling point, both seem to be valid, but in future I’ll use nostalgic, which is certainly easier on the eye.

      It is hard to be sure about the folk understanding of ‘community’ which varies across cultures, the lifespan etc, but I agree that community as a singular notion now feels somewhat dated. Most of us now belong to numerous communities, local, professional, personal, digital, some which overlap and some that don’t. When we say we want a greater sense of community, perhaps we mean that we want to feel some sense of reciprocal belonging in the multiple communities through which we are now obliged to live our lives.

  • http://yomo.co.uk mas

    nostalgiac/nostalgic?

    “The idea of neighbours coming together, looking out for each other, having a common sense of identity, values and purpose” – I don’t know that that kind of idealism is what people talk about when they mention a sense of community in local terms. I think most would recognise that kind of unity tends to happen in brief moments, often through a common need or goal. What is often lacking though is people simply talking to each other and knowing about each other – caused by among others people not walking the streets where they live (just to the car & back), not working where they live and in too many cases being fearful (rightly or wrongly) of where they live.

    I think the idea of considering community afresh is very relevant – personally though I prefer to think about how increased connectivity can assist in better local connections. It’s interesting at how what was once an isolated activity – people playing games on their own on computers, is now a hugely social activity both in people getting together and through online connections. It’ll be interesting to see if something similar happens in terms of sense of community in that being online is seemingly all about being connected across vast distances, but maybe it will now go the other way and become much more about local connections – particularly through mobile phone location based services.

    To go back to some of those issues I suggested that prevent a sense of local community – not walking the streets because of car use – imagine a local social network for car sharing, not working locally – freelancers and homeworkers networking to meet up and work in shared spaces, people fearful of where they live – better awareness of what there actually is and isn’t to fear locally through access to information online. Some or all of these of course already exist but not everyone’s connected…… yet…….

    hm turned into a bit of a ramble that – bottom line though is that we surely belong to communities, not community?

    • http://www.thersa.org Jonathan Rowson

      Thanks Mas.

      On the spelling point, both seem to be valid, but in future I’ll use nostalgic, which is certainly easier on the eye.

      It is hard to be sure about the folk understanding of ‘community’ which varies across cultures, the lifespan etc, but I agree that community as a singular notion now feels somewhat dated. Most of us now belong to numerous communities, local, professional, personal, digital, some which overlap and some that don’t. When we say we want a greater sense of community, perhaps we mean that we want to feel some sense of reciprocal belonging in the multiple communities through which we are now obliged to live our lives.

  • http://bosley.wordpress.com/ Allan Bosley

    The distinction I would make in your definition of communities is that one type, your first and the most over and misused is passive. It is something that comes with being there.

    But the sense of community, your numbers 2 and 3, is of a very different type. It is about a shared purpose; common interest; mutual ambition.

    Every type one is an amalgam of type twos, and the more passionate, the more committed the shared interest – the more cohesive and dynamic the community as a whole.

    This is as true on the ground, in your street, within the village as it is on Facebook!

    Look at the strong feeling of community amongst those people committed to and working in Transition Towns, or the energy that can get put in to resisting the imposition of unwanted traffic lights, a bypass. In each example the community is self-defining, built around a common purpose.

    Take away the belief that you can make a difference, that you can contribute, that things can be changed and the word itself no longer makes sense.

    • http://www.thersa.org/ Jonathan Rowson

      Many thanks Allan. I think the sense of shared interest/purpose/values/direction is the heart of community, and you often only realise that there is a such community when a shared issue brings these commonalities to the surface. This understanding is directing our attempt to understand communities as social networks that expand and strengthen through local initiatives.

  • http://bosley.wordpress.com Allan Bosley

    The distinction I would make in your definition of communities is that one type, your first and the most over and misused is passive. It is something that comes with being there.

    But the sense of community, your numbers 2 and 3, is of a very different type. It is about a shared purpose; common interest; mutual ambition.

    Every type one is an amalgam of type twos, and the more passionate, the more committed the shared interest – the more cohesive and dynamic the community as a whole.

    This is as true on the ground, in your street, within the village as it is on Facebook!

    Look at the strong feeling of community amongst those people committed to and working in Transition Towns, or the energy that can get put in to resisting the imposition of unwanted traffic lights, a bypass. In each example the community is self-defining, built around a common purpose.

    Take away the belief that you can make a difference, that you can contribute, that things can be changed and the word itself no longer makes sense.

    • http://www.thersa.org Jonathan Rowson

      Many thanks Allan. I think the sense of shared interest/purpose/values/direction is the heart of community, and you often only realise that there is a such community when a shared issue brings these commonalities to the surface. This understanding is directing our attempt to understand communities as social networks that expand and strengthen through local initiatives.

  • Jose Aguiar

    It is important not forget the past and learn with it. We can not build the future, thinking all the time about the past, but we can not build/plan the future without a strong reflection about our history. The concept of community is a process. Communities disapear, others replace it. However I deeply believe that we need an evolution, not a revolution. We need to be aware of the present, reflect in our history and plan the future.

    • http://www.thersa.org/ Jonathan Rowson

      Thanks Jose- I agree. Those who forgot the past are condemnded to relive it and all that…and I like the idea of community as process. I suppose I was just highlighting think the difference between learning from the past, and pretending we can go back there.

  • Jose Aguiar

    It is important not forget the past and learn with it. We can not build the future, thinking all the time about the past, but we can not build/plan the future without a strong reflection about our history. The concept of community is a process. Communities disapear, others replace it. However I deeply believe that we need an evolution, not a revolution. We need to be aware of the present, reflect in our history and plan the future.

    • http://www.thersa.org Jonathan Rowson

      Thanks Jose- I agree. Those who forgot the past are condemnded to relive it and all that…and I like the idea of community as process. I suppose I was just highlighting think the difference between learning from the past, and pretending we can go back there.

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  • http://yomo.co.uk/ mas

    “we want to feel some sense of reciprocal belonging in the multiple communities through which we are now obliged to live our lives” nicely put :-)

  • http://yomo.co.uk mas

    “we want to feel some sense of reciprocal belonging in the multiple communities through which we are now obliged to live our lives” nicely put :-)

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