"Community - arianism"Community and Communitarianism: Concepts and contexts

by Greg Smith, http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/G.Smith/

This book is published on the Web by UK Communities Online http://www.communities.org.uk, which is for anyone interested in how the Internet can make a difference in their lives and their community, particularly through local electronic community networking.

Contents

• Conditions of use • Background information • Outline of contents • Preface • Chapter 1 : Community; ideology and utopia • Chapter 2 : Community involvement and community policy • Chapter 3 : Community; some sociological perspectives • Chapter 4 : Understanding neighbourhood communities • Chapter 5 : Community studies; the ups and downs of a genre • Chapter 6 : Community lost? Networks, neighbours and the social fabric • Chapter 7 : Communities of identity • Chapter 8 : Community connections in an information society • Chapter 9 : The future of community; values and praxis • Bibliography and Internet Resources • Greg Smith's other publications

Dedication: for Marcus, Martha and Janeß

Conditions of use

Author: Greg Smith, writing as an employee of Aston Charities Community Involvement Unit Durning HallLondon E7 9ABtel (44) 0181 519 2244Email greg3@uel.ac.uk

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Background information

Rationale

This book aims to explore the concept of "community" and"communitarianism" from a variety of perspectives including those of classical sociological theory, the tradition of community studies, social network analysis, current debates on social policy and community development, in the context of the rapidly emerging in formation society and the crisis / end of modernity. In particular it will pick up on current debates around the concept of communitarianism, made popular on both sides of the Atlantic by Etzioni, and which is being taken up in sound-bites if not policy bypoliticians of Left and Right. The stance to be taken is broadly supportive of the communitarian vision but asks critical questions as to the possibility and modes of its implementation in the context of plural, fragmented urban society. Is it possible to"(re)build community" in the postmodern world where local neighbourhood belonging and identity is being replaced by individually selected identities which oftentranscend geography, and where the idea of a consensus of values is extremely problematic?

The book is fundamentally a critical introduction to the concept of community ratherthan on the philosophy or politics of communitarianism. However it is the importance ofcommunitarianism in the late 1990's that make the book timely and relevant.

Readership

The main market would probably be undergraduate sociologists / social scientists /urban geographers, and community professionals (such as social workers, health visitors,planners, community workers, clergy etc.) especially during training or on postgraduate taught courses. Policy makers, local government officers and community activists would also find it valuable. Many of the issues covered would be of interest to an international readership, including North America and the Third World.

Level: undergraduate in social sciences, professionals and postgraduates in associatedfields such as health and community work. also educated lay readership.

Courses: The book could become a main text in courses for community professionals and community workers and a supplementary text for social science courses.

Existing books:

Bell & Newby (1970) is the classic text in Community Studies but was followed bythe virtual demise of the genre until Herbert & Davies (1993). This approaches community from the perspective of urban geographers and planners. Crow & Allen (1994)is perhaps the closest to the proposed book, but does not cover the impact of information technology on community. Rheingold (1994) concentrates entirely on this aspect. Wilmott(1989), Bulmer (1987) and Henderson et al. (199 ) cover the social policy angles on community in the British context. Etzioni's work on communitarianism is increasingly influential among policy makers and would be discussed and sympathetically critiqued in this volume.

Background:

The author has been involved in community work and social research in East London for twenty years. For the last four years he has held the post of Research Officer with Aston Community Involvement Unit, where his role is to undertake research of relevance to the voluntary sector locally and support community organisations in doing their own research. He is an honorary visiting research fellow at the University of East London, and a committee member of ARVAC (association for research in the voluntary and community sector). He has carried out various projects which raise questions about the concept of community in a (post)modern urban setting, and which address policy issues in community development, the voluntary sector and care in the community. The proposed book arose from the author's concern to set such research and

community involvement in an adequate theoretical framework, and to help colleagues grapple with some of the important underlying issues which shape the context of their work. It is based on his experience of research and practice and informed by an extensive reading of the relevant academic literature in the field. However there is no intention to cover in any detail the growing philosophical and political literature around the concept of communitarianism.

Outline of contents

Chapter One: Community; Ideology and Utopia

The book begins by flagging up the notion of community as an important feature ofeverday life and some of the "commonsense" assumptions around the theme. I thenintroduce the theme of communitarianism and describe its emergence as a politicalprogramme in the 1990s. The chapter then begins to examine and question the various formsof ideological and utopian discourse around "community". A term which isuniversally accepted as a word with a warm glow it has been used to mask social injusticeas well as to inspire collective action for change. The key questions to be addressed inthe book and a guide to its structure are set out.

Chapter Two: Community; policy and practice

In this chapter the policies and practices of various institutions which carry thelabel "community" are examined and critiqued. e.g. community care, community health, community policing, community education, community development, community capacitybuilding, community enterprise, community organising, community action. The political andsocial trends which have led to a new emphasis on "community" ware described. How does communitarian thinking impinge on these policies and what are the hopes andlimitations of the movement?.

Chapter Three: Community; towards a definition

The huge range of definitions (Hillery's 94) can be categorised in a number of ways. The first split is between geographical neighbourhood definitions and sociological oneswhich stress common interest or networks of interaction. Communion or solidarityintroduces a distinct dimension, which can only be understood in the context of conflictand boundary marking processes. The classic sociological approaches of Tonnies(gemeinschaft, gesellschaft) are covered along with Schmalenbach's ideas of bund andcommunion. Reference is also made to Durkheim's notions of mechanical and organicsolidarity and anomie, and to Marx & Weber.

Chapter Four: Neighbourhood communities and Community work

Using the geographical notion of community this chapter covers ways of analysing thesocial life of localities. What makes a neighbourhood and how can we study them?Boundaries, central places, through routes, mental maps. Housing types, tenures and thetypes of local residents. Census data and urban ecology. Community facilities andservices, (schools, leisure centres, churches etc). Community and voluntary sector groups.Networking and mapping such local resources. Their role as mediating institutions betweenthe citizen and the state. Participation, its potential and its limits.

Chapter Five: Community Studies; the ups and downs of a genre

A brief critical review of early work (especially Chicago school) and the Britishtradition (Stacey / Frankenberg / Young & Wilmott / Bell & Newby). How far didthese studies capture the reality of working class life, including the role of women andfamily. Was community life economically determined, for example by shared employment andclass struggle in local industries? How and why this tradition was superseeded from themid 1970's by locality studies which majored on economic restructuring. The remergence ofcommunity studies in the 1990's

Chapter Six: Community lost; community liberated... Networkanalysis

Communitarians often assume or assert that the spirit of community needs to be rebuilt.Is it true that community spirit has died out or is this mere nostalgia? Are (post)modernpeople irretreviably privatised? Some key empirical studies are reviewed (includingreferences to the authors own work). Are neighbourhood relations alive and well? Who dopeople turn to for support? The work of Abrams and Bulmer, Wilmott etc. in the UK, ofWellman and associates in N.America. Social anthropology introduces notions of networkanalysis. Implications for the communitarian project.

Chapter Seven: Fragmented communities, alternative identities

Modern cities have a wide range of overlapping communities as a result of migration andmobility. People often find their first order identity solidarity in ethnic, religious orlifestyle communities, which may or may not be geographically segregated. How should weanalyse this diversity? How does ethnicity operate. Review of a number of studies ofminority groups and neighbourhoods in UK and elsewhere. Is it possible, or desirable tobuild broad based community in the midst of such pluralism?

Chapter Eight: Virtual Community; Connections in aninformation society

If local communities are fragmenting in the post modern world globalisation of theeconomy and information networks is also increasingly obvious. Can the new technologies,such as the Internet, support local communities, or build new "communities withoutpropinquity", or will they simply be channels for the dissemination of a globalculture based on Disney and McDonalds. Is the nostalgic notion of community going to bemarketed in a range of virtual reality theme parks and museums?

Chapter Nine: The future of community; values, policy andpractice

Do we really want or need "community"? Does it need to be local and face toface? Can community bring justice to the poor and marginalised? Does communitarianism (ala Etzioni) rest on solid ethical and sociological bases? What of citizen's / human rightsand responsibilities? Is it possible to rebuild community, or will communitarianism simplybecome a nostalgic political slogan for both left and right? Or will the underlyingeconomic, technological and social trends bury the notion of local community for good? Ifpostmodernism's thesis of fragmentaion and pick and mix culture is correct, it seemsunlikely that there can be any basis for shared values and community life. If modernitycontinues individualism and economic rationality run counter to the spirit of community.

Community can only be revived on the basis of age old values about human nature andresponsibility for neighbours. Is there any hope of such values becoming widely shared? Inthe light of these values and current social reality, what practical steps can policymakers, community practitioners and citizens take if they want to strengthen communities?The book will conclude with the autor's manifesto for community development.

Bibliography

Publications and Internet resources

Preface

As the twentieth century comes to a close a new political orthodoxy seems to beemerging on both sides of the Atlantic. The political philosophy of communitarianism, madepopular on both sides of by Etzioni and the Communitarian Network in the USA, and by theDemos think tank in the UK is being taken up in sound-bites if not so clearly in policy,by politicians of Left and Right. As a middle way between the individualism of the freemarket ideology of the 1980s and the failed state collectivism of the Soviet Empire it hasmuch to recommend it, both electorally and in terms

of local action. In the trinity ofvirtues of the French revolution the emphasis is placed neither on liberty nor equalitybut on "fraternity" or as we might translate it into less sexist language"solidarity". The key attraction is in the warm glow of the word"community", for it is a brave person who contests the desirability of a termwhich speaks of belonging, locality, social harmony and co-operation.

However while it is easy to be broadly supportive of the communitarian vision itremains necessary to pose some critical questions. Is there not a danger that"community" can be used ideologically as the emphasis on solidarity serves tomask the citizen's loss of liberty and reduced chances of equality? There are questions,too about the emphasis on responsibilities and civic duties as opposed to rights, andabout the possibility of common core values in the context of plural, fragmented urbansociety. Is it possible to "(re)build community" in the postmodern world wherelocal neighbourhood belonging and class consciousness is being replaced by individuallyselected and flexible identities which often transcend geography?

This book aims to explore the concept of "community" and"communitarianism" from a variety of perspectives including those of classicalsociological theory, the tradition of community studies, social network analysis, andcurrent debates on social policy and community development. The discussion is set in thecontext of the rapidly emerging global information society and the millenial sense ofcrisis which has been called by some "the end of history" but which can moremodestly be described as the collapse of modernity.

The book emerges from the author's experience of twenty years of community work andsocial research in an inner city part of London. In that time I have worked on researchprojects which raise questions about the concept of community in a (post)modern urbansetting, and which address policy issues in community development, the voluntary sectorand care in the community. The book arose from the author's concern to set such appliedresearch and community involvement in an adequate theoretical framework, and to helpcolleagues grapple with some of the important underlying issues which shape the context oftheir work. It is informed by an extensive reading of the academic literature in the fieldof community studies. However there is no intention to cover in any great detail thegrowing philosophical and political literature around the concept of communitarianism.

The title is problematic. The book is fundamentally a critical introduction to theconcept of community rather than a guide to the philosophy and politics ofcommunitarianism. The themes of "brother's keeper" and "who is myneighbour?" are as old as the Bible and are thoroughly covered in a century ofsociological literature. However it is the importance of communitarianism in the late1990's that make the book timely and relevant. I suggest one should hyphenate the titlethus "community - ariansim", and hope that any theologically literate reader will spot a cheeky reference to an ancient Christian heresy! However, I make no claim to the status of Athanasius, and one should not expect the conclusion of the study to be an authoritative credal orthodoxy setting a framework for belief and action for the next two millenia. My response to communitarianism will be questioning and provisional, and thedialogue with it will be something of a love -hate relationship. As we shall see, valuesdrawn from the historical and Biblical Christian tradition will be far from irrelevant tothe discussion.

The book, like others in the series is intended as an introductory text aimed atundergraduate sociologists / social scientists / urban geographers. It should also be ofvalue to community professionals (such as social workers, health visitors, planners,community workers, clergy etc.) especially during initial training or on postgraduatetaught courses. Policy makers, local government officers and community activists wouldalso find it valuable.

I would like to thank my employers Aston Charities Trust for allowing be to set asidethe time needed for writing this book and for sponsoring much of the research on which itis based. Various academic friends and colleagues have contributed ideas in informaldiscussions and correspondence over the years. Foremost among them are David Lyon, BobHolman, Keith White, and Ken Leech. My links with the University of East London have beenimportant in providing library and computing resources, and access to Census data. Much ofthe original research referred to has only been possible because of the unpaid help ofvarious students on

placement from the university and also from the London HospitalMedical College, as well as the local volunteers who have helped as interviewers innumerous community surveys.

I also wish to thank the people of Newham, especially those who have responded toinnumerable questionnaires and interviews, and among whom I have lived and worked for somany years. In particular I owe a debt of gratitude to the network of neighbours in ClaudeRoad and the Christian community in the neighbourhood which supports our family life, insituations ranging from the emotional stress of a child's illness to the practical task'sof feeding Judy Rabbit and Winnie Guinea Pig when we are on holiday. Finally I need tothank my family, Jane, Marcus and Martha, not forgetting Hannah from next door who have ina special way introduced me to new dimensions of the concept and practice of community.

These pages prepared by David Wilcox dwilcox@pavilion.co.uk September 18 1996

http://www.communities.org.uk/greg/gsum.html

Chapter One: Community; ideology and utopia

• Meanings of community • Common themes in the discourse about community • The context of Communitarianism • The Communitarian platform • Community, Right, Left and Centre • Structure of the book • Key books for Chapter One • Return to contents page

Meanings of community

Community is a common concept, a word with multiple meanings. It has a common ownership and is surrounded by "common-sense" assumptions. Everyone uses the word, and most people seem to like the idea. Therein lies the danger, for it is a plastic word, fresh out of Wonderland, where any word can mean what you want it to mean. It is a spray can word, useful to graffiti artists and slogan writers in politics, the media and the professions. It is also a contested concept in that it is used ideologically with different connotations by people with contrasting underlying philosophies. The definition is also contested at the applied level in that the definition or boundaries of particular "communities" are often the focus of conflict in the world of politics and social life. For social scientists, philosophers, policy planners and managers, and for anyone who seeks to be a responsible and thoughtful member of society, the discourse of community warrants closer scrutiny.

Definitions of community according to Butcher et. al (1993) can be grouped into three types, which might be better described as three perspectives on community. Descriptive definitions are typically those of social scientists giving an account (however abstract) of social forms, structures, interactions or relationships which can be observed in the world as it is. Secondly there are value descriptions of community; statements from philosophers, politicians and ordinary people about the way people ought to relate to each other. These are often normative or ideological propositions, for example the communitarian claim that the essential nature of humankind is to be in social relationship with other human beings, which implies responsible and neighbourly behaviour as a moral imperative. Butcher et al's. third grouping is perhaps less clear and sustainable, but focuses on the notion of active community and the process of community development. The focus here is on participation in the networks and interactions of civil society, and the perspective is that of policy makers and representatives of state institutions in their need to work alongside voluntary and community sector organisations. Although the perspective of this book is that of social science, and therefore needs to concentrate on descriptive definitions of the concept of community, it will inevitably need to deal with value positions, particularly in the discussion of communitarianism, and with the perspective of active community when dealing with

issues of policy and community development. It is to be hoped that by bringing greater clarity to the description of community the philosophical and policy debates will be better grounded than they often have been.

As long ago as 1955 George Hillery listed some 94 definitions of community he had found in the social science literature, and concluded that the only thing they all held in common was a reference to people. It was possible to arrange them in groupings such as those that were closely related to neighbourhood or territory, those that focused on social interaction and those that highlighted feelings of belonging and solidarity, and to detect differences between definitions based on rural and urban experience. However, where sociologists cannot supply a single clear definition, (and the diversity would be even greater today among those who have not totally discarded the term) the range of usage by ordinary speakers of the English language is even wider. For a taste of what is on offer the reader is referred to the anthology compiled by Pereira (1993). It would be unwise therefore at the start of this book to add yet another definition of our own to the surfeit already available, or even to catalogue and criticise the definitions in the literature.

Common themes in the discourse about community

Although the term community arises from sociology, its enthusiastic adoption by the wider public operates as a feedback loop into society itself, the term shaping and being re-shaped by social reality. As such the word itself is an important piece of sociological data. There are, therefore a number of common themes or connotations in the language of community in everyday speech, which it is necessary to consider. It is possible to do this from a variety of angles; for example Raymond Plant's essay (1974) on community and ideology in the context of the politics and practice of community development contrasts with the anthropological approach to the symbolic construction of community developed and illustrated by Cohen (1985). Both Plant and Cohen note that philosophers since Wittgenstein moved from providing us with normative definitions of concepts to describing and exploring the way in which terms are used. Plant advises against attempts such as Hillery's to pin the notion down empirically, but to recognize that value judgements and ideologies are implicit in every use of the word.

The first theme in everyday speech is the reification of the notion of community. By this we mean that most people talk as if there is a real entity corresponding to the label "the community". There is an inbuilt assumption that the drawing of boundaries is both possible and desirable. Sometimes these boundaries are to be drawn on the map, in other cases they are categories of people or characteristics of members. There is in this view little doubt about where the community begins or ends, be it at the borough boundary, or at a physical boundary such as a canal or railway line, or at a social boundary as for example in the case of ethnic communities or the "gay community". As Cohen (op cit.) suggests boundary marking processes and rituals are a vital tool for defining community, identity, belonging and exclusion, and give a sense of reality to specific communities, although in fact they are merely mental or social constructs of insiders and outsiders. As we shall see later in our discussions of ethnicity and social network analysis the reality is often more flexible and ambiguous still. It may be far more helpful to see community as a process, with changing patterns of conflict and collaboration, openness and closure, free action and structural constraint.

Yet out of this reification fallacy a number of political consequences flow. The first is that of representation in that one person or a small elite are taken to speak for the community as a whole. Even in cases where representation is based on widely participatory democratic elections the possibility of speaking on behalf of a whole community is questionable. This is a particular problem when white academics or politicians seek to define the boundaries of "the black" or other ethnic minority communities, and deal with "community leaders" whom they choose or who are self appointed. Secondly the reification of communities can lead to "turf wars" over the allocation of resources, for example where a facility is provided to serve the needs of a single

electoral ward, or where a grant is given to an organization serving only one religious or ethnic community.

A second common feature of talk about community is that it is often seen as a small scale collectivity, occupying the semantic space between household or family and city or nation. In sociology it falls in the middle of the continuum between small or primary group and society as a whole. However as Scherer (1972 p34-35) points out "the concept of community (in contrast to group) implies inherently the intention of longevity and permanence" There are, inevitably a few exceptional usages such as the "community of nations" or the "world community". Generally, however, a community is small and specific enough to evoke a sense of identity and personal belonging, a sense that one is part of a meaningful web of face to face relationships. This sense of the word is especially potent in a world where markets for consumer products are global, and where the penetration of the mass media ensures a universally shared diet of news and popular culture.

Thirdly community is almost always portrayed as morally good. It elevates the speaker to the moral high ground, and as a "purr" word or "motherhood" concept produces a warm glow in the listener. (Donnison 1993). That the concept is "sacred" and beyond contradiction resonates with the etymologically linked concept of "communion" in the Christian tradition. In the Mass, Eucharist or Lord's Supper the breaking of bread symbolizes a mystic union of the believer with Christ, and the sharing of a meal at a common table speaks of a united fellowship that transcends social divisions on earth and even includes the "communion of saints" in the world to come. The metaphor of the body of Christ, applied both to the communion bread and to the church as company of believers, speaks of community as an organism. The Islamic tradition of the "ummah" and the Sikh brotherhood of the "khalsa" carry some similar connotations, although the frequent association of "caste" with communal conflict and discrimination has placed Hindu notions of community in an unfavourable light. Despite occasional critiques by radical individualists, including those writers within the Christian church (Norman, 1995), even among unbelievers the organic life motif remains important in discussions of community. Community is a living breathing and self sustaining being. To destroy it would be tantamount to taking life.

The metaphor of organism leads to the portrayal of community as intrinsically and normatively harmonious. Community is seen as a unifying entity in which men and women, old and young, black and white, rich and poor have a common purpose and unproblematic relationship. Power differentials and conflicts of interest are set aside, or more likely covered over. The marginalisation, exclusion or persecution of minorities, or of individuals who are considered "abnormal" through disability, mental illness or eccentricity is ignored. The coercive nature of communities, where mechanisms of social control ensure a grudging compliance with cultural norms is rarely admitted.

A final inescapable connotation of the concept of "community" is the aura of nostalgia. Even though nostalgia "ain't what it used to be", people look back to images and stories of a golden age, when everybody helped each other, and when front doors were left open without fear of crime. In Britain a common variant is the image of the terraced streets of Northern mill towns and mining villages, in the USA the urban equivalent often has an ethnic dimension, such as Chicago's Italian quarter or New York's Jewish ghetto. On both sides of the Atlantic rural images are also common, Merrie England or Hardy's Wessex, alongside the Pilgrims in Massachussets or communal barn-raisings. In a mass media culture where these nostalgic images are common place, and where history and the natural world are often packaged by theme parks and museums as consumer products, the longing for escape to another lifestyle is widespread. As increasing numbers of people relocate to find their rural tranquillity, or historic urban neighbourhood, the very process of gentrification tends to transform the traditional modes of community into something more transitory and fragmented.

The common connotations of community sit alongside a rich diversity of applications of the term. At one end of the spectrum are types of community that are clearly intentional. People join of

their own free will and covenant themselves to an intense life together, for example in a monastic order or hippy commune. At the other extreme on this dimension are communities of limited liability (Janowitz 1967), neighbourhoods where the threads of common life rarely extend beyond using the same post box or paying local taxes for the municipal refuse collection service. Rather more common are neighbourhoods or localities, which for a sizeable proportion of the residents do provide functions of loyalty, belonging and identity, a locale in which the delivery of consumer services takes place and in which significant networks of social relationships are made and maintained. Willmott (1989) speaks of these as communities of attachment and documents research which shows the types of people and neighbourhood where localism rather than dispersed community is more likely to be the norm. Population stability, local employment, isolation, homogeneity, high proportions of young families and active community organisations maintained by educated middle class residents are likely to strengthen local attachments.

The term is also applied to non-residential communities, focussed on a school or work-place, best described as institutional or organisational communities. A further variation is community based on a social club or sports group, on a religious meeting place or an ethnic minority group. Loosely these can be called communities of interest, in the sense that members find some topic interesting and organise around it. There are also communities of interest in the stronger sense, which often only emerge as a result of an outside threat to territory or property (e.g.. Neighbourhood against the Motorway). In the absence of an external threat many communities of interest would remain latent unless pro-actively organized. For example women victims of domestic violence, or disabled people and their carers or homeworkers in the garment industry would find privatised isolation a more common experience than organised networks of solidarity.

The context of Communitarianism

It is out of this sea of meanings plus a specific political context that communitarianism as a popular idea is born. In very broad brush terms the Western world in recent decades has seen large pendulum swings in the field of social policy. The 1960s and early 1970s was the era of radical liberalism, of anti-war protest of the Civil Rights movement and of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty. In the U.K. similar trends could also be observed, if in a minor key, as the Welfare State flourished and urban renewal and community development was sponsored by the state. Global economic restructuring, triggered by the oil crises of the 1970s, coupled with the emerging hegemony of New Right economic and political ideas made the 1980s the decade of the free market, and the rolling back of the "nanny" state. In the USA it was the decade of Reaganomics and Star Wars, while on this side of the Atlantic Margaret Thatcher led nationalist rejoicing at the recapture of a distant island colony, subdued the "enemy within" after the year long miners' strike and declared that "there is no such thing as society". The intellectual underpinnings of these policies were found in the work of "New Right" academics and Think Tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute. Their philosophy was one which saw men (sic.) as individuals making rational choices according to the economic laws of the market place, and which had little place for government regulation or moral constraints. (Frazer & Lacey, 1993). Throughout the western world the rich got richer, and the poor struggled to survive as welfare provision was cut and inequality grew. By the end of the decade the Berlin wall had fallen and the Soviet Empire had dissolved, and petty nationalisms were on the march across Europe. Capitalism, it was alledged, had won.

For the Left at this point there were two key problems. First the hegemony of the Right and the irreversible changes of economic restructuring and global competition, meant that traditional welfarist policies and state ownership could no longer be expected to deliver economic growth or political power. Secondly the collapse of communism ensured that no version of Marxist ideology, however democratic and contemporary, was likely to be taken seriously by the electorates of Europe, still less in North America where socialism had never taken root. For the Right the triumph was short-lived. A sharp recession set in the early 1990s and it became clear that unregulated market forces had some dysfunctional effects. Instead of wealth trickling down to

the poor, inequalities widened, and social polarization was evident, with the risk of uprisings especially by unemployed youth in ethnically divided cities. The global scale of economic forces meant that national governments seemed out of control, while some localities, even whole regions were in inexorable economic decline. Statistics for violent crime and drug misuse were rising and repressive law enforcement measures were proving ineffective. Despite commitments to public expenditure cuts, budgets for social and national security continued to rise. And despite the emphasis on deregulation and subsidiarity, the philosophy that decisions should be taken at the most local level possible, there was clear evidence of growing bureaucracy and of a centralization of power at the national and supra-national level.

The Communitarian platform

The time was right for some new ideas in politics and it was around Amitai Etzioni and his colleagues in the Communitarian Network based in Washington DC that the movement came together and drew up a manifesto, the Communitarian Platform. Etzioni is a keen publicist, writing in popular as well as academic journals, speaking in public and on the mass media, as well as ensuring that the communitarian documents were available electronically on the Internet. (Etzioni 1994). The ideas were introduced to the U.K. by the slightly Left of Centre think tank Demos who sponsored a London lecture by Etzioni in the spring of 1995, which received full coverage in the Times (Etzioni 1995) and published other titles such as Atkinson's "The Common Sense of Community" (1994). In the UK there has been one attempt to replicate the Communitarian Network in the USA, as yet without much impact by Henry Tam (1995). More significantly, many key principles have been endorsed by the Labour Party's new leader Tony Blair and his colleague Jack Straw (Times 8/11/95) and have been more radically expressed by Boswell (1995). For the Liberal Democrats in Britain the communitarian emphasis in politics was already familiar. But surprisingly, these ideas also found favour in certain sections of the Conservative Party, for example in Green's attempt to supersede the individualism of the 1980's by a welfare regime based on a "reinvented civil society" (1993). In the USA likewise they have been received with interest in both Democratic and Republican circles, and are clearly influential in the policies of the Clinton administration.

However it would be wrong to suggest that all the ideas of communitarianism are completely new; as Etzioni himself write they are as old as the Old Testament. Ed Schwarz (1991 WWW) traces some of the debates back to Plato and Aristotle claiming the latter as a proto-communitarian, as well as citing St. Augustine and Toqueville. Plant (1974) traces the development of communitarian thinking in the German and British philosophers and sociologists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mentioning for example Hegel, Marx, Tonnies, Carlyle, Arnold, Ruskin, Eliot, Leavis and Lawrence. Plant's book is particularly useful in focussing the philosophical issues in the area of community work, albeit a style of community work that now seems rather dated. In more modern political philosophy references to Macintrye's "After Virtue" (1981) often feature in the literature along with Sandel (1982) and Bell (1993), although it should be pointed out that Macintyre explicitly denies being a communitarian. The debate between liberalism and communitarianism is extensively covered from a sympathetically critical feminist perspective in Frazer & Lacey (1993).

It would also be misleading to attribute the impact of communitarianism to Etzioni and his group alone. A number of similar streams of thought and policy development are observable on both sides of the Atlantic. In Philadelphia the Institute for Civic Values headed by Ed Schwarz is developing thought and practice in community development in Urban Renewal, and as an Internet mailing list and Web page which is far more active than the Communitarian Network in Washington. There are also some interesting links to be made with the debate about "Asian values", which has been triggered recently by the evident economic growth in Asia, and the introduction of "Japanese work practices" into Western industry. It has been argued by Dr. Matathir, the prime minister of Malaysia (in a BBC TV interview with Julian Pettifer broadcast on 18.11.95) that the traditional communitarian values of Asia are superior to the individualism of

the West in producing team-work, sacrificial commitment to the common good, and well ordered societies all of which promote economic prosperity. The questions, which were voiced by Pettifer remain important. Can the Asian achievement be sustained without political repression, and does it actually work or are Asian societies also suffering the anomie so easily recognized in the West, as they too are affected by drug abuse, HIV/AIDS and family break up?.

In Britain too there are a number of well established streams of independent communitarian thought and action. The whole project of community development launched in the 1960's remains significant in some parts of academia, in local government, in thousands of neighbourhood projects and in the social interventions of the major churches. Following the Faith in the City Report (ACUPA 1985), attempts have been made to develop a theology of community work (British Council of Churches 1989). The work of the Jubilee Centre on the importance of sound relationships in family and community life is another Christian initiative which ventures into similar territory (Schluter &. Lee 1993). A radical Christian Socialist version of communitarianism centred on themes of equality and mutuality is represented by the life and writings of Bob Holman (1993). Holman critiques the top down think tank approach in social policy development, and points out the irony that "since the London Think Tanks have discovered community, policy ideas about the community are voiced by unrepresentative intellectuals, who are far removed from the hard end.... ... the essence of community must be local residents, taking control over services and suggesting policies for society". (personal communication 1995).

What then are the key ideas in the Communitarian Platform? A document with this title, endorsed by a large number of a academics and politicians (available as the appendix to Etzioni 1994) appears to be the foundation statement of the movement. A similar British charter statement is the Citizens Agenda. (Tam, 1995). The key ideas centre around the relationship between citizens the wider society and the state. They are presented below together with an initial critique and setting of questions which will be the focus of more considered evaluation in the final chapter.

Communitarianism seeks to promote a healthy balance of rights and responsibilities and to suggest that the state and the citizen have mutual obligations. Since they see the pendulum to have swung too far in the direction of rights rather than responsibilities, they mount a critique of over zealous legislation for individual civil rights. Naturally this issue is more salient in the USA with its written constitution cast in Enlightenment thinking about the rights of man, than in the UK. For example says Etzioni, if we want the protection of the courts we should be willing to give our time to serve on juries when required. Civic participation is seen as essential for a healthy democratic society; citizens should vote, lobby their elected representatives, run for office, get involved in local organizations, become school governors and take responsibility for their community instead of just blaming the government or the Council, or pursuing litigation over violation of personal rights.

Underlying the communitarian platform is a strong concern for values and morality. This emerges in several areas, in the call for integrity and honesty among politicians and public servants and in generalized concern for social justice. There is a moral tone too, in the insistence on democratic persuasion and freedom of speech. Communitarians do not wish to impose their values or policies on others, but they are zealous to convince others in the battle for hearts and minds. There is therefore a strong emphasis on education for citizenship, and a wish to identify shared core values which can be taught, and caught, in schools from a very early age. In the USA where the tradition of separation of church and state has traditionally kept religion out of the education system and where prayer in schools is a keynote issue for the religious Right, the issue of moral education has particular salience.

Etzioni makes much of this notion of underlying common core values which are (to be) shared by everyone within the national polity. In the American context these centre on personal responsibility, democracy, and respect for the constitution. (One is tempted to add, motherhood, apple pie and the American way of life!). Although Etzioni denies that he is majoritarian, and

claims to accept pluralism, there is an obvious problem in a diverse and plural society. With a normative view of mainstream values and harmonious and homogeneous local communities, it is hard to see how groups with marginal or divergent value systems can be given space to participate in the "community of communities" which is national life. Can "fundamentalist" Islamic or Christian groups, other religious sectarian groups, New Age travellers, or homeless street dwellers be given equal human dignity, let alone equal economic, political and social rights?

It is in the area of family values that the moral tone of communitarianism is most evident, and despite all the qualifications made by Etzioni (1994) it is here that controversy has been sharpest as many feminists and others on the left have made a knee jerk reaction to such terms as "the parenting deficit". The assertion that children benefit from growing up in a secure and stable family environment where there are two caring parents who have a quantity of quality time to spend with their offspring is unlikely to be controversial to the majority of people in Middle America or Middle England. After all it is still a lifestyle that many people aspire to, and many couples with small children stand in awe and amazement that single parents, especially those on a low income and without strong extended family or friendship networks, even survive. Etzioni has expressed his sadness at what he sees as the hostile misinterpretation of his ideas by some feminists. The family values he advocates are not those of the conservative Christian right and the domestic oppression of women, but support the notion of serious responsibility in parenting equally shared between father and mother.

However three objections still need to be answered and worked out in policy proposals that enhance families without oppressing women. Family life in Western society no longer conforms to the norm of Dad, Mum, 2.4, children and granny living round the corner. Increasing proportions of people live alone, in lone parent families, as gay or lesbian couples and in extended families or shared households, and most mothers go out to work at least part time. We may bemoan rising divorce rates and family breakdown, but there is no simple policy, or moral revival that can turn back the clock. Secondly feminists would argue that the traditional family is inevitably a setting for the oppression of women, that unpaid domestic and caring labour is exploitation, and that domestic violence needs to be addressed politically and culturally rather than treated as a private matter. In contrast alternative forms of family life and child rearing may have liberating potential. Thirdly, the poverty lobby would be suspicious that the moral panic about single parents, especially about young single mothers with absent fathers, is based not so much on concern for their welfare as on the imperative to reduce taxes by cutting back on welfare payments.

Other concerns of the communitarian movement include community safety and public health. Rising crime statistics across the Western world seem to produce a disproportionate sense of panic. But in some North American inner cities violent crime linked with drug trafficking results in a situation where young men are more likely to be murdered than survive into old age. Communitarians are anxious to address this issue and work for legislation to restrict firearms, to mobilize local communities against drug dealers, and to change the moral climate. Generally they would be in favour of more pro-active police measures, favouring random stop and search, or breathalyser tests to detect drunken drivers and would argue against the civil liberties lobby that such minor inconveniences for the law abiding citizen, and the risk of abuse of power are a price worth paying for public safety. In public health they would argue that known carriers of disease, such as those who are HIV positive, have a responsibility to disclose their condition and to take precautions to prevent transmission, and would probably advocate a programme of voluntary screening for those in high risk groups. On the other hand they would want to ensure that people with HIV/AIDS are not discriminated against in terms of housing or employment.

Communitarians claim to have a concern for social justice including minority rights, but the working out of these principles appear to be sketchy, especially when set against other contemporary documents such as the Borrie commission report on social justice (Borrie 1994). In particular there appears to be little discussion of the economic aspects of social justice, and the Communitarian Platform is almost devoid of any reference to economic policy and the just

distribution of resources. There is little trace in the document of a serious grappling with class analysis. One suspects that the American antipathy to anything other than free enterprise prevents any serious analysis of the causes of and remedies for poverty. Certainly redistribution of wealth through tax and welfare policies is not on their agenda. One suspects a similar fudge over minority rights, resulting from the current hostility in the USA to the affirmative action legislation introduced in the 1970s. It is possible that communitarians in the UK with our stronger socialist tradition, and greater open-ness to Marxist ideas may give issues of social justice greater prominence, although the work still remains to be done.

Communitarianism also places an emphasis on the notion of subsidiarity, a doctrine originating in Catholic Social teaching, and appropriated in recent years to defend perceived national interests in arguments within the European Union. No social task should be assigned to an institution that is larger than necessary to do the job. Only when an individual and family cannot do something should a local group, a school or church take responsibility. Only if it is beyond the local group should responsibility be passed up to city, state or federal government. While for communitarians there is an empowering role for the higher levels of government, and some recognition that vulnerable local communities might be helped out by more affluent ones on a one to one relationship basis, it is at this point of inequality between localities that the communitarian position is at its weakest.

Furthermore there seems to be little recognition of the global nature of economic forces, and the way that local communities may be devastated by fluctuations on a futures market on the other side of the world. While it is recognized that no person is an island and that at the personal level we are responsible for each other, it is not so clear in communitarianism that no city or country is an island either. Etzioni's picture of a nation or even the world as a pluralist "community of communities" does not seem adequate to deal with the complex conflicts, interconnections and interdependencies of the contemporary world. One waits for example to see a communitarian analysis of the global pressures which bring economic migrants to the cities of Europe, where they settle in model communities of mutual responsibility.

The communitarians also make some well meaning noises on environmental issues and ecology. However the focus on the local seems to limit the action to the citizen's responsibility not to drop litter and the city's responsibility to provide recycling banks. One waits for discussion of the pollution caused by motorways for commuters from suburban communities who bring breathing difficulties to fellow citizens in inner city neighbourhoods, and depletion of the ozone layer which may bring climate change and starvation to the people of Africa. A green critique of communitarianism might have much to offer by way of refinement, as the philosophy of small is beautiful already seems implicit in Etzioni. However there might be a more radical challenge to be met on key issues such as the global limits to economic growth.

The discussion of communitarianism set out above has been critical, and perhaps too harsh. As a relatively new school of thought, or rather a network for discussion, communitarianism can be forgiven for not having all the answers. There are many attractive ideas which appeal to people across the political spectrum. At the local level there have been some real achievements, although it should be pointed out that these are often the result of previous community work, or a culture where community spirit is already important, rather than of communitarianism as a philosophy, or the adoption of its manifesto. An example often quoted by Etzioni is the training programme in first aid for a large proportion of the citizens of Seattle. As a result of widely available new medical skills, resuscitation and survival rates of heart attack patients in that city have improved beyond recognition. Such initiatives at the community level are self-evidently a good thing, and there are thousands of other examples of community development, empowerment and participation that have proved beneficial in neighbourhoods across the world. One can only argue about priorities, relevance, style and cost effectiveness of individual schemes.

Community, Right, Left and Centre

With the notion of community so universally praised, and with the ideas of communitarianism firmly on the political agenda we shall conclude this chapter by sketching the attraction of the idea for a number of different political groups. David Lyon pointed out some years ago (1984) some of the ways in which the term community was used in both ideological and utopian ways. Community has much invested in it by policy makers, and therefore needs to be discussed in a spirit of (de)constructive critique, and ideological suspicion.

Even if we accept the sincerity of those who espouse the tradition of civic conservatism, the "one nation" Tories for whom communitarianism is attractive, it is still obvious that governments of the Right have used "community" ideologically to soften welfare budget reductions. This effectively masks the harsh reality of growing inequality in fragmented societies where there is little sense of solidarity, belonging or mutual care. Right wing politicians have made populist statements coded in communitarian terms, maximizing the political advantage of prejudice against welfare scroungers, single parents, ethnic minorities, drug pushers and criminals. They have often spoken of moral responsibility and family values, while in many cases leading personal lives not marked by financial probity and sexual fidelity. They have set up schemes to "involve the community and the voluntary sector" in partnerships for urban regeneration and social welfare, while at the same time ensuring that the dominating forces are those of capital, central government or unelected quasi-governmental agencies, rather than those of local residents or democratically elected local authorities. Elements in the communitarian platform are easily co-opted for these purposes, and the absence of concern for economic justice is very convenient.

Public expenditure restraint and in particular welfare cutbacks have been high on the Right's agenda. By pushing responsibility for social care back into the "community", and in practice onto unpaid family members, capital, the state, and the tax payer can save money in a politically acceptable way. The notion of "community" was even used to sanitize the most unpopular most individualized local taxation scheme that Britain had seen for centuries. However, in this case the ideology was unmasked as the "community charge" became almost universally known as the "poll tax", provoked massive unrest and non payment, and became a nail in the coffin of Margaret Thatcher's political career.

At the other end of the political spectrum community is also used as an ideological weapon. Community can easily (and in many cases correctly) be defined and mobilized as the opposite to the coercive state, or exploitative big business. Community or neighbourhood resistance to major planning decisions about the siting of new roads or industrial plants is often self organizing, but is frequently supported by left wing politicians, as well as extreme Greens and anarchists. More strategically Leftist Labour Councils in Britain in the earlier 1980s consciously used community development strategies and funding for radical and minority community groups in an attempt to further equal opportunities practice, anti-poverty schemes and empowerment of inner city residents. The British coal strike of 1984 was seen in many quarters as an attack by the state and capital on the traditional mining "communities" (Gemeinschaft ; sic!). The solidarity and support networks it generated in the coalfields was portrayed by many as a triumph for community development, despite the eventual defeat of the strike and the annihilation of the industry.

Lyon (op cit.) comments that the warm liberal collectivist glow of "community" is powerful enough to be used by radicals on the left to justify almost ANY form of local political action. But it is also useful beyond the confines of the Right/Left divide to underpin the attempt to build almost any type of alternative, utopian collective life. From the medieval Franciscans, through the Amish and Hutterite Brethren, to the Hippies and New Age travellers of today, utopian alternative communities abound. They are perhaps especially attractive to the new social movements of our times, to new religious movements, Green activists, feminist collectives and the peace movement. Many of these streams coalesced for example in the women's peace camp at

Greenham Common. (Dominelli 1995). Of course for every utopian example of community one could collect matching examples of the failure of the community ideal, of communes which dissolved in bickering, of religious communes such as Jonestown and Waco where people crossed the boundaries of sanity and tragedy ensued. Nonetheless "community" remains a powerful utopian ideal, especially for people who feel psychologically ill at ease within mainstream capitalist society.

However, it is among the poor and oppressed that community becomes a necessity rather than a luxury, as group solidarity and mutual help are one of the few resources they possess in the battle for survival. Many of the traditional nostalgic images of community are drawn from this source, in what has been described as "the mutuality of the oppressed". Early Trade unions, retail co-operatives, building societies, friendly societies and funeral clubs represent the organizing of this impulse in Victorian Britain (Green 1994). The traditional Cockney East End and the spirit of the Blitz evoke the back to the wall communitarianism of a more recent period. The myth of Bethnal Green (Young & Willmott 1957, Cornwell 1984) also dates from the immediate post war period of austerity.

It is not insignificant from a policy perspective that community development initiatives of recent years have been concentrated in neighbourhoods of urban deprivation (Miller 1989; Halsey 1989). However when observed from the grass roots it is not so clear that community life, as opposed to community work, flourishes or withers in such localities. One hypothesis is that in the midst of growing inequality it is among the poorest sections of society, among single parents, disabled people and refugees that mutual help flourishes. In contrast more affluent, busy people lead more privatized lives, and relate to others mainly as consumers, even buying the services which in poorer communities would be exchanged outside the money economy. However there is another hypothesis that the poor are less able to maintain support networks than the affluent, that poverty or social exclusion is the denial of the possibility of social participation and that a compounding factor in deprivation is the absence of community. The empirical evidence is ambivalent as we shall discover in a later chapter.

A special case of the necessity of community is that of ethnic minorities. The language of community, ethnicity and nationalism is often employed by the Left, both to describe the pluralism of multi-ethnic societies, and in mobilizing excluded groups of people from below, in their struggles for social and economic justice. For the people within these groups community does often play a poverty alleviation or politically mobilizing role, but it can also be important as a conservative cultural defense strategy, in helping to maintain the traditions, language, religion and social structures of the homeland. Recently the ideology of community has emerged to bolster far right nationalism in Europe, and to attack the liberal individualism which usually forms the philosophical underpining of Western Capitalism (De Benoist & Sunic, 1994). The potential value of the language of community, for a sociobiological, genetically determined racist ideology is yet to been seen, but the prospect is alarming, not only in Eastern Europe, but in ethnically diverse urban areas in the UK, and across the world. Recent political events and conflicts in the Isle of Dogs, East London show the outworkings of racialised notions of local community. (Keith; 1995, Cohen, Quereshi & Toon 1995) There are already similar discourses to be found in the emerging debate about the racialized "underclass" of the USA. One's worst fear about communitarianism is that it could be highjacked by a white male backlash movement.

Structure of the book

It is clear from the preceding discussion that "community-arianism" is far from a common-sense notion. It is neither easy to define nor self evidently good. However, the notion is far from vacuous, and does have the potential to offer some useful guidance for social and political life in the post-modern Western world. It is an important problematic, a sensitizing concept on which to build our subsequent discussion. It is therefore as a problematic rather than as a manifesto that we shall consider and evaluate it.

Having introduced the key issues it is now time to lay out in more detail what this book seeks to do. Chapter 2 introduces the notions of community development and community action and describes and critiques the policy and practices of various institutions that bear the label "community". Chapter 3 looks at neighbourhood and community life, ways of describing and understanding localities, and at the role of voluntary sector and community groups in shaping civil society. Chapter 4 seeks to locate our understanding of community within the major traditions of sociological theory. Chapter 5 considers what we can learn from the tradition of community studies, and the reasons that sociologists rejected the genre. Chapter 6 tackles head on the assertion that community spirit has been lost, and that people today live isolated privatized lives. The method of social network analysis is introduced as a way of exploring a much more complex reality, which communitarianism must take into account. Chapter 7 considers in greater depth the notion of fragmentation and multiple identities, looking at questions of ethnicity and pluralism in a post-modern world. Chapter 8 brings us back to the global scene, where telematics technologies are said to have potential for building "communities without propinquity". But is such virtual reality leading us to anywhere but Disneyland? The final chapter returns to the philosophy and policy of community. Is there a solid basis for building community in a post-modern world? What are the steps that policy makers and citizens need to take if they are seriously committed to developing community in the next millenium?

Key books for Chapter One

Etzioni A (1994) , "The Spirit of Community; the reinvention of American society" New York Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster"

Frazer E. & Lacey N., (1993), "The Politics of Community; a feminist critique of the Liberal-Communitarian debate" Hemel Hempstead Harvester Wheatsheaf

Chapter Two: Community involvement and community policy

• The roots and routes of community development • Community action and empowerment • Community policy and practice • Decentralisation and neighbourhood democracy • Community social work • Community health • Community education • Community housing management • Community policing • Community planning • Community economic regeneration • Other community initiatives • Resourcing community activity • Summary and questions • Key books for Chapter 2 • Return to contents page

There is a long history, and vast literature about the relationship of the state and local communities, which could be dealt with under the heading of community involvement or community development. It is a history in which the conflicting interests of local people and the state, national and local often come into the foreground, while at other times shared interests lead to dialogue, partnership and collaborating effort for local improvements (Craig & Mayo

1995). In this chapter the aim is to present a brief review of the key literature, to look by way of illustration at some of the policies and programmes in contemporary Britain, and draw out some key themes and dilemmas in the field.

Even in the Thatcher/Reagan decade where individualism was rampant, the language and practice of community was far from dead (Willmott & Thomas 1984, Donnison 1989). British government statements included references to the importance of mediating structures between individuals and the state, and praised the little platoons of community groups that make up civil society. It is possible to read this contradiction as an unresolved debate of the Right, between those who were true disciples of free market liberalism and those who held on to an older tradition of civic conservatism. The alternative reading is that the Right cynically exploited the feelgood factor in the word, to mask their attempts to dismantle the welfare state and remove power from locally elected politicians, who tended to be drawn from opposition parties. The full explanation probably is a synthesis of the different readings, combined with pressures arising from long term social change (Butcher 1993). These would include the growing numbers of elderly people, and increased long term unemployment which makes cradle to grave public welfare provision less sustainable. Finally some community policies rest merely on a pragmatic problem solving approach, and result from the desperate search to discover something that works better than earlier failed centralised or bureaucratic policies and the contemporary failure of "trickle down" free market economics. Bespoke local policies, developed in consultation with local people may be a particularly appropriate response to the postmodern process of social fragmentation. This of course brings us back to the concerns of the communitarians, and their moral imperative for citizen participation and responsibility,

Whichever explanation is preferred, initiatives in community policy have proliferated in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic. Health and social services provision are increasingly being delivered by community practitioners. Local authorities are becoming enablers, and drawing up community development and partnership strategies which link bodies in the public, private and voluntary sectors (Wilcox 1994, Blackman 1995). "Community Capacity Building" is now an essential feature of funding bids for urban regeneration projects. At arm's length from the state, the churches and voluntary sector have sponsored numerous community development and community projects, especially in urban areas (Farnell et al 1994b). Even in the 1990's several thousand full time community workers are employed by statutory and voluntary agencies across the UK and several "how to do it" manuals are widely available. (ACW 1994; Community Links 1995; Twelvetrees 1991, Croft & Beresford 1993, Henderson and Thomas (1987) Grundy 1995). Before considering examples of policy and practice in a number of important fields it will be helpful to examine some of the sources and streams which have fed into an approach which seems to inform most of these initiatives, starting with the tradition of Community development. For an introduction to key themes in community development see Taylor (1992) and for a review of contemporary issues the collection edited by Jacobs & Popple (1994).

The roots and routes of community development

One of the oldest streams feeding into the present day practice of community development is the Victorian tradition of philanthropy. Sometimes the wealthy recognized their self interest in their efforts to provide decent housing, education and other facilities for the workers in their factories. One thinks for example of the mill village built by Titus Salt just outside Bradford or of the Cadburys in Bournville and Rowntree in York. Such philanthropy often carried moralistic baggage, contained no small element of social control and made distinctions between the deserving and undeserving poor. The achievement, however was considerable in terms of housing, public health, local democracy, and the provision of facilities such as parks, libraries, youth clubs and the settlement movement. The most forward looking of the philanthropists realized that attacking symptoms of poverty was not enough. One thinks of the early campaigns of Wilberforce and Shaftesbury against slavery and industrial exploitation of child labour, of the statistics and lobbying of Booth and Rowntree, and of the role of the settlement movement in the intellectual formation of politicians such as Clement Attlee. Charitable Trusts directly descended from these

pioneers continue to fund community work and voluntary organisations in Britain today. Their continued emphasis on poverty alleviation is one factor which helps explain the concentration of community work in deprived urban neighbourhoods.

Alongside the philanthropic institutions a grass roots pattern of community organisation also emerged. The co-operative movement in Britain developed above all as a consumer organisation, with numerous Co-operative retailing societies, and became politically affiliated to the Labour movement. Productive co-operatives in agriculture and industry also came into being, although they are probably more significant in Europe and the Two Thirds world than in the English speaking world. An immense range of other groups had been born before 1900, for example, trade unions, building societies, tenants associations, self help educational groups, funeral clubs, drama groups and sports associations, (Green 1993). It is hard to ascertain whether the voluntary and community sector at the end of the twentieth century retains its earlier vitality, but without a doubt it is still there, and forms the very soil in which community development as a process can take root. Attempts at measuring the broad voluntary / charitable sector in the UK reported by the Charities Aid Foundation suggest it employed in 1990 nearly a million people and had a total income of some 11.5 billion pounds (Saxon-Harold & Kendall eds. 1995).

A third strand in Community development is its colonial and neo-colonial roots. The British Empire like many others before it, found it wise to rule its vast domains with a degree of local consent, and was therefore keen to co-opt local power structures into the mainstream. Anthropologists, schoolteachers and missionaries played a role alongside soldiers and merchants in the business of Empire. As colonies moved through to independence the watchword was political and economic modernisation. Agricultural extension officers in remote villages, health education workers and many other professionals developed techniques which were recognizably those of community development. Non-governmental aid and development agencies (NGOs) such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid soon discovered that community participation was vital to the success of their programmes. Slogans such as "give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him to fish you feed him for life" became popular. Local ownership of projects, cultural sensitivity, drawing on local skills, knowledge and wisdom were found to be important in developing sustainable agriculture and industry, while imported Western expertise was seen to fail. Non-directive leadership, listening to people identifying their own needs and encouraging them to co-operative and creative action were found to be more effective strategies. Lessons learned overseas have been applied by community developers in Europe and North America, though obviously some adaptations are needed. In some cases community development sponsored by the State in deprived neighbourhoods can be perceived as manipulation, and it is tempting to apply the notion of internal colonialism to describe what is going on as local groups are subtly co-opted to the agendas of the powerful.

However community development also has radical and Left wing proponents and has almost as often been seen as subversive to the interests of the state. In the UK since the 1960's the dominant ideology among community workers has been socialist in emphasis although radical Liberals, Christians, and Greens have also been involved. The mode of operation in which groups are mobilised in struggle over local issues can be labeled community action as opposed to community development, although the two strategies are often employed side by side in a single setting. The socio-political context of the time in which the importance of class and workplace struggles was diminishing allowed concerns around neighbourhood, ethnicity, disability and women's issues to emerge as the major focus, particularly of local politics. . In many cities in the 1970's activists on the Left found themselves in conflict with Labour controlled local councils, who claimed to represent local working class communities, but whose power base was largely among white working class male trade unionists, and whose values and policies were by and large conservative. The story of the Community Development Projects, instituted as part of the Urban Programme of the Labour Government is very instructive. Their analysis of the ills of deprived neighbourhoods highlighted structural and economic factors which could not be dealt with by piecemeal reformist measures, and the Marxist tone of their reports was enough to ensure their abolition in the late 1970's (Higgins 1983, Loney; 1983). It was only with the rise to

power of a new type of urban Labour Party activist in the 1980's that some of the community issues were addressed by local government. But this change came at a time when the hegemony of the right meant that the power base of local government was itself being eroded, and funding on a scale to do anything significant was extremely scarce.

Community action and empowerment

While community development can easily be seen as a constructive and consensus model of working it is often the arena in which conflict and campaigning emerges. Political action in communities is a transnational phenomenon and two influential streams of theory and practice deserve a mention. From the USA comes the package of techniques generally referred to as community organising, most clearly defined in the work of Saul Alinsky, who operated in Chicago in the middle of the twentieth century, and in the continuing work in several cities of the Industrial Areas Foundation. (Alinsky 1972). The key strategies of this movement are political mobilisation of large numbers of people, through building coalitions of existing groups (among whom religious congregations have a key role), direct actions in which power holders are personally held to account, and building confidence within the organisation by concentrating in the early stages in tackling only popular and winnable issues. In recent years there has been some interest in Alinsky style community organising in Britain with initiatives, funded by the Church Urban fund in Bristol and Liverpool. Their achievements are critically reviewed by Farnell et al (1994a).

The second influential tradition of community action comes from Latin America and is most commonly associated with the work of Paolo Freire, a community educator from Brazil (1972). In situations of great poverty and oppression he developed the method of "conscientisation" by which ordinary uneducated people carried out their own social analysis of the causes of their suffering. This process empowered communities to challenge and confront their oppressors, sometimes at great cost in closed political systems. Closely allied to the conscientisation movements in Latin America and other Roman Catholic countries was the growth of liberation theologies and radical pastoral practices. In particular base Christian Communities, of which there are some 100,000 in Brazil alone, became the focal point of community action. Liturgy, Bible study, theological reflection and social analysis were linked with practical community development and political action in a never ending pastoral cycle of action - reflection -action (Boff; 1986). The Sandanista revolution in Nicaragua in 1979 was probably the high-point of the movement, bringing inspiration to many liberation struggles across the world. Freire's ideas are certainly much talked about in community work circles in Europe and America but in so far as they are put into practice in the West seem to have limited success. This is perhaps because of the absence of a culture in which groups on the base community pattern can flourish. Furthermore when translated to other settings Freire's terminology can easily be co-opted in the interests of the powerful, so that only pseudo-Freirian techniques remain and liberation is not achieved.

One of the key concepts deriving from Freire's work is that of empowerment. By engaging in social analysis and combining in social and political action local communities, even and especially those of the marginalised and oppressed can struggle and in measure achieve a transformation of their conditions. At the very least engagement in the process shows that they are not mere passive victims of circumstances; as human beings in relationship with each other they are, potentially at least, agents for change. However, in the Western world in the 1990's the concept of empowerment has become common in political discourse, and is a keynote term in many social programmes (Bulmer 1989). In the process it has been co-opted and transformed to conform to the ideology of capitalism and the state. One common usage, perhaps especially evident in urban North America, and in US influenced African-Caribbean communities in the UK is that of economic empowerment. The emphasis here is on individual empowerment through education, training and success in the job market, and on the formation of small businesses. The second usage, typified in Britain by John Major's idea of the Citizen's Charter, is consumer empowerment. In this, through the clear setting of measurable standards, backed up by rigorous monitoring, information processing and an accessible complaints procedure leading to refunds,

the consumer or user of a service is empowered to demand satisfaction. The obvious comment on both these usages are that they are by nature individualistic and that they are beholden to market forces, in which power is inexorably taken away from the weak and poor to be concentrated in the hands of the rich and powerful. Thus much of the discourse of empowerment has nothing to do with community in any collective sense, and provides little hope for powerless people to take more control over their own lives.

Community policy and practice

Having considered community development and community action models it is important now to look at the increasing emphasis on community in government policy. One would agree with Butcher (p20 in his introductory chapter of Butcher et al; 1993)) that there is no such thing as "community policy" in itself, "rather it is a mode of policy making and implementation .... utilised within a range of substantive policy areas". However his assertions that such policies necessarily relate to "recipients as members of a community", that "it implies that the policy will embrace community values (solidarity, participation, coherence)", that it "involves working in partnership with groups and organisations active at the community level", may be harder to substantiate. That such emphases are desirable is not seriously contested, that they are put into practice in all cases is clearly untrue. And while empirically it may be the case that "community policies" usually address the situation of disadvantaged people it would not appear that this is an essential part of the philosophy behind them.

Decentralisation and neighbourhood democracy

Since local politicians are elected to represent residents of a ward, local government has an interest in delivering services at the neighbourhood level. In order to counter familiar criticisms about the remoteness of City Hall many local authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have decentralised (Burns, Hambleton & Hoggett 1994). For example in the London Borough of Newham there are a dozen or so neighbourhood housing offices where Council tenants can, within walking distance of their homes pay their rent, demand repairs or (as they commonly do) seek a transfer to better accommodation. Other local authorities have gone further with local "one-stop" shops where residents can access almost any service local government offers. The limitation which is usually recognised is that certain services such as transport and strategic planning need to be undertaken at a scale greater than the neighbourhood, and there are other economies of scale which are better achieved by a centralised approach.

The most radical forms of decentralisation have involved devolving responsibility and budgets for all local services to neighbourhood authorities, as for example in Tower Hamlets under Liberal administrations of the 1980s (Keith 1995). Here neighbourhood decisions were taken by about ten Councillors elected for the neighbourhood, rather than the full Council of about 60 members. In theory such small local decision making bodies could be more responsive to local communities, and representatives of grass roots groups could be allowed to participate in meetings. However there is little evidence to suggest that, in a climate where political participation is uncommon, accountability to the community was significantly increased. Many proposals for fully elected neighbourhood councils have been put forward but have rarely been implemented at least in urban Britain. Costs and the difficulty of legislating change in an unwritten constitution have usually been the barriers. In the USA the diversity of local constitutional arrangements has allowed a number of neighbourhood democratic structures to develop. (Hallman 1984).

Community social work

During the 1970's in Britain there was a fashion in the social work profession to establish community practice in social work. At the lowest level this meant locating social work offices within deprived neighbourhoods and making them accessible to the public at least during office hours. At its most innovatory level social workers engaged in community development work and saw there interventions as preventing the personal crises of clients and potential clients which

they traditionally ameliorated or tidied up. Family centres were one important model where parents of vulnerable children could drop in during the day to receive child care, emotional and practical support in group settings, individual counselling and welfare rights advice. However the panic in social work resulting from a number of well publicised tragic cases of child abuse, where social workers were clearly at fault, coupled with the lessening of resources in face of increased needs has reduced dramatically the range of community social work. Family centres where they continue to exist are much more likely to be in the voluntary sector with community and social workers employed by agencies such as Barnardos or the Children's Society.

However British social work has expanded its community policies and practices in another direction as the provisions of Care in the Community legislation came into force in 1993. The philosophy which has been around since the 1960s is that vulnerable people by and large prefer to stay in their own homes to being in institutions, that there is good chance for them to lead an independent life in the community and that quality care can be provided at no greater cost. (Bornat et al 1993). Indeed care can be provided much more cheaply if the patient or client can be looked after by family, friends and neighbours on an unpaid basis, even if higher social security benefits are paid. Feminist writers have made the powerful critique that the vast majority of the burden of care falls upon women as wives, mothers, daughters, daughters-in law or sisters, many of whom are also struggling to hold down a paid job at the same time. But because community is such a good thing in the discourse of both Left and Right it becomes heretical to criticise the basic philosophy behind community care. The more frequently voiced critique is that the whole programme of care in the community is massively under-resourced.

Community care has already had its spectacular failures, particularly in the care of people with mental health problems. There have been several cases where a schizophrenic has killed an innocent bystander, as in the case of the death of Jonathan Zito at the hands of Christopher Clunis in 1992. The investigation centred on failures in the system of medical and social services, on poor communication between professionals, and in the underfunding of mental health services in London (Ritchie et al 1994). While all these factors are relevant and faults in the system do need to be remedied, it is rare to hear voices asking a more fundamental question (Clarke 1982 and Bulmer 1987 are exceptions). Is there in fact an entity worthy of the name "community" in places like inner London, and if so would it ever be capable of, or interested in, offering genuine care and support to patients discharged from mental hospitals. Ironically it is plausible that even if community solidarity was strong, that very strength would tend to exclude, rather than care for, marginalised and vulnerable people. Indeed there are many occasions when local neighbourhood communities become mobilised in order to oppose proposals to locate hostels or centres for homeless, disabled or mentally ill people in their own back yard. Much of the community care legislation seems to rest on a rosy nostalgia for a probably never existing community, in which everyone had plenty of kin, neighbours and friends, each with time and goodwill to support and care for them in times of sickness and need. Some research findings bearing on this issue will be covered in chapter 6 and others are reviewed in Robbins ed. (1993).

One keystone of care in the community policies on both sides of the Atlantic is the growing emphasis on for the state to offer contracts for welfare services to independent agencies. Some private sector agencies are able to offer these services and through good management, paying low wages and reducing care standards to the minimum specification may make a handsome profit. But voluntary sector and not for profit agencies are in a very competitive position, as they can often cut costs by making use of volunteer labour and exploiting existing capital resources such as church halls at low rent. Furthermore locally based community groups can often provide a more appropriate service to particular groups of local, service users; for example the Asian elders group based two hundred yards from my own home can offer a service where workers speak Gujerati and Punjabi, and where food is prepared according to the taste and religion of their Hindu and Muslim members. However, when grass roots community groups do become engaged in the contract culture they often lose a certain amount of freedom, in that their members and staff have little time to devote to community development processes, and less

room to become involved in radical community action campaigns, especially if the powerful enemy is the arm of the state which funds their community care work.

Community health

The boundaries between care in the community provided by social services agencies and medical services provided in Britain by the National Health Service is an increasingly fuzzy one, as evidenced by the arrangements for joint funding of programmes and disputes over cases where it is not clear if the client has a medical or social need. e.g. home bathing assistance for a patient with back problems. The medical profession has recognised for many years that certain services are best delivered in the community, which often means little more than home visits. The role of health visitors in preventive medicine for babies and young children and of district nurses providing services for patients at home is a well established feature of British health care. In recent times more proactive measures in community medicine have developed for example health education programmes with outreach workers contacting community groups, and health advocates and interpreters for people who speak little English. Policies which allow the funding of community groups to develop health initiatives are also in place. For example the East London Health Authority has funded a voluntary sector project which aims to make home child safety items and other baby and toddler equipment available at low cost to families on low income.

There are other signs of the community being taken seriously in medicine. Public Health researchers have long recognised the link between deprivation and ill health and are engaged in studies to disentangle the effects of locality, ethnicity and individual poverty on mortality and morbidity. Initiatives such as Health for the Nation, Health for All and Healthy Cities have led to a reinvigoration of public health departments since the mid 1980's. (Blackman 1995, Macintyre et al 1993). Training for practitioners, especially community nurses, midwives, health visitors and physiotherapists increasingly includes units dealing with community sociology. In some cases this extends to courses for trainee doctors and dentists. (Wykurz 1994) However, it would still be true to say that for most medical professionals "community" as a concept means little more than the opposite of hospital (in-patient) or institutional service delivery.

Community education

Community policies in education can cover a wide range of services and initiatives around the schooling of children and continuing education for adults. The focus could be on a community school which sees its role as providing facilities, including a building for the benefit of the whole community. It may well sponsor the work of a community Association, produce a newsletter for the whole neighbourhood and put on events which are designed to bring local residents into contact with each other as a basis for community development. Or community education may be focussed on allowing access to learning for all local residents, so that adults as well as teenagers may sit in the same classroom studying for qualifications in French or computer studies. A community school may seek to involve parents in self help activities, or encourage them to take part in classroom activities such as reading stories to their children (Nisbet et al; 1980). A more politicised community strategy in education is the development of local management of schools, where governing bodies, composed of representatives nominated or elected by parents, teachers and other stakeholders in the local community, take responsibility for seven figure budgets. Alongside this, standardised assessment of pupils' performance, league tables and market forces allegedly allow parents to exercise choice in their children's schooling, and compel the school to be more efficient and responsive to the educational aspirations of the local community.

Community housing management

Public sector housing is yet another part of the British Welfare state which has suffered the onslaught of the New Right and has needed to develop new "community" strategies in order to continue. There has long been a voluntary sector involvement in housing from the early building

societies, through squatting movements of the immediate post war years to self build housing co-operatives. A century ago charitable trusts like Peabody were involved in building homes for the poor, and their tradition of social housing to an extent continues in the Housing Association movement. With limited capital investment in social housing being directed through Housing Associations rather than to local Councils, they have become little more than an arm's length agency of the state, and most have lost their former grass roots involvement with communities. However community policy in housing management has been developing apace, with slogans like tenants choice being backed by incentives such as the promise of refurbishement for estates whose tenants wish to take responsibility from their municipal landlords. The Priority Estates Programme, according to the account by Power (1995) has already notched up some fine achievements, although it can be argued that without a huge input of resources and training tenants choice is no real choice and brings more grief than joy to local communities.

Community policing

By the mid 1980's it was clear that investment in police salaries, and the introduction of high-tech rapid response equipment was an ineffective response to high crime rates. In addition street disturbances, in Britain's Inner cities, which like the riots in the USA a decade or two, were portrayed as the uprising of criminal elements who tended to be young, poor and black, showed that insensitive policing could be counter productive. In response to the Scarman enquiry on the Brixton disturbances of 1981 new strategies of community policing were introduced. (Scarman 1981; Weatheritt 1993; Solomos & Benyon eds. 1987, Willmott 1989). These included the establishment of consultative groups between the police and the community, the commitment to put "more bobbies back on the beat", some racial awareness training for police officers and the creation of Neighbourhood Watch schemes in many areas. The latter was an American invention in which local residents banded together to keep an eye out on each other's property, and to receive crime prevention advice from local police. Although these schemes were often successful in affluent neighbourhoods they were notoriously hard to establish in deprived estates, or in ethnic neighbourhoods. In the UK a subsequent programmes including the Safer Cities initiative tackle crime reduction and community safety by funding a range of community initiatives, from better street lights to car maintenance projects for young people who are seen as potential offenders (Henderson & Del Tufo 1991, Foster 1993). A key aspect of the programme in any district is a profile of local crime patterns and consultation with all sections of the community as to possible responses.

Community planning

Urban planning as a discipline had reached its zenith in the UK in the immediate post war decades with the New Town and slum clearance programme in major cities. Community as an ideal was a keystone of the project. (Heraud 1975). The resulting urban wasteland, with its unpopular tower blocks, sink estates, developments lacking community facilities and urban motorways which carved through neighbourhoods, helped planning as a profession to lose any credibility it once had with the general public. The collapse of Ronan Point, an East London Tower block in 1968 became the symbol of the crumbling of post war hopes. Planners in response have made a serious commitment to public consultation as a vital stage in their work, yet it has to be said that many community activists regard this as mere tokenism. Land use battles continue to be a major focus for community action, especially when a development arouses the NIMBY (not in my back yard) passions. The emergence of environmentalism as a global social movement has made a deep impact, yet for every convinced Green, there are hundreds of local residents who have a personal interest in preventing "them" from building a motorway or a sewage incinerator in their neighbourhood. Architecture has also responded to the community imperative and many professionals regard consultation with local communities as an essential step in their work. (Willmott 1989; Turner. unpublished)

Thus Community planning for the most part is an oppositional activity. Independent radical groups offer advice to local residents on the technical issues behind planning decisions. In

London Docklands in the early 1980's community groups produced the Peoples Plan which took account of local residents needs and aspirations. The establishment of the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1981, with the removal of planning powers from local councils took such hopes away. Minimal planning regulations, financial incentives and tax breaks for developers unleashed market forces which brought windfall profits to property speculators and a changed skyline but little else to local residents. The London Docklands experience is a prime example of a non-community policy in urban planning and economic regeneration. (Introduction to Keith & Pile eds. (1992), DCC 1992)

Community economic regeneration

The last half century of counter-urbanisation based on improved transportation and the rural dream has meant that homes, then industries and most recently retail and leisure facilities have relocated away from city centres. Older inner city areas have experienced economic decline, loss of local jobs, a crumbling infrastructure and an increasing concentration of disadvantaged residents who are dependent on welfare or low paid casual work. Some similar patterns can be seen in peripheral rural areas. Governments and local authorities have recognised that there is a need for regeneration of local economies and even the business sector has come to see their long term interest is well served by investing in training, regeneration, creating crime free neighbourhoods and increasing the circulation of money in local economies. Unleashing market forces as in London Docklands has failed to deliver the anticipated trickle down effect which it was hoped would raise the poor out of dependency. More recent regeneration policy has therefore introduced a community element, and serious attempts to build partnerships between government, local councils, the private sector and community groups have been made.

The elements in this include training for job skills appropriate to the changed local economy, small business development, investment in infrastructure and the empowerment of local people and community groups to play a more active part in both the economic and social life of the locality. In Britain many local Councils have set up Economic Development Units, other areas have Community Investment / Development Trusts or formal development Partnerships and everywhere the employment training programme has been put in the hands of business led Training and Enterprise Councils (Blackman 1995). Models such as these are already familiar in North America. State money has been directed to such projects through the City Challenge Programme, the new Single Regeneration Budget regime and from European Union budgets. However it should be pointed out that almost all government funding requires matched funding from local, charitable or industrial sources, that it is usually seen as short term seed money used to lever further investment and that money for special regeneration projects is far outweighed by general cutbacks in public sector resources for local economies. (Thake & Staubach (1993); Henderson ed. 1991, Lynn 1993)

It is also the case that while genuine attempts have been made to involve local communities in regeneration they are almost by definition the junior partner. Their interest is usually either to protest against proposals which would harm their existing amenities or as community groups to seek funding for small scale projects meeting specific needs of their members and users. However, there are opportunities for a range of grass roots community businesses to emerge and flourish. Generally such businesses are not for personal profit, but would plough back any surpluses into the local community (Pearce 1993, DOE 1990). Often such businesses are organised as co-operatives with a degree of common ownership and worker participation in management. Usually they seek to employ local people and to provide goods or services in the neighbourhood, often filling a gap which no commercial firm would find profitable. Thus for example in estates far removed from supermarkets and where all the local shops are closed a community food co-operative might be set up. In a neighbourhood with no banks local credit unions have an opportunity to develop. Many other examples of community enterprises could be cited; the underlying question for them all is whether they can ever become profitable and viable on a long term basis without continued subsidy, or the exploitation of voluntary or low paid labour, in communities where the economic base is permanently weak.

Other community initiatives

Every conceivable sphere of life can be given a "community" label and many other types of community initiative could be catalogued. Community arts seeks to develop locally connected creative skills and appreciation of the arts by a local public who are often excluded from highbrow culture. Community Youth work encourages the participation of young people in devising programmes to meet their needs. Community Advice services offer consumer or welfare rights advice to individuals and groups. Community media such as very local radio stations, video production centres and community newspapers seek to enhance local channels of communication.

While most of the community practices described above are top down initiatives originating in the state or in the professions, the most numerous and possible most significant sphere of community activity is that of independent community associations and self help groups. Under this heading come a wide range of organisations and informal networks ranging from tenants association to scout groups, baby sitting circles, campaigning groups, and support groups for people with every conceivable disability or medical condition. A recent European study suggested an average of three (mostly small) community groups in existence per 1000 population, with up to a third of local residents in membership, nearly half who were users, and around 5% who could be described as activists. (Chanan & Voos 1990, Chanan 1992). Newham's 821 voluntary sector groups in a population of around 220,000 is in line with this estimate though a membership / involvement rate estimated at 15% or less appears lower (Smith 1992). Some such groups have resulted from initial activities by professionals, or are branches of wider organisations such as churches or national voluntary agencies but others have emerged spontaneously from friendship or neighbourhood networks. The European study found role of this sector is especially important in deprived neighbourhoods, but recognised that some of the most vulnerable residents tended to be excluded. It recommended better resourcing of the sector and its infra structure, a more complete mapping and networking of it at the local level and strategies which extend its outreach to socially excluded people. Self help or mutual aid groups are likely to have an increasing role in health and welfare policy in coming years (Wann 1995).

Public buildings are a key resource for community activity, especially in deprived neighbourhoods where homes are often too small to hold meetings, and where private venues are not always culturally acceptable to local people. Community centres and churches can simply offer space and facilities for groups such as sporting activities, support groups, political parties, play groups and religious groups with no premises of their own. They often will have a coffee bar where anyone can drop in and socialise informally. Effective community policy demands that such centres are available, and also benefits from the funding of community infrastructure, such as umbrella and resource agencies, (Councils for Voluntary Service in the UK), where community groups can find cheap photocopying or computing facilities, accountancy services and advice on funding applications. Indeed funding in terms of both quantity and quality, is arguably THE crucial issue for every area of community policy and practice which we will now consider.

Resourcing community activity

The funding of "community" policy and activity is inevitably vigorously contested in both national and local debates. It is not clear that Etzioni's type of communitarianism can offer much help other than the general notions that some communal goods are worth paying for our of a common national purse, and that democratic debate is the best way of taking decisions about them. At least this is a step forward from the minimalist interventionism of free marketeers keen to reduce taxation. Despite continuing political conflicts about inequality and redistribution, taxation and welfare, a consensus does seem to be emerging in Britain in the 1990's that investing in local economies is a useful and necessary policy, and that the preferred model of investment is a partnership between Government and its arm's length agencies, Local Authorities, the private sector and the voluntary sector. Finance can thus be raised from taxes which are redistributed as grants, from speculative investment of capital, from voluntary charitable donations managed by charitable trusts, the major churches, the National Lottery

Boards, or the charitable departments of major corporations, and finally from small scale fundraising by local residents. Given this resource base four comments about its allocation are apposite.

Firstly resources for community development and urban regeneration are increasingly focussed on the economy. Projects are only approved if they can be shown to enhance the local economy, usually in terms of jobs created or saved. The projects favoured tend to be small business development or employment training measures. They tend to be evaluated in terms devised by accountants such as inputs and outputs, which demand a new level of bureaucratic skills from community activists, who often find them boring, irrelevant or antithetical to their basic value systems. Many are willing to play the game for the sake of the funding, but the approach to the funders is suffused with cynicism, frustration, lies or hidden contempt.

Secondly for any funding of community initiatives one needs to ask if more money is actually being taken out of a locality than put in. A massive government grant to an inner city estate is not necessarily an overall resource gain if at the same time other services are being cut, increasing tax burdens are falling on the residents and social security payments are being squeezed. A private sector contribution of several millions is not necessarily a net gain if the same firm has recently made 1000 workers redundant or is investing in a new supermarket which will destroy the local high street shops and only offer low paid part time jobs. A 5000 annual grant from the National Lottery to the local play group is no real gain if each of the fifty families who use it are spending more than 2 each week on lottery tickets.

Thirdly in measuring the resource inputs to community policies and projects the time inputs of volunteers and activists are not usually costed. This point is now well established in relation to the unpaid inputs mainly of women in the areas of child care and community care of the elderly and disabled. It is not however so well appreciated in community work as a whole. Chanan (1992) has suggested that costing the fifty hours a week of voluntary work which an average local group might contribute at 5 an hour adds 12,500 a year to its budget, the equivalent of a salary for a half time post. Nor is it likely that anyone has every costed all the time and effort put into the process of acquiring funds and recruiting staff for a modest community project by paid and unpaid workers, not only of the local community group but also of the funding bureaucracies. One suspects that in many cases, when added to the costs incurred in processing the many unsuccessful applications that the costs would exceed the value of the grant received. When evaluating an anti poverty programme it certainly becomes worth posing the question as to whether converting the whole budget into used banknotes and scattering them from a hot air balloon over the neighbourhood would have produced greater benefits to local people.

Finally the model of outside funding of any community initiative raises the questions of dependency and autonomy. It is almost impossible, and rarely thought desirable, that funding should be given with no strings attached. At the very least grants are made for a limited period, usually no more than two or three years and are often designated as pump priming. This rarely allows continuity or long term planning and can lead to wasted capital investment, such as new community centres which have to close when running costs are not covered. Above all it ensures that much time is spent in the final year in a desperate search for renewed or alternative funds. Funders vary in the degree of managerial or political control they maintain over the community group and in their demands for financial and other accountability. However, few funded groups are willing to risk radical activities which could upset or threaten the interests of their funders. It is inevitable that as soon as community groups receive outside funding some of their critical independence, innovatory style and informality will be lost. It is very easy to be co-opted into the agendas of the funders. Contracts and service level agreements for the voluntary sector may increase professionalism, but professionalisation in the community sector is rarely empowering for the powerless.

In consequence of these problems it can be argued that funding for the community sector should be based on rather different principles than at present. In the first place it should be massively

increased especially in so far as it can be directed towards localities and communities which suffer deprivation and have been accustomed to resources being taken out of them. Capital investment in local economic regeneration, and in developing skills of local residents is important, but should be made accountable, for example by a rigorous social and environmental audit process, conducted with the fullest participation of local communities. Health and Welfare funding should be allocated on a consciously equalising basis, rather than merely as some compensatory or safety net provision for those judged to be in extreme need (on the basis of standardised statistical indexes). It remains to be proved that there is a valid role for voluntary sector groups to compete for contract funding from the state. Larger not for profit groups seem little different from commercial providers of care, except that sometimes charitable effort and volunteering can provide cheap labour and finance. A more fruitful investment of all the time and effort devoted to the institutional voluntary sector would be to direct it to the local community sector. Furthermore to do so would be more communitarian in ethos. As Knight (1994) argues such a split in the voluntary sector appears to be emerging anyway.

How then should the local grass roots community sector be resourced? It is possible to argue not at all; it should be purely self financing. This argument falls however, in face of the reality of local deprivation; the localities which are in greatest need of community action are the ones with the least resources to sustain it. Funding ought to be empowering, unbureaucratic in procedures, and offered to local groups with few strings attached other than checks on financial probity. For this to happen, it would be wise for funders to spread their resources thinly in numerous small grants. No revenue grant to a community group should exceed a single half time salary. It is not empowering and indeed unfair to ask a management group made up of low paid workers and benefit claimants to employ a professional community worker on a salary scale which is sometimes twice the local average income. It might be better in terms of local empowerment to use the money to pay volunteer expenses, casual wages for creche helpers, or to send volunteers on training courses in computing, accountancy, welfare rights work or community development, providing of course that all the legal restrictions of tax, benefits and the Children Act could be circumvented. Even so many local community groups might be well advised to keep complete independence by not accepting any outside moneys. There is however one function where resources should be deployed strategically in employing professionals for the benefit of community groups. Each district should have its own well resourced umbrella body and resource centre, providing free or low cost services to groups, such as accountancy, community development, legal services, research and information, training, networking and conference facilities. This sadly is one part of the voluntary sector in the UK which remains chronically undervalued and under resourced.

Summary and questions

To summarise the ground covered in this chapter we reproduce here Glen's typology of (in his terms) three forms of community practice) (1993 p 39)

Community Development Community Action Community Services

Approach

AimsPromoting community Campaigning for

community interests and community policies

Developing community oriented organisations and services

ParticipantsCommunity defining and meeting own needs

Structurally oppressed groups organising for power

Organisations./service users as partners

MethodsCreative and co-operative processes

Campaign tactics on concrete issues

Maximising community/user involvement and inter agency links

Roles Professionals working Activists/organisers Service managers

in a non directive way mobilising for politcal action restructuring transactions with users

Some questions remain about the nature of community policy overall. They can also be applied to the notions of community development and community action. First of all can there be a coherent account of Community policy when it is so diverse, and rests on unclear and contested, if sometimes rosy and romantic views of the concept of community? Secondly can community policies which are territorially defined, as most still are, respond to the realities of community life which is often extended along lines of communication linking ethnic or special interest groups over a wide are? Thirdly can community policy initiatives originating in a top-down manner from the state ever genuinely engage with the concerns of local communities who have long been excluded from prosperity and decision making? Can it overcome the reality that the bulk of the money invested in community goes to pay professionals from outside while locals are often expected to give their time for free? Can community policy defend itself from the accusation that it is an ideological con-trick masking public sector spending cuts? Finally can any community policy make an impact on underlying structural issues of economic and political power, which increasingly operate at a global level?

Many of the community initiatives outlined above are to be welcomed on the basis of communitarian values of participation and mutual help, and perhaps also on pragmatic grounds that they provide more efficient, responsive and user friendly services. However they can hardly be regarded as a panacea for all our social ills, as long as they fail to give satisfactory answers to these crucial questions.

Key books for Chapter 2

Butcher et al eds. (1993) "Community and Public Policy" London, Pluto Press.

Willmott P. (1989) Community Initiatives, London PSI

Chapter Three: Community; some sociological perspectives

In the first two chapters of the book we have examined some of the ways that the term "community" is used in everyday speech, in political discourse and in the practice of community workers and other community professionals. So far we have concentrated on values attached to the notion, and activities carrying the label of community. We move on now to a more descriptive task. It will be clear that it is impossible to give an agreed or authoritative definition of such a value laden, ill considered, and contested concept. One is tempted to look to sociology to provide a clear and objective definition. However, because sociology as a discipline is of necessity reflexive, in that sociologists are inextricably part of the object of their study and the dissemination of earlier sociological study has formed a feedback loop in the structuration of society (Giddens 1984), it can provide no simple formulas. Yet there are in the sociological tradition a number of perspectives which can clarify our descriptions of the concept of community, and sensitise us in our understanding of particular communities.

A good starting point is Hillery's 94 definitions of the notion of community (1955). They fell mainly into three categories, which inevitably had considerable overlap. In the first place were those which had a largely geographical or local reference, where the main concern was the place, the neighbourhood, the locality and only as an afterthought the people and their relationships. This perspective although popular and important (Dennis 1965) is perhaps best dealt with under headings such as social geography or locality studies and discussion of such themes is postponed to the next chapter. The other groups of definitions were more strictly sociological in that they focussed on relationships, between people which may or may not be centred in a particular location. One recurring theme was that of solidarity, fellow feeling, "communitas" which

binds people together with a shared sense of identity or belonging. In some ways this type of discourse belongs more properly in the discipline of social psychology, although there is within the mainstream of sociology a long history of searching for the elements which like glue or cement bind society together. An alternative emphasis is on social interaction as frequent contact, and the exchange of information, goods and services tends to structure and transform networks into a self conscious entity. The two approaches have some resonance with the familiar sociological dichotomy of structure and action and the traditions associated respectively with two giants among the disciplines founders, Durkheim and Weber.

The structural functionalist approach derived from Durkheim, which is still influential in North American sociology, and via that route in communitarianism, would look for patterns and regularities in community life, and look for features, many of them below the surface of actors' awareness, that make for the smooth functioning of society. The emphasis would be on consensus and social cohesion, and the interest would be on mechanisms of solidarity, and the role of shared values and beliefs. A more action oriented approach in the Weberian tradition would be better at explaining relationships, processes and social change in communities, and would rely more heavily on interpreting the explicit accounts of actors involved in the society. A third school using the Marxist framework would bring the economic structures and relationships underlying social life into the foreground, and explain almost everything in terms of the relationships of various classes to the means of production. All of these approaches have something to offer to the study of community. Yet it is perhaps significant that one of the leading sociological theorists of our day, Giddens, who seeks in much of his work to synthesise the insights offered by these schools into one grand theory, studiously avoids the use of the term "community". In "The Constitution of Society" (1984) it appears neither in the glossary or index, and in his comprehensive textbook "Sociology" (1982) it is indexed but once.

The industrial revolution and the urbanisation and political upheavals which accompanied it were the context in which the founding fathers of sociology were working, and had a significant impact when they selected their problematics. Plant (1974) examines the account of German thought given by Nisbet, and points to the contributions of Herder, Schiller and Hegel in the "rediscovery of community" at that time. A key notion of these German Romantics, which we shall pick up later in our discussion of postmodernity, is that of fragmentation. The whole man (person) is found in the context of traditional community, while in modernity the division of labour leads to fragmented forms of human interaction. Plant traces how the theme continues especially in urban sociology down to the work of Louis Wirth (1938) and Harvey Cox (1968).

The most influential statement of these ideas for subsequent discussion of the concept of community is Tonnies' duality between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (association) which appeared in 1887. The popular version of the account goes like this. In the idyllic (but perhaps imaginary) village life of two centuries ago community (Gemeinschaft) was a natural state of affairs. Interaction was on a human scale and people largely lived with, worked alongside, married, worshipped with, traded with, quarreled with and were even oppressed by, people who they had known face to face all through their lives. Inevitably status was ascribed rather than achieved and there were therefore many constraints on the ability of individuals, especially the poor, females and outsiders to achieve prosperity, power and personal fulfilment or a chosen lifestyle. Relationships between people were multiplex, i.e. the same people were linked by a multi-stranded pattern of roles. The Romantic argument is that this produces intimacy, social cohesion and sympathy between the participants. To be fair to Tonnies it is important to point out that he saw Gemeinschaft not as a disappearing historical situation but as a quality and style of human interaction, that it is the intimacy of home and hearth, of religion and neighbourliness, and that even in modern urban settings it is not totally absent.

Industry, urbanisation and improved transport gradually eroded this pattern of community life, so that increasingly people resided in one place, worked in another and took their leisure in another. The appropriate description of modern urban society was associational (Gesellschaft); here people might be in contact with far greater numbers of people, but each contact was likely to be

fleeting, instrumental, and only involve a single role relationship. In the city people would live in one neighbourhood, travel to work in another, take leisure in another and make contact with different sets of people in each. Organisational life would also be segmented, limited companies and unions for the work place, residents associations and groups for women, children and the retired in the neighbourhood, with special interest associations such as sports clubs, arts and drama groups, religious groups, disability support groups, serving a "community of interest" often spread over a wider catchment area.

For Tonnies the concern with the loss of Gemeinschaft betrayed a conservative set of values and their fears about the problems of social cohesion and social control in an urban world increasingly divided by class conflict. In this he has been accused of introducing the fundamental confusion of community sociology, the conflation of facts and values. For example he wrote that it is impossible to speak of bad Gemeinschaft, and described it as the more genuine form of living together. He described it as a living organism and Gesellschaft as a mechanical artifact. Contemporary sociology, being less wedded to positivism and pseudo objectivity, may be more forgiving to Tonnies here than that of the mid twentieth century. It is perhaps more unfortunate that two other confusions were introduced by the tendency to equate Gemeinschaft with Gesellschaft with two other dualities, rurality - urbanism, and traditional - modernity.

An important, though much neglected critique of this duality comes from the German sociologist Schmalenbach (Hetherington 1994). Crucially he introduces another (usefully elastic!) term "Bund", often translated into English as league or federation, to cover a conceptually (but not necessarily historically) intermediate form of human association. Here individuals chose or covenant to bind themselves together into a collective unit which takes on far greater significance and develops greater levels of solidarity / communion than the transitory associations of Gesellschaft. Unlike Gemeinschaft, status and role relationships are not based on birth, tradition or ascription, but tend towards either radical egalitarianism or dependence on charismatic leadership. The concept of Bund has been applied to communities as diverse as kibbutzim and the Hitler Youth, and clearly has some value in the description of religious sects, orders and "intentional communities", and of collectivities such as street gangs, military units or Japanese style industrial work teams. While Bund structures have been known in both pre modern and modern periods of history, they seem by nature to have only short term stability, resolving towards Gesellschaft if they break up in the earlier stages or Gemeinschaft if they can be sustained into the second and third generation. Hetherington cites Schmalembach to argue that the Bund as an ideal type of grouping has particular relevance for the postmodern period, in which social fragmentation, de-centring of identity, and the wide range of options for lifestyle, combined with romantic nostalgia for past times, push many people into experiments with alternative forms of community.

Durkheim who was in his early years far more progressive ideologically and optimistic about the potential of modernity than Tonnies, engaged in debate with Tonnies over some shared concerns, and reinforced the dichotomy between traditional and modern societies. However he turned Tonnies terminology on its head by suggesting that mechanical solidarity was typical of traditional society and organic solidarity of the modern world. Durkheim's discussion was set in the context of his thesis of the division of labour, (1933) where he explains how a relatively simple form of economic and social linkages comparable to the machine evolved over time to become an immensely complicated network of social and economic interdependencies, a system with a life and strength of its own. Yet Durkheim recognised that this complex urban industrial world had a devastating impact on many individuals, that its numerous fragmentary relationships failed to provide social support and meaning for the whole person. He developed this notion of anomie to the full in his work on suicide, where he showed how such ultimate personal despair was most common in settings where community solidarity was weak. (1951). However, Durkheim's concerns were mainly around the relationship between individuals and society as a whole, the nation state in the Europe of his age, or the self sufficient tribe in the case of indigenous peoples of the European Empires. Thus he had relatively little to say about local forms of community, other than that the "patriotism of the parish has become an archaism that cannot be restored

at will" (1933). His suggested remedy for modern social ills revolved around guild socialism and national social cohesion constructed from the building blocks of a wide range of secondary groups. His vision for such organisations in which people would work co-operatively in the common interest, would appear thoroughly communitarian in spirit.

Weber (1964) in contrast went beyond the dichotomies of Tonnies and Durkheim. As might be expected from a sociologist who was interested in human action, he began by describing four ideal types of social behaviour (Freund 1968). Associative behaviour depends on a mutually agreed and explicit set of rules and is typical of voluntary sector organisations and political parties. Behaviour based on mutual consent is governed by implicit social rules such as the practices of the market place or the code of politeness. However it must not be assumed that this implies solidarity since open or secret competition or conflict can still take place within the unwritten rules. Institutional behaviour takes place when rules are explicit and imposed from on high rather than by members themselves. Typically this form is that of the state and similar bureaucratic organisations. Weber's final type is that of group behaviour. Here people enter of their own free will and rules remain uncodified. Yet there is a clear submission to authority, and the group can exercise sanctions or coercion if necessary. Typically this form is that of a sect under charismatic leadership. Weber goes on to categorise social relationships and organisations and it is here that he uses the terms communal and associative, which are closely related in German to Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. However in Weber there are different shades of meaning. Communal is taken to be relationships based on a subjective sense of belonging, of solidarity. Association in contrast refers to more rational forms of social organisation, based either on shared values and goals. A common form of associative relationship is the Verband or corporate group, a closed group with clearly defined rules and authority and/or representational structures. Sub types of corporate groups are enterprises, associations and institutions. Weber also distinguishes between closed and open groups, an important concept to bear in mind as we explore the notions of communities, boundary marking processes, and networks in later chapters. Weber's study of organisational life produced important insights into the process of bureaucratisation of society and it is easy but probably an oversimplification to contrast the formal rational organisations which developed with traditional "natural" forms of "community".

Weber relates much of his analysis of social interaction to the economy and develops a quite sophisticated analysis of social class, which he distinguishes from status (1970). Persons of the same income and with the same relation to capital may be ascribed or achieve different statuses on the basis of their education, culture, religion or ethnicity for example. Here there is a clear controversy with Marx whose economic reductionism portrayed class as an objective and given category. Weber insisted that classes could not be equated in any sense with communities. Mobilisation of class interests for political and social action was not the result of an infallible economic law, but the probabilistic outcome of multiple decisions by largely rational actors. In contrast Weber saw status groups as communal, if often amorphous. Concerns of honour, lifestyle, behaviour and values can override economics in determining who deals with, befriends or marries whom. Numerous attempts have been made to draw up a universal status hierarchy on a single dimension, and most survey and census research analyses class on an occupational status basis. Weber's approach to status allows us to go beyond this and is helpful when dealing with the fragmented communities and networks of the postmodern world. It underlies for example Rex and Moore's illuminative account of housing class and ethnicity in Sparkbrook in the 1960's.

It would be impossible to complete this chapter without more than a passing reference to Karl Marx who was undoubtedly the most influential social scientist who has ever lived. His emphasis on the economic determinants of social life has already been mentioned. He saw clearly how the capitalist and industrial system of production produced workers who were alienated from the process and product of their labour, and in conflict with the owners of capital. Traditional community belonged to an earlier period of economic development and was lost for ever under capitalism. Marx longed for and predicted (misguided as it turned out) a revolutionary

transformation of society to a form where common ownership would produce a universal solidarity between people. In his own time it appears that he struggled with the contradiction between the shared economic interest that should have brought exploited groups together with a shared consciousness, and the current historical reality. In the case of the French peasants that "the identity of their interests begets no community, no national bond and no political organization among them, they do not form a class." (Marx 1852).

Marx as an internationalist, with his call for class solidarity, and faith in economic laws, had little time for localism or other aspects of "community". He tended to see society in terms of a simple dichotomy between the sphere of market individualism and the sphere of the state. Even when he made use of Hegel's term "civil society" to fill the middle ground, he saw this "burgerliche Gesellschaft" as a form of economic association appropriate to a limited historical juncture in early capitalism (Kumar 1993). However, later Marxists have developed the notion of civil society as the autonomous mediating structures between the individual or family and the state. Thus Gramsci (1988) develops a form of Marxism in which cultural institutions play a role outside the economy, although he shows how the hegemony of the ruling class is served by a civil society which only appears to be independent of the state and free from coercion. There as been renewed interest in the notion of civil society in recent years, most clearly in the analysis of events in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and in the role of the independent Polish trade union Solidarity. Recent studies in the Marxist tradition such as Castells (1977) have also begun to explore the role of community groups and urban social movements in political and social struggles.

The basic sociological themes in the discussion of community have changed little in the past century. As we shall see in later chapters many studies have been conducted and many insights gained. Methods for studying both local and non-local communities have become more diverse and more sophisticated. Insights into the nature of communities within institutional settings such as Asylums (Foucault 1971) have made important contributions to social theory as a whole. But no convincing grand theory of community has emerged, and has rarely been attempted. Bell and Newby (1971) underline this point several times when they characterise community studies as atheoretical and non-cumulative in the production of knowledge. They prefer to see community studies as a research method rather than a sub discipline of sociology. Frankenberg's (1966) attempt to synthesis a theory from the findings of the mid century community studies brought together aspects of functionalism, class and status analysis and social networks but was unconvincing in its eclecticism. It also confused the issue of community with that or the rural urban continuum. Chicago school sociology, as we shall see in the next chapter, was similarly eclectic, and wedded to a conception of the urban neighbourhood as a community.

The late twentieth century has seen a reluctance among social theorists to grapple with the concept of community. Marxists tend to reject it as an ideological construction of capitalism, and as not soundly based in economic materialism. A further reason for denying any theoretical status to community is it's inextricable link to the local and parochial, which prevents a serious analysis of the global factors impacting on localities. This is the logic behind a framework for local studies which focus on economic processes and change and their impact on social life at the regional, district and neighbourhood level (Cooke 1989; Harvey 1973; 1989). Others reject the notion of community because the term itself is so vague, and despite the numerous attempts incapable of precise definition. However, the enduring popularity of Tonnies paradigm in popular discourse about social change ensures that "community" remains as an important element in the social construction and representation of society. This influential discourse is worthy of analysis in its own right as an important feature of postmodernity. It is not necessary to define the term, as we can usefully describe its usage by various actors in society, the political power invested in the term, and the way its usage, matches, fails to match or even shapes social reality.

A second reason for hanging on to the concept of community is the nature of contemporary social change itself. Globalisation and social fragmentation mean that in the social sciences the old simplicities of class analysis have succumbed to a diverse range of critical theories from

various perspectives, and/or to a plurality of perspectives making no claims to be metanarratives. Most of these intellectual streams of postmodernity have in some sense a place for, or a relationship to, the notion of community. They need a middle level term between society and the individual to capture the experience that people do interact and find identity and belonging in small groups and personal networks which usually share or construct for themselves a sense of place, common heritage or values or interests. It is hard to see why the everyday term community, so frequently used to describe this feature of social life should be discarded or how it can be replaced. A grand theory of community may be for ever unattainable, but as a problematic or sensitizing notion it is here to stay.

Chapter Four: Understanding neighbourhood communities

• Urbanism as a way of life • The Chicago School • Using census data • Measuring segregation • Neighbourhood profiling • Qualitative information about neighbourhoods • Participatory research • Key books for Chapter Four • Back to contents

For most agencies and professionals engaged in community development or community practice a geographical rather than a sociological approach to community analysis is required. For however sophisticated one's analysis of the notion of community day to day work is likely to take place within geographical boundaries. Some urban researchers and practitioners therefore prefer to use only the term neighbourhood at least in respect of the topics dealt with in this chapter. (Menahem and Spiro 1989). We shall first look briefly at the tradition of urban and neighbourhood studies as found in the sociological, geographical and planning literature, with a particular emphasis on the work and influence of the Chicago school. We will move on from there to look at the battery of techniques available to practitioners wishing to carry out analysis of a particular local community; the process known as Community profiling, or neighbourhood appraisal. Our aim is to show that a statistical description of a locality combined with a local mapping exercise can help immensely in understanding neighbourhood life and in planning community work or local government policy, and to suggest some ways in which such research can be carried out.

The concerns of geographers and urban planners have naturally enough been primarily spatial and locational. It is tempting to view many settlements, such as an isolated village, or an urban neighbourhood bounded on all sides by waterways and railways as "natural communities." (Suttles 1972, Dennis 1968). However our earlier discussion about the work of Cohen (1985) makes clear, communities are socially constructed and their meanings should never be taken for granted in this way. Purely at a geographical level one needs to be aware that territories designated as communities are often far from "natural". Administrative areas such as an electoral ward or a metropolitan borough have been defined sometimes in arbitrary ways for a wide range of bureaucratic and political reasons.

One fundamental concern in geography and planning has been to explain why particular pieces of land come to be used for particular purposes, for agriculture and industry, for financial centres and corporate headquarters buildings, for desirable residential areas, or for slum housing and ethnic ghettos. A second concern has been about relationships between places, the hierarchies of power and influence that exist between different types of settlements, from the metropolitan megalopolis to the remote village. Out of this comes an interest in transportation, patterns of mobility and the diffusion of ideas, technologies and cultural forms across space, a concern

about communication between communities, now speeded up so much by the development of information technology (Castells 1989). Planners in particular have wanted to know how land use patterns and the design of the built environment affects patterns of social life, for example is it the case that high rise apartment blocks tend to produce lower levels of sociability than terraced streets or twenty houses nestled around a village green. For an overview of the state of the art in geographical approaches to community life the reader is referred to Herbert & Davies (1993).

Urbanism as a way of life

It will be no surprise given the history of concerns about the loss of community, that issues around urbanisation, and more recently counter-urbanisation have been high on the agenda of scholars and practitioners in the field. In western culture there appears to be a fundamental duality between the notions of rural and urban life with a strong value bias in favour of the former. A folk theology that "God made the country, man the town" is a dominant theme despite a Bible that ends in "a city of Gold" and the influence of Augustine's "City of God". Romantic reaction to the crisis of urban growth in nineteenth century Europe has made a profound impression. However, urban sociologists and geographers in the late twentieth century have increasingly questioned the assumption of the rural urban divide. Louis Wirth's (1938) "Urbanism as a way of life" is one of the most often cited papers in the urban sociology literature and has had many expositors and defenders (e.g. Morris 1968). Wirth suggested that three main features distinguished urban life from rural, firstly the larger dimensions of urban communities, secondly the higher density of residential settlement and thirdly the heterogeneity of the populations to be found in cities. The result was a web of impersonal and instrumental relationships, which tended to produce fragmentation, superficiality and "anomie" leading to all the familiar social and psychological stresses associated with city living. Wirth's conceptualisation of the urban, with its obvious links to Tonnies' Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft duality, has been the problematic around which debate has centred.

The debates between Redfield (1930) and Lewis (1951, 1965) on the folk-urban continuum based on studies of Mexican village life are one well known variation on Wirth's theme. Another way of capturing the idea that there is no categorical duality between city and village life was to talk about an urban-rural continuum. Pahl's (1965) study of commuter villages in South East England for example shows how urban and rural orientations co-existed in a single location. So even the idea of continuum does not work, Newby's work on change in rural areas of England provides further evidence that rural life is increasingly urban in form and culture (1980, 1985). Harper (1989) reviews the literature on this theme and highlights the necessary change in emphasis towards area based studies covering economic restructuring of both city and countryside. Wirth's characterisation of the urban has also been critiqued by researchers who argue empirically that urban life "just ain't like that". Community studies in various cities have repeatedly discovered evidence of Gemeinschaft forms of community, especially in working class neighbourhoods and ethnic villages. The Bethnal Green studies of Young & Willmott (1957) and Gans (1962) work on urban villages in the USA and suburbanism as a way of life (1968) are only two out of many pieces of work which can be cited against Wirth. And even in the largest most impersonal cities personal network studies (Wellman 1979) show that most people have enough contacts to feel part of a community, which need not be geographically concentrated, and that estrangement and alienation from others is a feature of public life but not of private life (Fischer 1981).

Another line of attack on Wirth's notion of urbanism has been that of Castells (1977). He suggests that the concept of urban culture is an ideological one, which masks the economic processes and class conflict which can be found in both city and country. Wirth's organic evolutionary view of the city locates alienation in the psychological response to technology and complexity rather than in the oppressive relationships of production, and gives the false "reassuring impression of an integrated society united in facing up to its common problems". Harvey in his early work (1973) also takes a Marxist approach to the unjust allocation of resources between different neighbourhoods, stating that "capital will flow in a way which bears

little relationship to need or to the condition of the least advantaged territory. (Capitalism) is not consistent with the ends of social justice.... nothing short of comprehensive government control" can change this. In "The Urban Experience" (1989) he recognizes the value of Wirth's conception and argues towards a synthesis where the "urbanisation of consciousness has to be understood in relation to the urbanisation of capital". In particular Harvey shows how the concept of community has itself become a marketable commodity, and that local and other community loyalties are often in struggle with the placeless individualism of money and capital.

The Chicago School

Despite the critics, discussions of policy and practice in the community are still deeply influenced by the Chicago school of urban sociology, in which Wirth was an important contributor, which grew up in that city in the early part of the twentieth century. The context was one of a rapidly growing, and ethnically diverse industrial and commercial mega-city, where the presence of organised crime (e.g. Al Capone) and the corruption in local politics suggested imminent social collapse. The Chicago sociologists developed a range of methods from quantitative analysis to street corner ethnography to help them read what was going on in the city. (Burgess 1925, Park 1926, Park, Burgess & McKenzie eds. 1925, Bulmer 1984) They attempted to map the social composition of the city in great detail, and divided up the territory into a number of natural communities which are still reflected in the government of the city today.

A key concept for the Chicago school was urban ecology. They took as a model the notion of plant and animal life colonising apiece of land and saw how ecological processes led to a shifting balance in patterns of land use. They examined how market forces were reflected in the price of land, and how this led to different uses by government, commerce, industry and various groups of residents. Their model of the city was one of concentric zones. In the centre was the Central business district (in Chicago the Loop, formed by the elevated railway system). The next zone was the twilight zone / inner city slums, ethnic ghettos and industries and warehouses. Beyond this came the zone of "working men's homes" stable if not affluent residential communities. Furthest out was the zone of affluent suburban commuters. As a general if simplified model this fits the description of many Western cities in the mid twentieth century. However, modifications had to be made, for example to deal with natural barriers such as rivers and waterfronts, and major arteries of transport. Sectors were introduced into the model to allow for patterns of development that were not in concentric circles; why for example in London as in so many British cities are the noxious industries and working class districts so concentrated to the East of the city centre, while in the West affluent residential areas stretch outwards to the suburbs? Prevailing Westerly winds and sensitive upper class noses provide one clue.

A second key insight from the Chicago urban ecology model is that of invasion and succession, a direct parallel with the ecology of plant communities. Just like a "fairy ring" of mushrooms one group of people establishes itself in an inner city neighbourhood, then as it prospers moves outwards, leap-frogging over intermediate groups. New groups then colonise the vacant inner area. Classically this pattern is seen in the geography of ethnic minority residence. Rex & Moore use the insights of the Chicago school in their classic study of Sparkbrook, Birmingham as a twilight zone (1967) and it is developed further in Rex & Tomlinson (1979). However, their notion of housing class demands serious adjustment to the ecological model of urban land use in societies like Britain where municipal housing policy and the allocation of Council homes have overridden the natural ecological processes. In East London a vivid example of the invasion - succession process is seen in the often mentioned seventeenth century Huguenot Chapel in Brick Lane. Taken over by Methodists in the 18th Century, it became a synagogue for Jewish refugees around 1900. By 1980 as the Jewish Community had relocated in suburban areas such as Redbridge and Golders Green, the building had become a mosque for local Bangladeshis, who as the 1990s progress are increasingly found five miles further east in Newham, in housing vacated by and outwardly mobile whites and Asians from Sikh and Hindu communities.

Using census data

The study of urban neighbourhoods in ecological terms depends extensively on the availability of quantitative data, most usually that collected by government Censuses of population. Geographers and planners have developed a range of sophisticated techniques to manipulate such data which provide valuable insights to anyone wishing to understand particular local neighbourhoods and their relation to wider urban tends (Willmott & Hutchinson (1992), Willmott ed (1994), Boddy et al. (1995). However, before we summarise the most important approaches, it is important to bear in mind some of the limitations of census data. Firstly Census data is usually only collected once in ten years and is almost always between three and twelve years out of date. Secondly there is a growing tendency for Census data collection to be reduced in reliability by non-response and avoidance, especially by marginalised groups. For example the UK 1991 Census is estimated to have failed to collect data on a million or more people and young black men are particularly under-represented (Simpson and Dorling 1994). Thirdly census organisers only collect the minimal amount of information related to the policy concerns of government, for example in the England there is no census information on religion or language use; an infuriating situation for students of communities in multicultural urban areas. Finally the output data from Censuses is usually at a geographically aggregated level. Modern techniques of information technology allow area from small areas to be processed quite easily. Researchers can work with data sets broken down into the smallest administrative districts or areas defined by postal codes or map references, or even with a random sample of anonymised individual records (Dale & Marsh 1993). However, it is still geographically determined and predominantly deals with people as residents, rather than as people who spend different parts of their life in different places. As such it is intrinsically vulnerable to a statistical effect known as the ecological fallacy which is the mistaken tendency to infer that because a census tract has a high average score on a particular variable, say overcrowded housing that every resident of the neighbourhood suffers from this problem (Timms 1971, Blackman 1995).

The simplest practical technique for using census data in neighbourhood studies is to plot important variables onto local maps showing census tracts or enumeration districts. It becomes easy using computerised Geographic Information Systems to produce a huge set of maps showing areas with high proportions of ethnic groups, of rented housing, of unemployment, of old people living alone. However it is easy to be submerged in an ocean of data, and to choose indicators or threshold levels in arbitrary or controversial ways.

Techniques for reducing census data to manageable proportions for policy purposes have long been available. Policy makers when allocating resources to districts and neighbourhoods would ideally like a simple formula to measure social need. The usual approach is to construct an index of deprivation combining key indicators of need selected from the census data. These are then standardised statistically, in terms of an area's difference from an overall average value (Z score method), or in relation to the difference between counted and expected numbers of particular categories of people in an area. (Chi squared method) (Dept. of Environment 1994, 1995). the obvious problem in constructing an index of deprivation is the choice of indicators, who is to say whether the number of unemployed men, or the number of children in single parent households should be included in such an index, and if so what weight should they be given. An alternative approach is to build a model in which a range of possible census indicators can be tested for their contribution to expalaining the variation in rates of a relevant variable measured at the same geographical area. For example Noble et al. (1995) have produced a regression analysis model which accurately predicts the numbers of Income support claimants from five weighted census indicators, a version of which is used by the Church of England to assess parishes' eligibility for grants from the Church Urban Fund..

A rather less arbitrary way to reduce the complexity of census data sets about neighbourhoods is to apply techniques such as factor analysis and cluster analysis to a wider range of census variables (Folwell 1993). Factor analysis is a correlational technique which groups together variables which go together, e.g. proportion of elderly people, small households and rates of long

term limiting illness. Social area analysis using this approach (Shevky & Bell 1955, Robson 1969, Timms 1971) has been applied to many American, European and Australasian cities. One widely replicated finding is that three dimensions of social class (affluence / poverty), ethnicity and family status can be empirically separated. Particular neighbourhoods can be located conceptually in these three dimensions according to the proportion of rich and poor, black and white, and singles, families and elderly people. Cluster analysis is a comparable data reduction method, but in this case it is areas that are grouped together, according to their similarities or differences on a range of census indicators. Factor analysis and cluster analysis can be combined in substantive studies of a local community such as Newham. (Smith 1996b). In this case statistical analysis of 1991 Census data revealed how patterns of deprivation in adjacent neighbourhoods related to ethnic composition and housing tenure. Some form of deprivation and high unemployment was found in almost all areas, but housing conditions and overcrowding was greatest in predominantly Asian, owner occupied areas, while lone parent households and low car ownership was more typical of white majority / above average African and Caribbean council estates.

Measuring segregationA further area of concern which can be explored using Census data is that of ethnic and other social segregation. In divided communities such as Belfast or South Africa under apartheid residential areas are often totally homogeneous. In most Western cities the patterns are less clear cut, and policy makers are interested in measuring the extent of segregation and changes over time (Rex 1981, Massey 1986). A commonly used technique is the Index of Dissimilarity (Peach 1975, Peach, Robinson & Smith 1981). An Index of Dissimilarity (ID) is calculated by comparing the percentage distributions of each group, by summing the differences between the two groups in each sub area; the ID is one half the sum of these differences (ignoring their signs) and is often expressed as a percentage. It ranges from 0% representing no segregation to 100% representing complete segregation and describes the percentage of one group which would have to move if there was to be no segregation between them. The ID can be calculated at different areal levels though it is to be anticipated that it will increase in value as the size of the areas involved decrease. An example from 1991 Census data for Newham is given in Table 4.1 to show how useful such an approach can be for understanding the interrelationship of neighbourhood community and ethnicity.

Table 4.1Indices of dissimilarity for ethnic groups in NewhamIDS At ward level

White Black Asian Indian Pakis. Bangla. Carib. African

White * 20.18 44.93 47.09 40.14 46.67 23.94 16.35

Black * 33.74 36.97 30.99 33.38 4.56 5.99

Asian * 5.47 11.18 16.45 32.64 34.63

Indian * 14.44 19.90 35.88 35.32

Pakistani * 22.72 30.52 31.67

Bangladeshi * 32 34.36

Caribbean * 0.39

African *

ED Level indices of dissimilarity for main ethnic categories

Black South Asians

White 25.5 53.30

Black * 40.81

South Asians *

IDs have been calculated for Newham for many of the pairings of seven of the census ethnic categories at the ward level and for the three grouped categories of white, black and (South) Asian at the ED level. These figures show that there is a significant degree of ethnic residential segregation in Newham although it falls far short of the 80% plus figures reported at census tract level for "Negro ghettos" in U.S. cities (Kantrowitz 1969). In Newham, Asians (and in particular Indians and Bangladeshis are more segregated from whites than are Caribbean blacks, and (especially) African blacks. Segregation between Blacks and Asians falls in the intermediate range while segregation rates between ethnic categories within the Black and South Asian groupings is lowest of all. The most plausible explanation of these patterns rests on the general exclusion of South Asian households from Council housing, as a result of a combination of factors including preference for owner occupation, the threat of racial harassment in white Council estates and a historically racist allocations policy.

Neighbourhood profiling

Agencies involved in community work are have a specific interest in understanding census data about their locality in terms of making their own practice relevant to the residents, and in lobbying for funding, or political change on behalf of a neighbourhood. Increasingly funds for urban regeneration are being targeted at areas of evident deprivation and community organisations applying to government and charitable trusts are required to show a high level of appreciation of the nature and extent of local needs. Since Census data now tends to be sold rather than given away by the agencies of the state, community organisations often have to rely on the goodwill of their contacts within local academic or local government bodies to obtain this sort of information.

When the Census does not contain the required information it may be necessary to collect original data. Community groups are unlikely to have the resources or skills to carry out quantitative studies first hand. More established organisations are sometimes able to employ research consultants to develop their case. More usually they decide to carry out small scale do-it-yourself neighbourhood profiles, community audits or similar research. Fortunately there is now a growing literature and resource base to help in these tasks. (Percy Smith 1992, Burton 1992, Hawtin, Huges & Percy Smith 1994, Everitt & Gibson 1994, A.C.W. 1994, and from a church perspective MKCF (1986) and Beckett (1991).

It is worth tracing in outline how the practice of such neighbourhood research has developed in the UK since about 1970. During this period a number of networks of practitioners have been developing, using and teaching a battery of techniques for local situational analysis deriving ultimately from some of the insights of the Chicago school. The repertoire includes mapping an area, using relevant census statistics, community surveys, discovering local life by networking, interviewing key people and participation in local community groups, or even in experiential techniques like the "urban plunge", a survival exercise on 1 a day. Until recently little has been published other than as very "grey" literature, and judging from my own experience it seems to have developed as an oral tradition among urban church and community workers, health and social service professionals, and freelance researchers rather than in the mainstream of the academic world. Church organisations have played a vital role in this movement. For example the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield, and Church Action on Poverty produced kits and the Evangelical Urban Training Project ran workshops with local congregations which aimed to "know your church, know your neighbourhood and know your gospel". One important recommendation of the Faith in the City Report in (ACUPA 1985) was that every local parish should conduct a parish audit, which would include both a congregational analysis and a neighbourhood profile. At a national level the Church of England worked closely with the Department of Environment to make census information from 1981 and 1991 available at the parish level. More recently local authorities have been required to undertake needs assessment research in the context of

community care policies (Blackman 1995) and are making use of or reinventing a similar repertoire of techniques.

Qualitative information about neighbourhoods

While statistical information about neighbourhoods is essential for those who wish to serve their residents, it is usually helpful to supplement this with qualitative information. There is no substitute for long term participant observation in a community and professionals who are serious about the "community" nature of their practice should always consider the benefits of taking long term local residence. There is perhaps no better way of understanding a local community than walking to the local shops and sending one's children to the local school. But qualitative research techniques can also be used by outsiders. We shall mention four of them, reading the streets, maps, listening to people and networking local agencies.

Reading the streets of a neighbourhood is a largely intuitive technique but can be developed to a high level of sophistication. Initially one can note the physical appearance of the neighbourhood, whether the houses or flats and their gardens, if they have them, are well maintained or decaying. The public face of an area is seen in the range and condition of shops and other public buildings, in signs and notices, in the quantity, language and content of graffiti. Observing people in the street can become serious ethnography, but something less than that will suffice as a background to community work. Who uses the streets? Do different groups dominate at different times? What sort of interactions take place in different places? Are there typical or extraordinary incidents which betray the nature of the neighbourhood? Are there times and places which are evidently less safe than others? Obviously the keen observer of the streets in certain tough neighbourhoods needs to be "street-wise" enough to know when participant observation becomes a high risk strategy in terms of personal safety.

A large scale map or model of a neighbourhood can be used to visualise and summarise a vast range of information. Boundaries of the neighbourhood can be plotted; in some cases these are obvious barriers such as rivers, motorways, rail tracks, the edge of the forest or a major park. Other boundaries are more psychological, such as the transition between owner occupied and rented housing, the point beyond which local people are more likely to use an alternative shopping street or underground station, or the invisible divide between Muslim and Hindu territory. Individuals may have very different mental maps of an area; a useful exercise is to ask a sample of residents to draw a line on a map representing what they see as their "patch" or "turf" (Pacione, 1983). In urban areas the lack of agreement on boundaries may be great, and frustrating for the staff of an agency that works to officially demarcated boundaries, which seem rather arbitrary. Also on the map can be marked major through routes, central places such as shopping streets and transport interchanges, and popular pedestrian routes between them and residences. Local public buildings such as shops, schools, pubs, health centres, churches, mosques and community centres, and facilities such as parks and open spaces can also be marked. Industries and other non, residential uses should also be shown, and different types of housing style and tenure can also be colour coded. Visual techniques such as photomontage or a home video record of a walk through the neighbourhood can help bring the map to life. In a community development situation local people can be encouraged to respond to the representation provided by the map, and to comment as to whether it captures the reality of their lives.

Listening and asking questions of local people can be a very productive strategy for filling out a neighbourhood profile. A full time community practitioner will be listening most of the time, but the listening may not be very systematic. At the opposite extreme is a full blown research process involving semi-structured in depth interviews of a large number of local people. Ideally the respondents should be a representative sample or at least a broad cross section of local people, and the interviews should be transcribed and analysed to bring out key themes and shared perspectives. Listening to group discussion about community issues, using the research technique of focus groups (Krueger 1994 ) is another valuable technique. Computer software

such as Text-base Alpha or Nudist can be used to facilitate the task of analysing transcripts (Tesch 1990).

Mapping voluntary activity in a neighbourhood completes the picture of community life in a neighbourhood. Local life would have little right to claim the title of community in the absence of community organisations. Many attempts have been made to assess the levels and significance of voluntary activity in local communities (Chanan 1992, Reynolds et Al. 1994, Marshall 1995, Knight 1993). As a research activity the attempt often gets bogged down in questions of definition; what constitutes a community organisation or voluntary activity, how local does local have to be in the case of branches of wider organisations, do we count a religious group with several daughter organisations for different age groups as one agency or many? However, simply undertaking a mapping of the field is a valuable exercise for community practicioners and communitarian activists. Drawing up a list of all known groups, contacting them and talking about their work is in itself both enlightening, and an important part of community development, as information is shared and networks of relationships are built. Snowball networking, in which each agency contacted is asked to nominate further groups or individuals with whom it is in contact is a still more powerful method for discovering how a local neighbourhood community interrelates.

Participatory research

One important emphasis in neighbourhood research from the grass roots up, is that it has often sought to be both participatory and emancipatory. Local residents and community group members have been involved at all stages, including designing questionnaires, interviewing, data input and presentation of findings in the context of lobbying. For example disabled people in Newham devised a survey of the views and needs of disabled and elderly people, carried it out with minimal professional support and used its findings to influence local care in the community developments (Everitt & Gibson 1994). The participatory research style derives form the Freirean tradition of community action in the Two Thirds world (Feuerstein 1988, Mikkelson 1995, Nicolls 1991) and can be used for action research and evaluation as well as for neighbourhood profiling. It has links with the established paradigm of action research (Lees & Smith 1975) and with the developing practice of Community Operational Research (Ritchie et al. eds. 1994). It tends if anything to favour qualitative rather than quantitative methods, and makes no apology for beginning from a critical value base. As a result it is not usually easily appreciated by official and bureaucratic agencies who tend to favour "objective" and "hard numerical" data. Yet as community policies become more popular, user involvement and citizen empowerment rises up government agendas, the opportunities for bottom up methods of community research are greater than ever before. Of course participatory research is also cheaper, which means not only cost savings but that where the findings are uncomfortable to policy makers it can be more easily dismissed!

Key books for Chapter Four

Hawtin, M Hughes, G Percy-Smith, J., (1994), Community profiling: auditing social needs", Buckingham, Open University Press

Davies W.K.D. & Herbert D.T., (1993) "Communities Within Cities; An Urban Social Geography" London, Belhaven Press.

Chapter Five: Community studies, the ups and downs of a genre

• The classic community studies • Ethnic minority communities • Whither community studies • Key books for chapter 5

• Back to contents

Community studies as a sociological tradition can best be described as a genre rather than a subdiscipline. As an enterprise such work flourished in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and drew their inspiration from two main sources, the Chicago school and the social anthropology of late British Imperialism. The huge variety in method and findings and their relative paucity of theoretical analysis have earned them the description "The poor sociologist's substitute for the novel". (Glass 1966 p148). For the most part methods have been drawn from Anthropology rather than sociology, which has predisposed researchers to use qualitative, participant observation methods, and a structural functionalist theory. It is hard, given the nostalgic connotations, and ideological weight on the notion of community for a researcher interested in a given community, to avoid portraying it as static, harmonious, and functionally healthy. This has led in turn to a general neglect of historical perspectives and an emphasis on the folk / rural / or small town end of the continuum.

In the UK the highpoint in the theory and practice of Community Studies is probably the publication of two books by Bell and Newby in the early 1970's. In the first (1971) they thoroughly reviewed the achievement and limitations of the genre to that point in time, and in the second (1974) they presented a collection of key papers from the international literature. Their critique of the genre was widely accepted as a powerful one. Community studies they argued were a rag bag of assorted observations of varying quality, there was no unifying approach, theory or method. In consequence the genre was non-cumulative and had little to offer to the development of sociological theory, or study of human society in general. Across the Atlantic Stein (1960) had already advanced a similar critique in his aptly title "Eclipse of Community". A consensus was growing around Stacey's (1969) suggestion of abandoning the "myth" of community and doing research on local social systems might be a better way forward.

Other lines of attack can also be mounted. For example, researchers in the genre have never been able to study a representative sample of communities, they decide to work in a place where they already have contacts or involvement, or because it matches the main strands of their theoretical concerns, either as typical or esoteric. Marxist or Critical theory approaches will want to remedy the neglect of power and class relations, and to introduce black and minority perspectives. Feminists would argue that even a study which detailed the differing roles of men and women in a community is inadequate. They would want to see explicit analysis of male dominance and power, as a step towards emancipatory action for women in both public and domestic spheres (Dominelli 1990).

A growing awareness of the difficulties arising from a purely local focus in studying urban society. As soon as research begins to make a serious attempt at economic structural analysis, for example in the work of the CDPs on the of the causes of deprivation in Canning Town, or Coventry (Loney 1983), it is impossible to proceed without examining historical and global processes. Explanations cannot be found in the locality alone, and solutions to local problems demand political action at the national or international level. Even Marxists found it hard to make connections between global theory and local reality or community action, except perhaps in Latin America through Freirean praxis, although Castells (1977) made a serious attempt to grapple with some major themes in a way which has inspired further work. (Mullins 1987).

In the UK at least emphasis has moved onto the study of localities as opposed to communities (Cooke 1989). In the 1970s and 1980s comparative studies of local labour markets, or the patterns of social and demographic change, such as counter urbanisation and gentrification was more common than descriptive and analytic work on individual neighbourhoods or settlements (Harris ed. 1990, Robinson 1981, Bridge 1993a) . Much of the most recent research has been comparative work carried out by geographers and economists with a clear policy related agenda (Robson et al. 1994).

However the 1990's may well provide an opportunity for "the rejuvenation of community studies",

a title used for an article by Martin Bulmer in 1985. Bulmer argues that one impetus for this is methodological in the development of the techniques of social network analysis. A second is policy driven, in that there is a wide consensus in Britain for the decentralisation of service delivery, and in favour of the provision of "care in the community". Increasingly community studies, or at least community profiles are needed by professionals in local authorities, health services and the voluntary sector to inform their practice as they move from an institutional base out into the community. Indeed it is significant that a very high proportion of references to "urban communities" on the Social Sciences Citation Index during the last five years are the work not of mainstream sociologists but of medical practitioners with interests such as epedemiology in cities and in ethnic groups, or of social work practitioners concerned with isolation of elderly people. (Moon 1990, MacIntyre et al 1993, Wenger 1994, Cattell 1995)

The classic community studiesIf sociologists have been rather dismissive the general public have been avid consumers of popular community studies, particular if the community studied is their own. Photographic histories of local communities are prominently displayed, and presumably purchased in bookshops everywhere. TV documentaries often cover local community life, although it is perhaps more significant that the favourite genre of viewing for the mass market is the soap opera. Here one key element is the daily or weekly life of an imaginary local community, a community which for some viewers may become more significant and real than the one in which they live. "Neighbours" may evoke more concern than neighbours, issues in "East Enders" are more likely to be talked about than issues of the East End. There have been many more thorough attempts to describe the life of local communities in Britain from a journalistic rather than a truly sociological perspective. Some of these are very perceptive, and most contain useful empirical data. Among the most important for urban communities are Parker's "The People of Providence, (1983), Harrison's "Inside the Inner City" (1983), Dervla Murphy's "Tales from Two Cities (1987). However the authors make no claims to be social scientists and have little desire to add to the theoretical understanding of communities.

Serious claims to be included in the sociological genre of community studies can only be made for publications based on extensive sociological research. Bell and Newby's two books (1971, 1974) are a more than adequate introduction to the major trends in community studies in the mid twentieth century and the contributions to the latter volume by Elias (1973), Arensberg and Kimball (1967), and Simpson (1965) are particularly interesting. A summary of the field from the same period is found in Worsley (1970). Crow and Allan (1994) offers a more up to date coverage of the field with an emphasis on the impact of economic restructuring, mobility and the growth of home ownership, while Davies and Herbert (1993) is comprehensive from an urban studies perspective. It will not be possible here to do anything more than refer to a selection of the often cited studies from North America and Britain. In order to appreciate the findings of each the reader will need to access the original sources, and the evaluation of many of them found in the books cited above.

The American tradition of community studies begins in "typical small towns" with the Lynd's study of Middletown first reported in 1929 and revisited in 1937. Changing readings of the same local story are presented by Hoover (1989). The Yankee City studies led by Lloyd Warner (1941) are a massive corpus, Questions of race and ethnicity appear quite early in the American literature. The classic study of racism in a Mississippi community is "Deep South" (Davis et al 1941). The work of Gans in the Italian community in Boston has already been mentioned (1962). Urban community studies in the USA are dominated by social ecologists of the Chicago school. Besides overview work on the city (Park, Burgess & McKenzie 1925), the neighbourhood focus comes through in such studies as the Ghetto (Wirth 1928), the Gold Coast and the Slum (Zorbaugh 1976 first published several decades earlier) and Whyte's Street Corner Society (1955). Suttles "Social order of the Slum" (1968) carries on the Chicago tradition into the era of the American urban crisis and the war on Poverty. Gans' second major work on the Levittowners (1968) moved the focus to the suburbs and showed how the rapidly emerging and seemingly vibrant organisational life of a new housing estate sifted the residents into a limited range of community

activity and low level of local identification. In Canada too social scientists have developed an interest in community studies of which "Crestwood Heights" is the best known suburban example. (Seely et al (1963). However some of the most significant Canadian work, that of Wellman and his colleagues will be covered in more detail in the section on network analysis in Chapter 7

There is a similar diverse tradition of community studies in the British Isles; Crow and Allan's (1994) book begins with a map and list of 55 key published sources. Frankenberg (1966) gives a handy summary of much of the early work which includes his own study of a Welsh village (1957). His account begins with rural studies in Ireland (Arensberg 1939 and Arensberg & Kimball 1940), in Wales (Rees 1951) and Gosforth in Cumbria, England (Williams 1956). The study of a Yorkshire mining village (Dennis, Henriques and Slaughter 1956) is set alongside Stacey's study of Banbury (1960 revisited in Stacey et al 1975) and Birch's work on Glossop (1959). Urban housing estate studies are represented by work in Liverpool by Lupton and Mitchell (1954), in Sheffield by Hodges & Smith (1954) and the well known Watling study by Durant (1959). The urban section of Frankenberg's morphological continuum is based on the work of the Institute of Community studies (see below.)

Subsequent rural village and small town studies of note include Littlejohn's (1963) study of a Cheviot parish, Harris' (1972) study of an Ulster border community, Gilligan's (1990) report on change in the Cornish town of Padstow, and the account of a Shetland fishing community by Cohen (1987). Change as a result of inmigration has often been found worthy of study for example in the work of Elias and Scotson (1965) and more recently in a rural setting in Day and Murdoch (1993).

The dominant stream in urban community studies in the UK has been that centred on East London and associated with Michael Young, Peter Willmott and their associates at the Institute of Community Studies. Their research has concentrated on family, kinship, neighbours and friends as the foundation of local community. The classic study on family and kinship in Bethnal Green (Young & Willmott 1957) was followed up by research on suburban Greenleigh (1960) (showing some similarities to Levittown). Their next study on the evolution of community in the Dagenham estate (1963), traced the effects of the large scale outmigration of post-war years. An evaluation of the work of the Institute was published by Platt (1971). Willmott and Young's influence remains in East London even in the myths and images held by local people. Cornwell's (1984) study focussed on health and illness, while Phil Cohen's work from a cultural studies perspective (1972) looked at change and ethnicity in the area and more recently at how local people redefine and imagine their communities and identities (Cohen, Quereshi & Toon 1995). The Dagenham study has also been revisited after three decades by O'Brien (1996).

Broad brush community studies of other large scale urban areas are comparatively rare. Jackson's work in Huddersfield (1968) struggles to get beyond the sterotypical warm beer flavour of Northern working class life. Birmingham is represented by the Sparkbrook Study (Rex 1968, Rex & Moore 1967), and by Handsworth (Rex & Tomlinson 1979). South London is the scene of Foster's ethnographic study of crime in the community (1990). Sandra Wallman and associates have produced a substantial corpus of research on neighbourhood life in South West London (1982, 1984), from a social anthropology viewpoint. The impact of social and economic change on local communities is addressed in Moore's work on the impact of oil in Peterhead (1982) and Newby's (1980) work in rural East Anglia, as well as in case studies of such places as Swindon, Lancaster and Thanet in Cooke's 1987 collection. In a class of its own so far appears to be Revill's (1993) paper on "Reading Rosehill" an inner area of Derby. Here we see an avowedly postmodernist approach to the culture(s) of a neighbourhood.

Ethnic minority communitiesIn recent years community studies in urban Britain have concentrated on the (changing) cultures of ethnic minority communities. Patterson (1965) deals with the early days of settlement in Britain while Pryce (1979) is based on participant observation of West-Indian life in Bristol.

Anwar's (1979) study of Pakistanis in Rochdale is one of the most significant and makes effective use of social network analysis. There are other studies from an anthropolgical perspective on Pakistanis (Saifullah Khan 1977), on Gujeratis (Tambs Lyche 1980), Sikhs (Ballard & Ballard 1977) and collections of essays such as Watson (1977). Eade (1989) is concerned with Bangladeshis in east London, but the focus is restricted largely to local politics. Most of these either concentrate on specific aspects of ethnic minority life and/or use traditional techniques of participant observation to describe and elucidate the processes subsequent to migration.

Kosmin's various studies of Jewish communities in the U.K. use social survey techniques to paint a broad brush picture, and pioneered the involvement of local community members as partners and interviewers in the research process (Kosmin & De Lange 1979). The Linguistic Minorities Project (1985) (in which the author worked) tried to develop these methods in the Adult Language Use Survey, carried out in 11 languages in three British cities. The project was unique in that it's focus was on communities defined by minority language use, rather than definitions based on race, religion or ethnicity.

Whither community studies

Despite the critique and evident inadequacies of the community studies genre, it is likely to be making a come-back thanks to the increased emphasis on community policies, and the growing impact of communitarian philosophy. The following section attempts to sketch out a model or theoretical framework to guide community research, in order to give the most adequate possible account of what Stacey (1969) described as a local social system.

A local social system, particularly in a modern urban setting is not a closed system, but has relationships of conflict and collaboration with systems and structures operating in various spheres at different levels. We can conceptualise the six crucial levels involved using the model laid out below in Table 5.1.

*************************************************:INSERT Table 5.1 HERE

*******************************************************The line between levels 3 & 4 symbolises an important difference between the higher and lower levels. Above the line the systems / spheres / levels claim (and sometimes achieve) a universal sovereignty within their spheres and territories over everyone and everything at inferior levels, and ultimately have coercive powers. There is a linkage between this and the communitarian emphasis on subsidiarity in decision making. Below the line we meet voluntarism and plurality where individuals, networks and organisations have a large measure of freedom of association and choice about their actions. Or perhaps they have only the illusion of freedom, given the constraints imposed by the higher levels, and the economic, social and cultural structures and forces which shape, or as some would argue, determine their lives. The lower levels would generally be recognised as the sphere of "community" although with the growth of community policy means that at least level 3 also has some claim to be included.

It also needs to be pointed out that the middle line is not to be seen as a separation of geographical levels. For a nation state could have a tiny territory; indeed that seems to be the trend in Europe even without Lichenstein and the Vatican City. Conversely a voluntary organisation (e.g. GreenPeace), a church, or even a family can be thoroughly international.

Clearly the boundaries between the levels are not always discrete and obvious, and the economic, political and social forces exerted between the levels mean that the degree of autonomy / control that any level has over its own sphere, or over other spheres may vary over time, space or with different issues. For example religion in Europe until recently, (in Eastern Europe until very recently) was located at level 2 rather than level 4. Current political conflicts in Britain are eroding the importance of level 3 by transferring functions formerly assigned to the

local state to levels 2 & 4. The Thatcherite vision of the 1980's tended to magnify levels 1 (market forces) and level 6 (individuals) by eliminating the remaining levels (labelled "society").

The most important point is that there is a network of relationships between the different levels, but that the network is not complete ... some ties are missing, some are stronger than others, some are mainly in one direction and some are expressed through different media than others. In the vast majority of ties there is an inevitable power imbalance between the parties which cannot be ignored in any serious analysis. As a general principle relationships at a direct, personal or face to face level only occur either within a single level or between adjoining levels. Relations crossing two or more levels are far more likely to be perceived as impersonal social forces, which are impossible to challenge and change. This is one of the root causes of powerlessness, and the sense of resignation with which individuals and local grass roots communities, especially but not only in deprived neighbourhoods, respond to issues such as poverty, unemployment and the environmental crisis.

Thus

Individuals relate to;

The global economy as consumers, (non)workers, house owners, migrants, (mediated through the local labour market, with communication through mass media, advertising etc).

The state as tax payers, voters, claimants, subjects under the law, fillers in of forms, immigrants/citizens, with communication through mass media and bureaucracy

The local state (or local manifestations of National state) as voters, lobbyists, council tax payers, students, clients of social services, tenants, customers of environmental services, patients with communication through bureaucracy, on paper and in offices

Voluntary organisations as members, committee members, volunteers, clients, service users, fundraisers & givers with communication through face to face meeting and bureaucracy

Relational networks as neighbours, friends, workmates, relatives with communication through face to face meeting + phone

Relational networks relate to

The global economy: when as consumers they reinforce mass media marketing by personal endorsement of products.... as workmates in industrial conflict ;

The national state: as branches of political parties, trade unions and campaigning groups e.g. by petitions or mass lobbies

The local state... by becoming local pressure groups on specific issues, as next of kin / carers / parents of patients, clients or students. as particular personal networks within municipal structures. using petitions, letter writing campaigns or as a group visiting a councillor

Voluntary sector: as members, volunteers, clients who are often recruited through such informal networks by word of mouth. Networks sometimes grow into organisations and organisations sometimes become relational networks as friendships are formed (cliques). Usually by face to face contact

The voluntary sector relates to

The global economy as consumers (of computers, offices etc.), as fund seekers and image enhancer / conscience for companies, occasionally now as economic development agencies :

usually by writing, often also with personal contacts

The national state as lobbyist / pressure group, fund seeker, as organisations under charity law etc., as contract provider of services,: by written bureaucratic methods

The local state as lobbyist / pressure group, fund seeker, as contract provider of services, by personal networks of influence among officers and councillors: by written bureaucratic methods

The local state relates to

The national state as lobbyist / opposition, fundseeker, provider of (enabler of) local services: usually by formal and bureaucratic contact

The global economy as consumer, as lobbyist for investment, as employer, investor, educator: usually by formal written media, but increasingly in economic development using personal networks with business leaders

The national staterelates to the global economy as economic manager, employer, investor, consumer, through Europe: In theory by formal bureaucratic means, but with Right Wing governments there are often personal ties (of the Old School variety!) and common interest if not corruption between capital and government..

There are also important patterns of horizontal relationships at especially in the lower levels of the model. It is almost tautologous within the model to say that individuals and households relate to other individuals and households in networks of Kin, friendships, neighbours and workmates. It is also obvious that such networks are not usually self contained but are usually connected if only through a small number of bridge people with other networks of personal relationships. In so far as there are boundaries to informal networks they are concepts of the researcher, devices to make the research task manageable. More significant are the horizontal relationships in a local social system between organisations in the voluntary sector. Whether they are formally structured, such as branches of a larger body, political party or religious denomination, or in the form of an umbrella body or forum of agencies, or just a network held together by dyadic ties, they can and should be studied if we are to understand the local social system as a whole. It is of course also possible to discover and study these kind of relationships at the high levels, for example, between different departments of local or national government, or between different companies in the capitalist system but that would go beyond our local field of interest, and be way beyond the resources of most imaginable community studies.

The purpose of this relational model is to suggest that any community study, wishing to provide an overall account of a local social system needs to consider what is happening at each of the six levels, and wherever possible the interactions between them. It highlights the existence of a complex network structure, of relationships between individuals, informal groups or networks and institutions. It also introduces the concept of network analysis, which is the subject of our next chapter.

Key books for chapter 5

Crow G. and Allan G., (1994), "Community Life; An Introduction To Local Social Relations", London Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Bell C & Newby H. (1971) "Community Studies; An Introduction To The Sociology Of The Local Community", London, Allen & Unwin

Bell C & Newby H. eds. (1974) "The Sociology of Community; a selection of readings" London: Frank Cass

----------------------------------------------------------------------------Table 5.1 1) Global Economic / International Capitalism

2) National Political... government, taxation, law etc

3) The Local State... service delivery.. other statutory bodies with local manifestations

4) Voluntary Organisation & religion.... mainly at the neighbourhood / parish level (but some wider structures)

5) Relational level... informal networks of neighbours, workmates, friends, kin

6) The privatised household / individual

Chapter Six: Community lost? Networks, neighbours and the social fabric

• Social network analysis • Network analysis in community studies • Neighbourhood networks: a case study • Building neighbourhood community • Key books for chapter 6 • Back to contents

Communitarians often assume or assert that the spirit of community needs to be rebuilt. They see and regret that (post)modern people are fundamentally and perhaps irretrievably privatised. Etzioni (1994 p116 ff) explicitly affirms his debt to Tonnies for the paradigm of Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft and shares his sense of loss which results from the transformation between traditional and modern forms of social life. This reading of history suggests a continuing process from the traditional/ folk / rural society through the modern / industrial urban form to the rapidly changing post industrial or postmodern, information based world of today. The crucial periods for loss of community would be seen as the rapid urbanisation of the nineteenth century and the communications explosion of the second half of the twentieth. Of course this reading of history can be critiqued as an ideological construct of capitalism entering a period of global crisis, as based on false nostalgia, as faulty in its periodisation, as ignoring the contribution of and oppression of women, and as re-imposing Tonnies's conservative values on concepts which he would have preferred to see as ahistorical ideal types of social organisation. However, most of the 20th Century sociological discussion of "community" has explicitly or implicitly taken this framework, which largely rests on the old Tonnies' duality as a starting point. Indeed it has proved a fruitful paradigm for empirical research. Whether the methods used have been participant observation, sample survey or social network analysis the recurring question is whether Community has been "Lost", "Saved" or "Liberated". (Craven & Wellman 1973; Wellman 1979, Willmott 1987, Bell & Newby 1971 & 1973).

The community lost hypothesis is the "commonsense" or rather received wisdom one, that there is no sense of community any longer, that in the old days everyone helped each other and left their front doors open without fear of crime. It is extremely difficult to evaluate from historical data whether such images amount to anything more than romantic nostalgia. Yet recent neighbourhood studies in urban areas so seem to indicate such perceptions are widespread among older residents. There is also some evidence that contemporary neighbourhood interaction and solidarity is limited, and researchers speak of "communities of limited liability" (Janowitz 1967). Sometimes in contrast the "community saved" hypothesis is brought to bear, when empirical work seeks to show that neighbourhood and kinship based helping and support

networks remain strong in a particular locality (Gans 1962). More usually though ambiguous findings in urban research push the researchers to argue for the "community liberated" hypothesis, which on the one hand recognises that neighbourhood networks may not be very strong, while people generally are far from isolated, and maintain a wide range of supportive and enriching relationships. Mobility and telecommunications has allowed the growth and maintenance of geographically dispersed networks of friendship, kinship and practical support, which is based more on community of interest, shared ethnicity or religious belonging.

Social network analysis

Many of the recent studies of the community question use the powerful analytical tool of social network analysis as a way of clarifying patterns of human relationship (Scott 1992, Craven & Wellman 1973). Using this technique analysis can move beyond the level of the individual and aggregated data. Using questionnaires and/or observational methods researchers can map the patterns of interaction and communication, their density, intensity, geography and significance across a whole social system. The notion of a web of relationships can be applied to individuals or larger social units, such as companies or voluntary organisations. For example work in progress in Newham is seeking to map the linkages between religious groups, and the referral patterns between voluntary sector caring agencies, in an attempt to evaluate the added value of networking in urban mission and community work. It can also take account of varying strengths of relationships, as well as different types of link, such as buying, giving, talking to, friendship or kinship.

The basic concept of social network analysis was picked up from the sociogram technique used by psychologists in small group studies mapping friendship choices. It was introduced to social anthropologists by Elizabeth Bott (1957). She studied families in London and suggested that the best explanation of degree of segregation between the lifes of men and women in couples, was the "connectedness" of their networks of relationships. Broadly speaking if all one's friends, neighbours and kin knew and related with each other it was much likely that spouses would tend to lead separate lives and have clear role divisions in household tasks and roles. Couples with less connected networks were more likely to live shared social and domestic lives. Barnes in a study of a Norwegian fishing village (1954) was the first to make a connection between the concept of social network and the branch of mathematics called "graph theory", and renamed Bott's concept of "connectedness" as "density". A whole school of social anthropologists centred around Barnes and Mitchell at Manchester university developed the techniques in the process of researching urbanisation processes in various parts of Africa. (Mitchell ed. 1969). Sociolinguists such as Milroy in Belfast (1980) and Gal in Austria (1979) used network analysis techniques to predict linguistic variation and language choice in bilingual settings.

In sociology Network analysis was used in empirical studies of the "small world problem" (Travers and Milgram 1969). It transpired that most people had networks which enabled a communication to be passed to an unknown named individual on the other side of the USA in no more than half a dozen links in a chain of personal contacts. Granovetter (1973) showed how weak ties had a strength of their own, particularly in gathering information by word of mouth. For such tasks as job search it was better to have an extensive network of casual acquaintances than a dense close knit network of relatives and friends. Network analysis was also used to examine the interlocking directorships of major companies in particular industry. Access to markets and thence profitability was shown to depend on very much on who you know.. In other fields network analysis methods have proved a powerful technique for mapping the diffusion of innovations, or the spread of disease such as HIV/AIDs through a population (Klovdahl 1985).

As computer power increased, and mathematical sociology became popular in North America, the techniques began to make research reports incomprehensible to all but the specialist. Computer programs such as Structure and Ucinet have been developed to handle large data matrices in which relationships between actors, or affiliations to organisations are entered as spreadsheets (Burt 1991, Borgatti, Everett & Freeman 1994). The programs can identify

components, clusters and cliques in the networks, calculate densities of relationship within the whole or part of the data set, measure distances and describe paths between any pair of connected individuals, and indicate which individual actors are key nodes or powerful gatekeepers in the network. One program Krackplot can even turn the matrix data back into visual representations of the familiar sociogram type! Scott (1992) is a good general introduction to the method and its possibilities, while the collection edited by Freeman, Romney & White (1989) is impenetrable to the non-mathemetician and best serves as a warning for anyone tempted to seduction by the techniques.

It is important to point out that the concept of network is used far more often in the literature than the actual method of mapping relational data. Most of the studies mentioned in the next section in fact rely on survey data collected at the individual level, and references to networks are often no more than a listing of contacts given as significant others (alters) by each respondent (ego). It is only where information about relationships between two or more alters is available that true network analysis procedures can begin.

Network analysis in community studies

Frankenberg (1966) was probably the first scholar to integrate the notion of social network into the genre of community studies, and his attempt to construct a sociological theory of local community. But for a while the idea lay dormant except in the discipline of social anthropology. Then research work in Toronto by Wellman and associates brought local community studies back on to the agenda, using network analysis as a valuable tool (Wellman 1979, Wellman & Wortley 1990, Wellman & Wellman 1992) . Wellman's work generally tends to support the community liberated hypothesis and shows that most people do have extensive social support networks even if they are scattered across the urban area. However, it is worth raising the question as to whether this is a function of the high level of motorised mobility typical of North America, and whether his optimism is shaped by a value system based on individual liberalism. The approach has been replicated in other North American settings. For example Oliver (1988) uses Wellman's approach as a basis for a very insightful study of the black community in Los Angeles, and Cohen and Shinar have carried out a similar study in Jerusalem (1985). In Britain there seems to be little current interest except in Bridge's study of gentrification processes in Sands End, West London (1993a, 1993b).

The theme of neighbours, neighbouring and local networks has been developed in the UK, mainly in the context of community care. The research programme headed by Philip Abrams in the late 1970s - early 1980's (Abrams/ Bulmer 1986). The focus in this work was the evaluation of neighbourhood care schemes and a study of the social basis of community care. Abrams helpfully distinguished concepts of neighbouring as the actual pattern of interaction in a neighbourhood, and neighbourliness as the positive and committed relationship between neighbours, a form of friendship. The research showed that only in a minority of atypical neighbourhoods were informal networks strong enough and "neighbourly enough" to form the basis of adequate reciprocal care. Even in such situations it was based more on kinship or friendship than on neighbouring. The social policy implication is that resources and organisation for neighbourhood care schemes need to be found from public funds, as one cannot rely on informal networks and altruism to meet all the needs. Other academics in the field have drawn similar conclusions (e.g. Clarke 1982). Peter Willmott has also worked on the theme of friendship, and neighbours as helping networks in the context of community care policy with a literature review (1986) and a survey in Edgware, North London (1987). The main thrust of his findings are similar to Abrams, but the main surprise is that while middle class people maintain active networks of geographically dispersed kin and local friends, stereotypical working class community networks were hard to find. Indeed a minority of working class people had neither relatives nearby nor local friends, and lacking such support were vulnerable to stress and breakdown.

However the notion of network is not fully developed by either Abrams or Willmott since there

has been no attempt to gather or analyse truly relational data. Even Wenger's recent research and typology of the networks of older people is based on individual social work cases (1994, 1995). The network data is ego-centric, and even references to the role of mutual aid and self help groups do not involve the analysis of relational data.

Neighbourhood networks: a case study

One recent piece of research along these lines conducted by the author in East London tends started from the community lost hypothesis which is frequently expressed by local residents (Smith unpublished). Background knowledge about the are such as its ethnic diversity, gives further weight to the view that community is likely to be fragmented, if not altogether absent. (Smith 1994, Griffiths / LBN 1994). Other typical "inner city problems" such as unemployment, racial violence, high crime rates, homelessness and high rates of physical and mental illness are also found.

A questionnaire asking about support networks of kin, neighbours and friends was designed and a survey of 67 Newham residents was carried out in 1993 with the help of a group of medical students. The sample of respondents was recruited by a networking process starting from contacts suggested by voluntary sector and church workers in the area. The snowball sampling procedure itself showed that for many people the number and strength of their local network ties was extremely limited. Of 90 people contacted only 29 (32%) were able or willing to recommend names of relatives, friends or neighbours in the locality who could be approached for interview and who they thought were likely to be at home in the day-time during the week. A detailed examination by network analysis techniques of the interrelationships of 118 people recorded in this sampling procedure revealed only one small group of four old people who formed a clique of mutual referral, and three cases of reciprocal referral by pairs of female kin. This low level of connectedness is even more striking given the fact that the original sampling lists represented contacts belonging to a small number of membership organisations.

Responses to questions about community identity, belonging and participation produced some ambivalent answers. Nearly 70% liked living in the neighbourhood, but only 11% saw it as a strong friendly community. Only a third belonged to more than the one community group through which they had been contacted. Interestingly in an earlier larger and more representative local survey replies to these questions were very similar, and people were more likely to say they went to church (30%) than to pubs (28%) or sporting events (19%)). However almost all the respondents with children reported their children had been involved in some local community activity. For adults, and especially older people the preference for a quiet privatised lifestyle is clear.

Personal networks did not appear to be very extensive, dense or strong. Respondents reported they were in touch with an average of 3.6 kin (outside their own household), 3.3 friends, and 2.9 neighbours. However, 18% of respondents could list no friends and 20% knew no neighbours well enough to list them. Indeed only one person in three said they knew their neighbours very well. Older respondents had considerably more kin and neighbours, but less friends than younger respondents. Only a third of the relatives mentioned were living in Newham, compared with 70% of the friends. Only 37% of the relatives were seen at least weekly. Friends were likely to be of the same gender, and age group as the respondent. Inter ethnic friendship was rare and almost unheard of among the older respondents.

Network connections between the significant others mentioned by respondents were rare with the exception of mutual contact between kin. 60% of respondents said all their listed kin were in touch with each other, compared with 44% who said all their listed neighbours knew each other, and 25% who said all their listed friends knew each other. Of course none of this information purports to measure strength or frequency of relationship. Although the vast majority of friends mentioned were living locally and seen at least weekly there appeared to be little interlinking between respondents friendship networks. In fact of 210 persons named as friends by the 67

respondents detailed examination of the identifying variables in the data suggests that they were at least 196 different individuals. The scarcity of duplicate mentions suggests a very low density of friendship networks connecting respondents in this urban neighbourhood.

The patterns of personal support and helping relationships experienced by the respondents differed little in quality from those reported by earlier research. (Abrams/Bulmer 1985, Willmott 1987). Only about one in ten of the respondents were receiving regular help from professional sources, although over a quarter of them had received nursing type care from friends or more usually relatives. Kinship obligations, especially for heavy and personal caring, remain strong, even if the people involved live far apart. In Newham as elsewhere they usually fall on female kin. Over half the respondents felt they could turn to relatives and/or friends for routine help or support of more than one type, compared with only 20% who could turn to neighbours. Even for the proverbial "borrowing a cup of sugar" less than one in five had recently been helped by a neighbour and only another one in five thought they could approach a neighbour.

Indeed neighbours seemed relatively insignificant to most people and only 10% of the ones mentioned ever came inside the respondent's home. This is not really much of a change since even in the "good old days" in the East End it was a rare privilege for a neighbour to cross the threshold (Young & Willmott 1957). Indeed one common expectation of neighbours in British culture is to keep a respectful distance while being friendly, and helpful in emergencies (Abrams/Bulmer 1986). In contrast friendship is a matter of choice and centres on mutual interests and general sociability, leading in the best friendships to emotional support and intimacy.

Most people expressed high levels of contentment / happiness satisfaction with their lives, despite living in a deprived urban area. The highest scores came from older long term residents, and from those who had lots of friends. On this albeit imperfect measure, integration into local friendship and neighbour networks seems to have some social and psychological benefits.

In the absence of longitudinal data, and with the prevalence of nostalgia in reports of life three or four decades earlier, it would be unsafe to suggest that this research supports conclusively the community lost hypothesis. Further more very different, and quite possibly stronger networks of social support might well be found in a similar survey of the Asian communities, many of whom live in neighbourhoods less than a mile away. However even these limited findings are an indication that neighbourhood community, at least for the people interviewed, is marked by its relative absence. There is no reason to suggest these findings are untypical of British urban neighbourhoods. Networks are far from dense and ties especially between neighbours are far from strong.

Building neighbourhood community

If similar research findings can be produced from other contexts the pessimistic view of the communitarians will be endorsed and their case for strategies to rebuild community will be strengthened. If however the optimistic community liberated hypothesis can be widely substantiated then the empirical evidence for the communitarian project will be that much weaker.

The moral questions posed by communitarianism interact with the empirical work on personal networks at a number of points. Communitarian concerns with family responsibilities, and the importance of parenting are confronted with clear evidence of dispersal of extended families. Projects to improve parenting skills and support through praoctive building of networks are already under way. (Cochran et al. 1989). But are communitarians going to call for the "gathering of the clans" demand that extended families stay or relocate in a single locality? This would fly in the face of economic and cultural forces and could reinforce sexist assumptions about women's caring role. Or are they going to advocate and build local community networks of

support and care on the basis of mutual aid? While baby sitting networks might be viable, the research evidence seems to show that for intimate personal care, most people are reluctant to allow anyone other than kin, or medical professionals to intervene in such a private sphere of life.

The communitarian concern with children and schooling is also significant here. Indeed children, with their limited mobility, and involvement with local peer groups in and out of school may be the best hope for those who want to see neighbourhoods as centres of solidarity and mutual help (Henderson ed 1995). Schools can often be a major focus for local community building. However increased parental choice in schooling, can detract from this as children commute further, and families where both or the only parent(s) are in paid employment, are unlikely to have much time or energy for involvement. Even more damaging is parental fear of allowing children out in the street unsupervised, which contrasts so grimly with their own experience as "baby-boomers". Growing motor traffic is a major factor, and the private car is also implicated in the lack of contact with neighbours, the anonymity and mobility of urban society and the culture of "stranger danger" which parents inculcate in their offspring (Hillman 1993). In consequence parents spend a high proportion of their life as taxi drivers, and even children come to be involved in friendships with selected others rather than in neighbouring relationships, with whoever happens to live on the block.

The question of neighbouring may be a crucial one for communitarianism. Normally individual neighbours are not chosen, even by residents who are rich enough to purchase a home in a specified type of community from which people unlike themselves can be excluded. One piece of empirical work from Edmonton Canada, in the Wellman tradition suggests that existing social networks play little or no part in dissuading people to move neighbourhoods. Quality of housing and environment were much more important. (Kennedy 1984). Communitarian values in contrast suggest, that one should take responsibilities for good neighbourliness very seriously. Yet, increasingly significant personal relationships are typified not by neighbouring, but by friendship and friendship usually comes about by choice. If attitudes derived from consumerism are becoming dominant in residential location choice and even in intimate networks of belonging and identity, the challenge of community building in privatised and fragmented postmodern societies is immense indeed. Generic neighbourhood community associations rarely engender great enthusiasm or high levels of participation, at least in the UK. Although they may do better in North America, in both cultures communities of identity and special interest are more likely to flourish, as we shall see in the next chapter.

Key books for chapter 6

Scott J (1992) "Social Network Analysis", London, Sage

Abrams P / Bulmer M., (1986) "Neighbours, the work of Philip Abrams" Cambridge University Press

Chapter Seven: Communities of identity

• Communities of identity • Ethnicity • Language and identity • Religion and community • Other communities of identity • On the notion of fragmentation • Back to contents

Communities of identityIn the previous chapter we moved towards the conclusion that, whatever the results of network analysis in terms of the number and nature of links between people in the contemporary urban world, local neighbourhood community ties are not as important as they were in earlier ages.

However other forms of networking flourish and it is to these communities of interest, attachment or identity that we now turn. Such communities without propinquity may take many forms, and individuals may be involved in and identify with two or more discrete or overlapping networks. One striking feature about such communities, when compared with the traditional Gemeinschaft model is that belonging and identity are to a great extent matters of individual choice. In the post modern world even community can become a commodity, which if not always easily marketable, is deeply influenced by the ethos of consumerism.

The world in which numerous overlapping or discrete communities and networks co-exist is often described as a plural society and the set of values and political arrangements which encourage it to flourish as pluralism. It is of course new technologies and the process of globalisation that has led to such plural societies in most (post)modern cities. Capital and information can be moved around the world instantaneously at the push of a few keys on a computer terminal. Decisions made, allegedly in response to the unseen hand of market forces, have massive impacts on the lives of millions of powerless people in particular local neighbourhoods throughout the world. Cheap exploited labour in the East Asia, is mirrored by high levels of unemployment in once industrial areas such as East London. Poverty and civil war in Uganda and Somalia, made possible by Western arms suppliers, produce refugees who arrive in East London, putting extra strain on housing, education and social services.

Rapid air transport means that more people than ever before are moving around the world seeking their fortunes, or simply security and freedom from fear. Increased long distance migration means that urban neighbourhoods contain increasingly diverse populations, who can continue to maintain occasional face to face, and more frequent phone, contact with friends and relatives in different parts of the world, as well as daily interaction with a cosmopolitan range of neighbours. As a result the most obvious common manifestation of the plural society is ethnic diversity, where groups of people with ancestral and/or cultural roots which were traditionally isolated from each other, rub shoulders within a single polity. Pluralism embraces diversity that goes beyond ethnicity, but we shall concentrate for now on ethnicity and community, before turning to language, religion and sub-cultures.

Ethnicity

In multiethnic cities, using the concept of community is fraught with ambiguities and political dangers. Where a neighbourhood has received migrants from different cultural backgrounds the longer established (usually in the British context white working class people) are likely to feel their territory has been invaded and that the culture and bonds of their traditional community has been eroded. Such fears were played on by Conservative politicians such as Enoch Powell in 1968 and Margaret Thatcher in her 1978 "swamping" speech. If the incomers are black, the racist myths of white superiority are easily evoked, social boundary fences between the ethnic groups will be built and conflicts over scarce resources of housing, employment and education will arise. The opportunity for fringe fascist / Nazi political groups will be greatest when the indigenous community is close knit (and has Gemeinschaft characteristics), where the deprivation they endure is at its worst and when large scale neighbourhood change is being imposed from the outside, for example in London Docklands in the early 1990's. (Husband 1994)

At the same time minorities, whether they like it or not will be labeled by the majority as "communities". Indeed hostility and discrimination from the dominant / majority group (Cooper & Qureshi 1993) may well have the effect of strengthening community relationships and ethnic identity where previously they were weak. Arguably the growing significance of Islam as a marker of ethnic / community identity in Britain is a result of this process (Samad 1994, Knott & Khoker 1993). Although the dominant group may wish to lump all the newcomers together as "them" or to see minorities in terms of a small number of fixed categories which perceived as permanent groups (e.g. the Asian Community, the Chinese Community), networks among minority and migrant groups are more likely to be in a state of flux (Saifullah Khan 1982, Smith 1983). Boundary definition and community building will be an ongoing process and may never be

resolved to everyone's satisfaction. For example some black people (mostly younger political radicals) wish to define all people from ethnic minorities as members of a single "black community" on the basis of a shared experience of racist oppression (NMP 1991). Others (mostly older, conservative, Asians) tend to define their community in terms of nationality, language spoken, and religion, ultimately based on the categories of the South Asian caste system (Modood 1992, Modood et al. 1994). Still others feel happy to negotiate the boundaries of their ethnicity, and will claim to belong to various communities and groups, according to the context, and with varying degrees of commitment (Barth 1969 Wallman 1978). This puts into question the validity of community studies like some of those mentioned in the previous chapter where a reified ethnic minority community is taken as a well defined unit of analysis.

A range of different markers can be used singly or in combination to define the boundaries of a group or community and these can be applied either by outsiders or insiders. Skin colour or other physical features are the most obvious and visible markers, and have been used to categorise, label and discriminate against people almost since time began. In the most extreme form, as in the Apartheid pass book system such distinctions were imposed by the State and had legal force and consequences. In the U.K. quasi-experimental research using actors matched in every respect except skin colour has been used many times, alongside survey evidence to show that black people are frequently discriminated against when presenting themselves in person in search of employment, housing or other services (Brown 1984, Jones 1993).

Language and identity

Language is one of the most interesting and sophisticated system for marking social difference. As long ago as the Old Testament book of Judges (chap 12.6) a distinction based on nothing more than the pronunciation of a single sound, "s" or "sh" in the word "shibboleth", had fatal consequences for those who got it wrong. In Britain many regional and class identities are marked, with varying degrees of pride or stigma, by relatively small variations in pronunciation within the English language. Sometimes it is the use of a single word or idiom that betrays or signals a persons identity, at others it is switching to an entirely different language.

In Wales, the Hebrides, Belgium, Britanny, Catalonia and the Basque country, to name just a few European regions, it is the ability to speak a minority language, and the decision to use it that defines the boundaries of the local community. In more fluid urban societies maintaining a heritage language, such as Spanish in New York, Italian in Toronto, Greek in Melbourne, Japanese in Sao Paolo, Gujerati in Leicester or Polish in Bradford is often vital to community identity and preservation of the culture (LMP 1985). However the battle is often a difficult one as new generations are born, especially in Anglophone cities, given the world dominance of English and its ubiquity in the mass media. In some contexts the writing system rather than the language itself becomes the boundary marker of a community. In North India there are minimal differences between the spoken forms of Hindi and Urdu, and native speakers of the two varieties have no great difficulty in mutual comprehension. Yet the scripts are totally different, and the written languages diverge greatly in their vocabulary. Urdu is the marker of Muslim, and since partition, Pakistani identity while Hindi is denotes membership of the Hindu community (Mobbs 1981). A similar situation over language exists in former Yugoslavia, with Serbs, Croats and Muslims speaking a mutually comprehensible language, but Serbs using the Cyrillic rather than the Roman alphabet.

The sociolinguistic literature is replete with studies of the notion of how language forms unite or divide groups of people. South Asia provides some of the most interesting examples (Shapiro & Schiffman 1981). Some sociolinguists have related choice of language or variation in speech forms to social network structure (Gal 1979, Milroy 1980) as well as to the more conventional sociological categories of race, class, and gender (Labov 1972, Trudgill 1974). The importance of this work for our present concerns is that much of it centres round the problematic of speech community (LMP 1985 p 128 -133). Because of the immense flexibility and creativity within language it is extremely difficult to define a speech community by setting boundaries. Does a

speech community end at the point where a person begins to drop their h's, or when a listener fails to understand 90% of what the speaker is saying, perhaps for an Londoner in Glasgow. Even in the case of a distinct language, e.g. Welsh there are plenty of examples of borrowed English words and phrases, code switching and mixing and always the possibility of bilingualism or interpreters. In one sense a speech community could include the whole world, in another it is me alone. Once again network analysis appears more helpful than categorising the world by boundaries.

Religion and community

Religion too, can and has been a powerful boundary marker between communities. In the some of the best known cases such as Belfast, Beirut and Bosnia historic religious divisions have led to segregation, hostility and bloodshed. Often the mere label of Protestant or Catholic, Muslim or Christian, regardless of any level of values, belief or religious activity has been enough to make innocent bystanders the victims of murder. In India since earliest times group boundaries have been marked on the basis of religion. Communities have been defined not only as Muslims, Sikh, Christian or Hindu, but within Hinduism in particular and among the other faiths by transference the caste system has segregated people in their place of residence, in the work they were expected to do and above all in defining possible marriage partners. All this was given an explicit religious legitimation, and even today both in India and in the diaspora, caste remains an important dimension of discrimination, and underlies many examples of communal tension and conflict (Burlett & Reid 1995, Lyon & West 1995).

Partly in reaction to the suffering caused by religious conflict in Early modern Europe the liberal Enlightenment tradition has valued toleration above all else, and has suggested that religion is a private matter for the individual. Since the claims of religion are not easily settled by public or "scientific" discourse, it does not matter what an individual believes, or how s/he worships, providing no serious harm is done to others. At the present time there are increased fears among liberals in the West because of the emergence of extreme forms of fundamentalism in Christianity, Islam and Judaism which have been highlighted by the bombing of abortion clinics, the fatwa on Salman Rushdie and the assassination of Yitzak Rabin.

Yet from a communitarian viewpoint it can be argued that the best hope for communities to flourish is through religious groupings. This should not be surprising if one recognises the importance of Bund structures. Elective communities can be the building blocks from which a more integrated (whole) society can be constructed. Attitudes and skills acquired in the safe context of a religious community can be profitably transferred to citizen involvement in public life. Religion (etymologically from a Latin term meaning "to bind") is by its nature an integrating force. In traditional society, as analysed by Durkheim (1915) the function of religion was seen to be legitimation for traditional social norms and the basis of solidarity. Even in the modern city, religion builds community in at least three different ways. First its teachings provide ultimate sacred anchor points which are shared by believers, despite differences of class, gender, race and personality. Secondly it provides in most cases a system of moral values, which covers a person's social obligations. In many of the World faiths there are commandments or exhortations to respect, love and care for neighbours, who are in some cases defined inclusively as all people in the world. In best practice these precepts are worked out in compassionate service both within the group and to the wider community. Thirdly in most religions people meet on a regular basis for worship, ritual or celebration. Here the shared sense of belonging and identity is enhanced, and there is space for building and strengthening networks of acquaintance, friendship, kinship, mutual obligation and economic exchange. Thus religion is intrinsically communitarian in spirit, sometimes admittedly at the expense of values of liberty and equality.

In post-modern plural societies religion for some people is the vestigial glue of a traditional society which has broken down or been transferred and reestablished in a new country. For others it is more about personal beliefs, morals and spirituality, a matter of choice in the supermarket of value systems. But in both cases it offers the possibility of believing and

belonging, of finding personal meaning and social identity. (Davie 1994) It would, however, seem unlikely that the diverse and conflicting religious systems and groups in current urban settings can find enough in common to integrate the community as a whole. In some cases the sectarian tendency to exclude and demonise non-believers, and the desire to use religion as a mechanism of political domination, needs to be challenged. But in the absence of other strong local networks and collectivities, religion has an important and growing role in social and political life.

For example, in East London, where secular movements such as the Labour Party, the Trade Unions, and even the Neighbourhood Watches have failed or are struggling, the churches, mosques and temples are beginning to grow. There are now some 275 religious groups in a single borough, about 200 of which are congregations, and 160 recognisably Christian churches. The involvement of religious organisations and people in "community projects" and in the networks of public life is highly significant. It is estimated that out of a population of 217,000 people over 15,000 attend church, a rate that stands alongside the national average for England after a century when religious practice in such urban areas was constantly around a third of the national rates (Marchant 1986). There are also at least 25,000 Muslims among whom 75% of adult males claim to be regular attenders at a mosque, around 20,000 Hindus and 5,000 Sikhs (Aston CIU 1994, Smith 1996a). It may even be the case that the process of secularisation as usually understood is coming to an end.

There is some evidence too that religious groups are becoming a haven for the marginalised, as they cater for and attract far greater proportions of ethnic minority and refugee groups, and white newcomers to churches are as likely to be income support claimants as respectable employed traditional families. Churches and other religious groups have a long tradition of charity towards the poor, and of standing up for social justice. The black Christian communities which grew out of the experience of slavery and segregation have still a profound role in Black American culture, to which the influence of Black Muslim movements has added. (Scherer 1972 p57). These movements also have influence in black communities in Britain. The new Catholic theologies of liberation, and the example of religious involvement in politics given by Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu have also made an impact. Where local congregations become home for the socially excluded, for the poor and the refugee solidarity and mutual help usually grow. Increasingly the notion of community is linked to religion, indeed defined by it. In Christian theology there has been a renewed interest in ecclesiology, focussed around notions of community derived from the New Testament (Banks 1980, Boff 1986). Local congregations of varying theologies from Roman Catholic to Pentecostal are becoming more participatory and consciously developing an extended family ethos (Smith 1988). Scherer's (1972) case study of an affluent suburban parish which she saw has held together more by a common conservative middle class culture, than by shared religious commitment, as an organisation facing an identity crisis, seems quaintly outdated. There is no way the urban church or the other faith communities can ignore or neglect the task of building, managing and living community, even if it wanted to. The crucial point for debate is whether such religious communities construct clear boundaries and become inward looking, or whether they seek to relate to, serve, evangelise and influence the wider population in their locality. Nor can secular policy makers safely ignore the religious dimension in dealing with "community" issues and implementing community policies. In particular as Harris (1995) has pointed out congregations form an important base for the practice of community care.

There is however another contradictory trend in modern religion, especially in the charismatic Christian and New Age variety. Here the emphasis is on the privatisation of religious experience. The problems to be solved are largely personal and psychological ones, about happiness, the authentic self, and spiritual and material blessing. Arguably the concern is with magic rather than religion. (Hamilton 1995) as techniques of prayer, meditation and healing take precedence over the search for God, and love of neighbour "out there". Salvation becomes a consumer commodity and in the supermarket of religions syncretism, or pick and mix personalised faith systems are commonplace. Such religion is the antithesis of communitarianism; if the church or religious community has any place at all it is only the place to discover ones true self, or meet congenial

like minded friends.

Whether the private or community mode of religion dominates in years to come one thing is certain. There will be no return to the days of medieval Christendom, or achievement of the hope of an Islamic world society, in which the whole of society is united in a single religious community. Religious expression and the range of organisations expressing it will be increasingly diverse. There will be no single value base shared by all in any village or street, let alone across a nation state. The challenge for communitarians is to build on the strength of religious communities, to establish collaborative networks between them and to build on any common interests and values they have for the benefit of public life as a whole.

Other communities of identity

As the twentieth century comes to a close traditional class and national identities play a less important role in social organisation and political mobilisation. Alongside more open personal networks, new social movements are constantly being born and for some people these become a focus for some participants not only for political action but for fundamental identity and belonging. Although many people take regard such movements simply as one of many interests in their lives, and the relationships they make within them as one section of their personal networks, for others the movement becomes a primary community.

Of course it does not need to be a political or social movement as such for communities of identity to form. Obsessive personalities find meaning and belonging in communities of interest as diverse as sports clubs, model railway societies, music groups and psychiatric group therapy. Youth sub-cultures are of particular interest, and extremely diverse (Hebdidge 1979). They mark the boundaries of their community, which is often fairly homogeneous in terms of age, race and social class by fashions of appearance, styles of music, behaviour and language, which are often met by the incomprehension if not horror of their parents' generation.

Of particular note among the social movements are greens, disabled people, feminists and gays. Environmental concern has made an impact throughout the Western world across many of the boundaries of age and class. Elderly middle class bird watchers, working class inner city parents, and student anarchists have a common interest in such issues as reducing pollution from car exhausts, and the "rights" of farm animals. Moderates and radicals may disagree as to methods, but the common cause is often recognised as a form of community. At the radical end of the spectrum action on the issues may lead to the formation of an intentional or residential community, for example in tree houses obstructing the passage of bull dozers for a new motorway or in the case of the women anti-nuclear protesters camped at Greenham common in the 1980s (Dominelli 1995). Such communities often develop high levels of solidarity, and explicit shared value systems, which have more than a tinge of the religious.

Feminism has grown as a self conscious movement over recent years and has achieved much in terms of the conscientisation of women, if as yet somewhat less in changing patterns of male domination in most spheres of society. For all women in some circumstances and for some feminists in almost all circumstances gender is seen as an uncrossable boundary marker. Some feminist groups it seems wish to exclude men from every aspect of their lives. Despite feminist sympathies for communitarian theories and praxis, (Frazer & Lacey 1993) it is not however usual to hear the word "community" applied to feminist or women only collectives. Solidarity is more likely to be expressed in terms of sisterhood. Is it perhaps the case that "community" is to be rejected as a male defined term? Or is it rather that the everyday usage of the term has so many irremovable connotations of family, of a social organisation in which the raising of the next generation is of paramount importance therefore demanding at least some degree of collaboration between male and female for the purpose of procreation? The feminist critique of "community care" may in part derive from such a deconstructive approach to the ideology of community.

In contrast the gay and lesbian movement has vigorously embraced the term community in its politics of identity. Until the 1960's homosexuality in most Western societies was seen as deviant and its practice was illegal. If a community existed it was in the form of semi-covert informal networks. Decriminalisation and greater tolerance in recent years has allowed a movement to organise in public, and many individuals to "come out". In some cities particular neighbourhoods have become segregated enclaves for gay residents, while most urban areas now have publicly listed gay and lesbian clubs, publications and voluntary support groups. Gay pride festivals are now commonplace. Looked at from the outside boundary definition is problematic, far more so for example than with the women's movement. What are the criteria for membership of the gay community? If it is living in a homosexual partnership many would be permanently excluded and some would move in and out of the community. If it is a single incident of homosexual practice in a lifetime some people would be included who would deny their membership. Homosexual orientation is probably more a matter of degree than category, and in any case is not essentially publicly observable. Public identification with the community, "coming out", is perhaps the clearest guide, but would still exclude people who are convinced as to their sexuality, but are not yet prepared to bear the stigma of confessing it in public. The case of the gay and lesbian community yet again illustrates the mistake of re-ifying a community by marking its boundaries. A more satisfactory picture is that of network with a dense core and more loosely connected periphery. It illustrates perhaps better than any other contemporary case that communities, can be and are socially constructed, for ideological purposes, and as collective responses to perceived oppressions.

The definition of disability is contested so, determining the boundaries of the "community" of disabled people is intrinsically difficult. However, according to the recent Health Survey for England 1991 around 40% of the population reported themselves to have a long-standing illness or disability while the General Household Survey of 1993 found 8% of respondents to have a mobility problem (White et al 1993, Foster et al 1995). In recent years there has been a major transformation of identity for many, that parallels that of gay and lesbian people. In place of medical definitions of handicap and impairment and charitable responses based on pity activists have demanded equal recognition as members of society. They have pointed for example that barriers to employment are not so much the inabilities of disabled people but the stigmatising attitudes of able bodied society, and the unsuitability of buildings, equipment and rigid work patterns. Campaigns have focussed on physical access, higher social security benefits to improve mobility and care, and on the right to choose appropriate models of medical and social support. The language used has not been so much about the disabled community, as about the right of disabled people to play a full role in the wider community, and about the implications of the term care in the community. There has been an effective process of conscientisation, at least at the core of the movement. For example Newham's leading local movement on disability is called Action and Rights of Disabled People and insists that all decisions taken about its activities are taken by disabled people themselves. In the wake of the disability rights movement Carers, the usually female kin, who look after elderly and disabled people have also demanded recognition, in campaigns which often resonate with some of the demands of the women's movement.

On the notion of fragmentation

The emergence of so many communities of identity in contemporary society suggests an increasing complexity in the organisation of the world. People can be grouped into a growing range of categories according to ethnicity, gender, place of residence, religion, patterns of consumption and much more. Fragmentation is a common way of describing this breaking down of the social order. Without wishing to invoke any conspiracy theories, it does seem plausible that the processes of fragmentation and privatisation are functional within capitalism, in that they render mass organisation of opposition to global business and the ruling political elites of nation states that more difficult. "Workers of the world unite" is no longer a very effective slogan.

It is however questionable whether the fragmentation process is leading to a breakdown of

society in the alarmist sense of the phrase. For although some people do find their primary sense of identity and belonging in a fragmentary form of community other forces work to bind people together into greater collective structures. In the first place the majority of people can be categorised in a large number of overlapping social fragments and play a range of roles at different times of their life. Thus I am a man, a father, a husband, a Christian, a white person, a socialist, a cyclist, a researcher, a community worker, a West Ham supporter, a bird watcher and a steam train enthusiast. But none of those roles, relationships and categories can be used alone to denote my complex identity. Secondly, most people have network connections which inevitably bind them into wider society; economic ties as employee and consumer, social ties of friendship and kinship, political ties as citizen or subject. The whole post modern world is thus inextricably connected as a massive network of interdependency.

One of the themes of the debate on postmodernity which we have already referred to has been the growing possibilities of individual choice not only in consumer goods, but in cultural forms and even identities. New modes of industrial production have introduced flexibility in product specifications, no longer in these post-Fordist times are consumers offered cars in "any colour as long as it's black". Within broad general constraints, consumers are overwhelmed with choice, sub-cultures spring up and mark their boundaries by styles of fashion or music, and manufacturers make huge profits from selling images and designer labels. In some settings consumers can be shown to define their personal identities and values by their relationship to the choices they make in purchasing. Unlike the period of mass affluence in the 1960's when "keeping up with the Jones's" was the watchword, conspicuous consumption in the 1990's revels in difference, especially in the consumption of arts and leisure products.

The notion of pick and mix culture is easily understood and can obviously be applied to the issue of multiple, overlapping and flexible identities and community attachments (Lyon 1994). But just as the poor are excluded from most of the opportunities of the market place, simply because they have no money to purchase any of the wide range of consumer goods on offer, so a large number of people are excluded from choice about the communities they belong to. Rich and educated people can use their purchasing power to move from one residential neighbourhood to a "better" one while the poor are condemned to remain in deprived municipal housing estates, remote rural areas, shanty towns or even on the streets. Rich and educated people can travel the world, learn new languages and skills, and associate with whichever networks of people or communities of common interest they choose. Meanwhile poor and less educated people are on the whole less mobile and have to get on with the business of relating to the neighbourhood communities where they happen to be. In the cases where they do move as migrant labour or as refugees they still have little choice but relate within the ethnic community in which they are perceived to belong , both for mutual practical and cultural support, and as a defense against the hostility of the majority community. The same applies to other less powerful fragments within society; children, older people, disabled people and the mentally ill. For these groups belonging and community is given rather than chosen. This of course brings us back to a key question; can "community" in any meaningful sense of the term ever be chosen, or are as Sennett (1977a 1977b) argued, private and narcissistic forms of Gemeinschaft inherently destructive?

In the next chapter we will spend some time looking at the contradictory social trends that work on the one hand for fragmentation and on the other towards unification of the contemporary world. Globalisation of the market economy, and the spread of a global culture through the electronic media is the major force imposing a shared experience on increasing proportions of the world's population. The emerging information society is one in which the key concept is the network, global and unbounded. However the increasingly interactive nature of communication networks at the same time promotes diversity, choice and fragmentation. And as we shall see, both within the high priestly class of Internet wizards, and among the masses who are likely to be excluded from the world of cyberspace, more traditional concepts of community refuse to lie down and die.

Chapter 8: Community connections in an information society

• Virtual communities: utopias • Virtual communities: dystopias • Cyberville and local communities • Community development & IT • Electronic democracy • Community as virtual reality • Key books for Chapter 8 • Back to contents

Most readers of this book are likely to have at least a vague idea about the capabilities of the Internet although unless they are reasonably frequent users of some of the Computer Mediated Communications (CMCs) it offers they may find the material discussed in this chapter somewhat mind-blowing (see Winder 1994... for basic introduction). Much of the research for this chapter was carried out by searching the World Wide Web for up to date articles on themes such as virtual community and communitarianism. Quotations such as that from Kapor (below) were downloaded and imported into the author's word processor, and bibliographical details of most of the references for the book were discovered by on line searching of the Social sciences citation index and library catalogues as far away from the author's desk as Washington DC. Clearly the new CMCs are having a significant impact on information processing, in the academic world. This chapter considers their impact on the debate about communitarianism and the nature of contemporary communities. Although the Communitarian Network uses the Internet to communicate, is this globalism in contradiction with their themes of local decision making, and community responsibility? How do virtual communities differ from the communities of Real Life? Can the new technologies bring wide scale benefits to local communities, especially those characterised by poverty and deprivation, or will their value be restricted to a rich and powerful elite? Finally how do technologies such as multimedia and virtual reality and the cultural forms they generate feedback directly into popular conceptions of 'community' itself?

Virtual communities: utopias

From the direction of cyberspace, comes a very optimistic view of the potential for community in an information society. In an article appearing as foreword to the Dummy's guide to the Internet Mitch Kapor (1994) Co-founder of the significantly named Electronic Frontier Foundation makes these claims.

'New communities are being built today. You cannot see them, except on a computer screen. You cannot visit them, except through your keyboard. Their highways are wires and optical fibres; their language a series of ones and zeros.

'Yet these communities of cyberspace are as real and vibrant as any you could find on a globe or in an atlas. Those are real people on the other sides of those monitors. And freed from physical limitations, these people are developing new types of cohesive and effective communities - ones which are defined more by common interest and purpose than by an accident of geography, ones on which what really counts is what you say and think and feel, not how you look or talk or how old you are. ........ The new forums atop computer networks are the great levellers and reducers of organizational hierarchy. Each user has, at least in theory, access to every other user, and an equal chance to be heard. Given these characteristics, networks hold tremendous potential to enrich our collective cultural, political, and social lives and enhance democratic values everywhere'.

And in keeping with the spirit of postmodernity and the New Age the article ends with a quotation from the Buddha.

'As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties.

If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes.'

Although social scientists are beginning to take an interest in Cybersociety (Jones ed. 1994) the most extended discussion of the notion of virtual community to date is that of Rheingold (1994). His popular book The Virtual Community besides outlining the history of the Internet technologies, and drawing a sketch map of cyberspace, argues that the interactive and participatory nature of CMCs provides many opportunities for community building. As a self confessed, Granola eating ex-hippy, Rheingold relates from his own experience how he has built networks with people of common interest around the world. He glories in the current semi-anarchy of the Internet and argues for minimal regulation of its services.

As a prime example of a virtual community Rheingold describes the WELL which grew out of a bulletin board set up by a group of computer literate alternative lifestyle enthusiasts in California. Here they were able to exchange information about music (especially that of the band Grateful Dead), political protest events and happenings, and New Age spirituality. Similar alternative virtual communities now exist centred in a number of locations, for example the Phreak bulletin boards in the U.K., and are linked in many cases to the global Internet. Rheingold celebrates the co-operative spirit and participatory nature of the WELL and similar services. Yet interestingly, he also relates that many WELL subscribers feel the need to meet up at least occasionally in Real Life (IRL), for example at the annual WELL family picnic.

Another WELL user Eric Theise (1995) describes his involvement, in contrast with the anonymous neighbourhood where he lives, and where he only knows two people in any depth, and where certain surly neighbours never ever smile.

'My virtual community, The WELL, has about 8000 residents. Many of them live in the Bay Area, but many don't. I have made friends in Austin, where I go this weekend, New York City, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Belgium, Japan, and Australia. These people have, sight unseen, fed me, let me stay in their homes, given me work, and provided me with emotional support. The best advice I got when my girlfriend and I broke up showed up as simple text on a computer screen, sent from an 'aging cyberpunk weirdo' in Texas. Ditto for when my parents died. On The WELL I know dozens of people well enough to know what makes them laugh, who I can trust, who I can collaborate on projects with, who's in a relationship, and who has diametrically opposed views to mine on gun control, abortion, the latest popular film or song, or the eternal Mac versus DOS and what about the Amiga, anyway?, question.'

Virtual communities: dystopias

However, even the enthusiastic Rheingold raises some of the social implications of the new CMC technologies. Other commentators such as Postman (1995) have a far more pessimistic scenario in view, while Stallabrass (1995) explores in some detail the narratives and cultural conflicts around the notion of cyberspace concluding almost apocalyptically that it is 'the last act of the Enlightenment'. Scime (1995) in a direct comparison of Etzioni and Rheingold is guardedly optimistic about virtual communities. There are a number of key issues that need to be considered if the dystopic nightmares are to be avoided.

Firstly there is the question of social exclusion. Just as major commuter roads, such as East London's Newham Way have carved through the heart of urban neighbourhoods and left a deprived and under-resourced community cut off from mainstream society, so the Information Superhighway could further bisect and polarise the world. Many people because of poverty, or simply lack of access to computers and cables will never be able to participate. Most of the people of the Two Thirds World, and the growing underclass in the West will be too busy in long hours of low paid manual service work, or standing in line in benefit offices and soup kitchens to find their way onto the Internet. The economic potential of CMCs is likely to resonate with other

contemporary economic and political processes to further increase the gap between the haves and have nots. (Devins & Hughes 1995)

Alongside economic exclusion comes cultural exclusion. Education and training in IT skills is a key determinant here. Anyone who has begun to "surf the Internet" will recognise how difficult the process of learning to connect up, let alone to navigate through the information jungle can be, especially if you do not have access to expensive training packages, or at least a friendly and patient "native" tourist guide. Although new generations of more user friendly software may encourage wider access, many people, especially the elderly will never catch on. Language is another barrier. At the moment written English is the main medium. Although increased use of graphics, other language channels, perhaps with machine translation and speech - machine interfaces may soon be in place, English is inexorably becoming the globally dominant language. Linguistic, and other ethnic minorities may well remain excluded. If age and ethnicity prove to be barriers to access, disability may not. For there are many accounts of people with profound bodily limitations who, given appropriate hardware and software play a full and active part as "normal" members of virtual communities. On the other hand gender could still be barrier to access since the CMC world is dominated numerically by males, and as some feminists argue that the medium and style of communication is controlled and defined by men. As long as the Internet operates mainly in text neither disability nor gender need become an issue, nor for that matter sexuality or race. For invisible participants can remain totally anonymous if they wish, or disclose as much or as little about themselves as they wish. Of course even then, they need not disclose the truth; there are many accounts of participants with aliases, and fantasy identities in cyberspace, including flirtatious chat between men who present as women and women presenting as men.

As the usefulness of the technology increases the commodification of information has begun. Even now on-line costs to really useful information services are prohibitive to all but high profit companies and privileged sectors of government; with the massive capital investment needed to make the high bandwidth "superhighway" a reality, true costs are likely to soar, subsidised access is likely to disappear, almost every service will be expected to make a financial return, and accountants are likely to restrict usage to those who can generate income. The copyrighting and protection of information sources by improved cybersecurity will undoubtedly grow. Ominously information once freely in the public domain, such as small area census data, is now only available to people or organisations who can pay large sums of money, and the liberation of information ("hacking") is in many countries a criminal offence.

As long as IT is dominated by the market any benefit to ordinary people will be minimal. As far as the general public is concerned the main functions of the superhighway will be distribution of entertainment (58 channels of American trash movies, soaps and game shows, and zappit games improving each year in their search for virtual reality). There are dangers too that all cultural and sporting activity will become spectator oriented rather than participatory, spelling danger to physical and mental health as the only exercise of the channel hopping couch potato will be to press a zapper, on average every 45 seconds. Even those who choose to use CMCs interactively, to obtain a tailor made education, or build a personal virtual community, face physical dangers from Repetitive Strain Injury (Mouse muscles!), failing eyesight, radiation from VDU screens, virtual (only) aerobics, and psychological alienation from other human beings. While there will be a surface appearance of a cornucopia of cultural choices the products available will inevitably be constrained within the limited choices of the dominant Western mass culture.

As IT proliferates Information overload will be an increasing problem/temptation to the non discerning user. Technofreaks who regularly log in know how easy it is to waste hours just "surfing the Internet," being sprayed by slightly interesting information and riding where the current takes us. Will "knowledge" or "wisdom" increase along with this surfeit of information? Is any, or all of the information found there up-to date, relevant, accurate or (dare we use the word/) true? Already too we are reaching the point where electronic junk mail could clog the

system or render it unattractive. Subscribers to electronic mailing lists already suffer from "spamming", megabytes of advertising, unsolicited instructions about how to make a nuclear weapon or eccentric chain letters. Such junk landing in your mailbox, means that you either leave everything unread or find you don't start productive work till about midday. Software products are being developed to sort and filter out some of the unwanted junk, and it is not impossible for the virtual community to develop mechanisms for social control (Baym 1994, MacLughlin et al.1994).

Mutual social control is one universal feature of face to face communities. The current invisibility of participants and near anonymity of CMC networks makes social control a problem area in virtual communities, just as it is in large scale urban societies. With relationships being impersonal and at a distance it will be hard to establish shared cultural norms of behaviour. Ground rules for communication or netiquette are reasonably easy to codify, but the existence in cyberspace of cliques with divergent and extreme political and religious views has two effects. Extremists and fundamentalists can easily find a small support group scattered across the world, even if their views are regarded as lunacy by mainstream society. On the other hand because they are publicly advertised and easily contactable, people with contradictory views can communicate their displeasure without much fear of physical attack. So it is that the Internet suffers from "flaming" where angry obscenities are traded across the world. Nonetheless Rheingold writes of various strategies being developed informally to impose sanctions control on those who breach netiquette, ranging from returning megabytes of junk mail from all parts of the network, to the ultimate punishment of banishment from the community, by removing access to the server. This possibility, despite the seeming anarchy of the Internet, does indicate that it is not in principle beyond human and political control.

Unsurprisingly issues of external censorship, surveillance and social control are repeatedly found in the dystopian accounts of the Internet. Parents, women's groups and moralists have expressed concern about the easy availability of pornographic stories, sex centred interactive discussion groups and obscene images on the Net, although it is hard to see how CMCs in themselves are qualitatively different from any other medium. Surely the moral issue is one about post-modern culture as a whole, which allows and encourages such approaches to sexuality and human persons. But it is not mere prudery to fear that fantasy lives full of sex and violence may too easily and frequently be translated to atrocities in real life. Governments are already responding to these concerns. In the UK there have been prosecutions on Net pornography, in the USA strategies for parents to put electronic locks on undesirable channels are being promoted, and in certain Islamic states legal barriers to access to the Internet are under consideration. However, controlling pornography is but one example of government concern about the present relatively anarchic form of the Internet, and its potential for by-passing information control imposed by the nation state.

Worse still for libertarians are the Orwellian nightmares, including the possibilities or rewriting historical documents or parliamentary decisions with a few key strokes. They often point out the potential for linked databases in the hands of a totalitarian state, or even just an efficient bureaucracy. It is probably the case that information technology makes the possibility of the "panopticon" ideal of universal surveillance more feasible (Foucault 1977). However, it has yet to be shown that such surveillance is unbearably intrusive to most citizens, or that it is less desirable than some of the more personal, but perhaps more cruel mechanisms of social control used in traditional small scale communities. In face of rising concerns about crime and community safety, many people may feel that a certain level of electronic surveillance is a price worth paying.

Whether the enthusiasts from cyberspace or the prophets of doom are vindicated only time will tell. It is probable that both sides will be proved partially correct. Whatever happens it is clear that the world as a whole has become utterly dependent on advanced global informational infrastructure. This in turn is dependent on global trade networks for supplies of raw materials from all over the world and on a reliable and efficient system for the distribution and production

of electricity. In such a complex and interdependent network it does not take the imagination of a science fiction writer to think through the possibilities of organised fraud, economic sabotage, military incompetence or malign dictators, cyberspace terrorism or simply a cataclysmic cock up. However, it is said that the origins of the Internet in the military industrial complex of the USA ensure that it would survive a nuclear holocaust. Perhaps this is the point where we should return to real life, before fantasy merges with virtual reality and leads to real death!

Cyberville and local communities

The possibilities of global networking by telematics push to an extreme one of the fundamental questions about the nature of community. Is it meaningful to talk about a sense of community without a sense of place, without anchoring it in locality and/or personal face to face interaction?

Rheingold relates a now famous story of the father who used the WELL bulletin board when his daughter contracted leukaemia. He searched everywhere for information about the best treatments, and was inundated with both useful advice and messages of what could best be described as "prayer support". Happily the girl got quality treatment recovered. Obviously this was a case of real human benefit from the use of new technologies. However in other types of case traditional face to face community is more effective. For example not so long ago my own two year old daughter had to be admitted to our local hospital as an emergency at eleven at night. In the end the illness it was nothing too serious and after two days she was fine again. But that evening was not the time to use the Internet. Instead, we have our next door neighbour, Jenny. She had already been with us two hours while we waited for the GP to visit. Then without being asked she took in our son for the night, while two worried parents drove their child to hospital. We know we are privileged as a family to be part of a local community network where such behaviour is common. It is of course built out of thousands of daily acts of mutual co-operation and reciprocity, formal and informal childminding arrangements, sharing cars for supermarket trips, looking after cats and rabbits when families are on holiday, going to boring parties and school meetings and tolerating through thin walls the incompatible musical tastes of one's neighbours. But such community is possible even in the fragmented society of East London and at times is vital for sanity and survival. And it cannot yet be found on the Internet.

In order to answer this question at a more theoretical level we need to return to our earlier discussion of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, and of community lost, saved or liberated. Scime (1995) argues that Etzioni's criteria of community, shared interests, shared values, discourse and the characteristics of a moral voice, and of caring and nurturing, can be applied at least in part to many virtual communities. However we have also noted the tendency of communities, indeed their function, to build boundaries and barriers. A totally open network such as the Internet will always find it hard to develop internal solidarity, since so much of this depends upon building a distinct identity by comparison with other groups, even by conflict with a common enemy. This appears to be an unlikely scenario for the prototypical virtual communities. While relationships of communication will grow in number, and personal networks of participants may expand they are almost certainly going to remain at the level of Gesellschaft. The contacts will remain for the most part transitory and instrumental, only in some cases such as interactive bulletin boards and cyber conferences developing into Bund structures. Even then it is unlikely that the networks will become dense and multiplex, despite the mixture of play and serious information hunting, and despite the annual real life picnic gathering of WELL participants described by Rheingold. Virtual networks are inherently incapable of building Gemeinschaft.

Nonetheless the idea of community without propinquity reaches its extreme in the Internet, and is clearly going to influence the direction of social change in years to come. Many people will have less need to move out of their own homes for information, entertainment and even work as telecommuting develops. Some people will chose to live and work in idyllic and remote mountain villages, or on small off-shore islands, providing of course that there is an electricity supply, a phone link and a hypermarket within an hour's drive. Interestingly it is in such rural settlements

that the nostalgic myth of community is usually located. Using cyber conferences and video link meetings it will be easier to establish world-wide business networks, but harder if less necessary to bring people together for local face to face interaction. Information technology may have some potential for countering the growth of oil fired transportation for commuting and international business, possibly bringing some environmental benefits in its wake.

In the science fiction (becoming fact!) world of virtual reality, it may soon be possible to send 3D visual images, a hug, and even engage in virtual (hardly virtuous!) sex over the information superhighway. However, it is likely that people will still need to, and prefer to meet, not to mention make love, in the flesh (sic). Even if teleworking, teleshopping, teleleisure (in homes surrounded by video cameras and security fences and patrolled by rottweilers) become the norm, it is inevitable that for the foreseeable future people will live, play and be educated, go to pubs and churches and go for walks in neighbourhoods. It will be harder but still not impossible to distinguish real life from the fantasy of "pretend land". Inevitably people will meet neighbours face to face, talk with them, discover common interests and some sense of local community will persist. It is even possible that people who meet in virtual communities will decide to move home to locate near each other. Castells has shown how the economic and skills base of high tech industries are concentrated in favoured urban locations, such as silicon valley in California (1989). While logically there is no reason for software engineers to live in the same continent there are advantages of maintaining human contact with colleagues, and developing personal networks with potential collaborators and customers. And if face to face community at the neighbourhood level seems likely to persist as an ideal or a real life need for the people of cyberville, it will remain even more important for the ordinary citizen.

Community development & IT

Despite the dystopian visions it can be argued that within ordinary urban and suburban neighbourhoods, and perhaps even more in scattered rural communities CMCs have many potential benefits for ordinary people and for local community groups. Beamish (1995) analyses and describes the development of a number of local community networks in North America. Typically they can be accessed on line via a modem, or at public access kiosks or terminals. Information about local events and services, opening times of museums and clinics, and public bulletin boards advertising new community groups, the search for a lost cat or second hand baby equipment for sale could all be set up. Video linked interpreting services and for a dozen or more ethnic minorities, and public access terminals offering direct contact with the authorities, or the police, can be set up as in the ATTACH project being piloted a number of European locations including Newham. (Horten 1995, Attach 1995).

Such networks clearly have a role in community development in deprived neighbourhoods . If information spells power, any success in shaping and/or liberating information must be an empowering experience. Direct access by the public to useful on-line databases could in theory help people navigate in such impenetrable jungles as the social security or health service bureaucracy. The search for funding for community projects could be simplified. Email could give many people and grass roots organisations fast cheap international and local written communication, one to one or via mailshots. Local unemployed people could search for jobs and upgrade their skills as they start to use such technologies. There could be other positive spin offs such participation in the labour market for women and disabled people unable easily to travel to work, although such "homeworking" is a sector notoriously prone to low pay and exploitation, despite the savings to employers in overhead costs. The local economy could be strengthened as small businesses could advertise their wares, and LETS schemes, where people swap labour measured in local units of currency could be facilitated (Carter 1995).

A major problem at this stage is that all such schemes for Community CMC networks are relatively experimental, and have rarely been properly evaluated. It seems that many such projects are technology led rather than based on a clear analysis of demand or need from the local community. There is as yet no evidence that simply providing public access and information

is followed by take up, especially by categories of people who are otherwise socially excluded. Without a major educational programme and huge culture change among the mass of people the case for such services remains unproven. It is also far from clear whether market returns or state subsidies are sufficient to fund the initial investment and running costs of such systems. However, experiments should surely continue, and in twenty years from hence the situation may be entirely different.

Electronic democracy

Communitarians place a high value on participation in the political process and many have seen CMCs as an important tool to encourage it. Complaints and campaigns could be directed instantaneously to the top, with copies to thousands of concerned people across the world; even now it is possibly to send an Email message direct to Bill Clinton at the White House, although it seems unlikely that he is guaranteed to read it in person. The use of Bulletin boards, computer conferencing and other forms of electronic publishing could help relatively marginal campaigning groups get their message across, and mobilise for action such as demonstrations and mass letter writing..

One area of great significance is that of electronic voting. (Percy Smith 1995) In the USA mechanised voting apparatus has been in use for many years while in the UK, pencil and paper methods with public manual counting remains in force. Information technology could offer not just rapid and accurate calculation of results, but a much more profound change in political culture. If elections were cheaper and more efficient there could be lots more of them, and referenda as well as parliamentary and local elections could take place from the comfort of people's homes. It is argued by some that this would enhance democracy and accountability, as the people would take all the important decisions directly. There are three serious arguments against this form of electronic plebiscite. Firstly it would be likely that a large group of people, most probably the poor and socially excluded would be excluded from participation, either because they could not afford to have the necessary equipment in their home or because, having no susbstantial stake in society they would feel such processes to be irrelevant to their lives, and have no trust in the political process. Secondly dealing with too many political decisions in this way would devalue the currency of democratic participation. Voting on capital punishment or nuclear disarmament, by pressing zapper buttons in front of a TV screen would soon be equated with similar polling for the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, or preferences for plot outcomes in interactive soap-operas. Thirdly the information base for deciding on important questions would be a contentious issue. Every question put to the public would need to be framed by politicians and bureaucrats, giving them immense power in shaping the terms of any debate. Despite a minority of people using CMCs to discuss the issue and question politicians before the vote, the majority of people would be informed of the issues by mass media, where complex policy options are usually reduced to slogans and images. While it is obvious that politicians have a vested interest in resisting such changes, it would seem wise to engage in a long and extensive public debate on any proposals for electronic voting, before attempting to modify existing systems. After all representative democracy, called to account by opposition parties in the legislature, lobbying, protest, sophisticated public opinion polling and regular general elections has a long and respectable track record as one of the least worst options for political life..

Freedom of information is one of the widely heralded benefits of CMCs as government publications, draft legislation, transcripts of Parliamentary proceedings and MPs press releases could be available on-line. In the USA with its Freedom of Information Act and open political culture such public access is already available. In the UK with a more secretive government tradition progress is slower, and one suspects that access to the most significant documents would be restricted. There is also the potential for better communication across sectors, important in the context of partnerships for urban regeneration, and between departments of local and national government. In theory there is the potential for reducing the number of meetings and forests felled for paper documentation which no one has time to read, and behind which politicians often take cover. Accountability could be improved by easy searching for

relevant key words in such texts. Such possibilities resonate well with communitarian emphases on public participation and government accountability.

The communitarian concern for workplace democracy could also be served by CMCs. In some workplaces networked computing has already led to the erosion of hierarchies and the growth of teamwork. Ideas can emerge at any level in the company, but we need to ask whether power (any more than high salaries and share options) has really shifted from the top levels of management. We also need to note that new technology has led to the growth of less socially responsible practices such as contracting out and "down-sizing". Nonetheless we must concede that IT could in some ways be a democratising force in employment.

CMCs then do hold out some hope for communitarian concerns about political participation, effective democracy and accountability. However, the major reservation must be that they are inherently a privatising technology in that they encourage people to participate from the comfort of their armchair, rather than to go out into the public world in person. They enable direct contact between a citizen and the national state, or even super-national organisations such as the EU or UN. However they probably discourage political participation at the small scale local level, and cannot seriously build community through the "small platoons" of mediating structures.

Community as virtual reality

As a postscript to this chapter we need to take note of the impact of a technological development that is linked to but distinct from CMCs. This is the development of multimedia techniques and virtual reality. Both can be of great use in education and training. For example a single CD Rom can contain an entire encyclopedia complete with video clips, illustrations and sound track. Virtual reality simulations can be used to train airline pilots, brain surgeons or English Test cricketers, all without the risk of death or disaster. However the technologies are likely to have more mass appeal in leisure and play, with great profit to the entertainment, music and computer games industries. Such technologies underline some of the great cultural trends of the post modern period, of words being displaced by images, the pastiche of references from different historical periods and world cultures, of subjective experience and happening superseding reason and objectivity, and of the blurring of the distinctions between work and play, between fantasy and real life.

Interestingly we are already seeing the marketing by the leisure industry of "virtual community" in a different sense of the term. It comes in the shape of theme parks, industrial museums and the like, where customers are sold for the duration of their visit, environments that evoke nostalgia, and vicarious and temporary Gemeinschaft. In the slate caverns of North Wales, in the Jorvik Centre at York, in the Ragged School Museum in East London, the visitor from post modern times can step back to any number of pretend worlds, and in them participate to greater or lesser degree in "the life of the community". The tour guides in many cases are redundant miners or mill workers, a fortunate minority of whom were retrained, when the traditional industry, which was the lifeblood of the local economy and community was closed down in the face of global market forces.

Such themed environments as might be expected reach their extreme forms in the USA, in Disneyland, Universal Studios and the themed hotels of Las Vegas. There is even the marketing of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania as the Christmas capital of the USA (Cameron, & Gatewood, 1994) in which the notion of traditional community is a key selling point. But all such virtual environments need to be sanitised in order to be marketable, producing history devoid of conflict, industrial production devoid of sweat and dirt, community devoid of poverty and oppression, and even Christmas devoid of the smells of cow dung and the blood and tears of childbirth. It is hardly the stuff of which lasting loyal solidarity, social justice and liberated human relationships can be made. In the final chapter we move on to search for values and praxis which can serve such important and worthwhile concerns.

Key books for Chapter 8

Rheingold H., (1994) "The virtual community, finding connection in a computerized world", Secker & Warburg, 1994

Jones S.G. ed., (1995) "Cybersociety", London, Sage

Chapter 9: The future of community; values and praxis

• Clarifying the concept • Policy • Social analysis • Historical trends • The future of community • Values for an alternative communitarianism • A strategy • Back to contents

The main thrusts of this book have been:

• to remove some of the confusion around the concept of community as it is commonly used;

• to evaluate some of the policy concerns raised by communitarianism, and the practice of community development;

• to introduce some of the methods used by social scientists in studying community and neighbourhoods, and highlight their key findings;

• to consider some trends of the postmodern period in terms of their impact on the concept and practice of community.

In this final chapter the main arguments and conclusions are summarised, before moving on to sketch a philosophy and practice for enhancing community life that may rest on a sounder base in reality than many of the simplistic and nostalgic formulations and slogans of popular communitarianism.

Clarifying the concept

Deliberately no attempt has been made to give a definition of community. In exploring the use of the concept we have noted that there are hundreds of definitions and numerous usages on offer and that they cover three key themes, locality and scale, community feeling or solidarity, and patterns and networks of social interaction. We have noted how the term is used ideologically, by governments wanting to avoid expense and responsibility and in opposition by oppressed, excluded and marginalised groups. We have also noted the nostalgia, utopian idealism and normative emphasis in many formulations of community. It has been argued that the most common mistake is the re-ification of community, when an analysis of the processes in overlapping networks with closely knit core components, which are sometimes but not usually geographically centred, corresponds more closely to reality. But in face of the frequent popular and political usage of the term we have not felt able to abandon it altogether. At the very least it presents a useful and important problematic.

Policy

Communitarianism we have argued can be seen as a the search for a middle way between the harsh, divisive and dysfunctional nature of free market economics and the bureaucratic state collectivism that has evidently failed to deliver its promises. While we have seen much to commend in the emphasis on subsidiarity, democracy, participation and civic responsibility, it has been necessary to approach it with ideological suspicion, and not simply because it comes from the USA. Caution is needed because it has been taken up quite eagerly across the political

spectrum, which is arguably moving overall towards the Right. We have noted some key questions that communitarianism does not yet seem to have adequately addressed, such as economic structure and inequality, social exclusion, the non-local aspects of community, ethnic diversity, feminist demands and global environmental issues. The assumption that all conflicts can be settled on the basis of democratic debate based on common core values in post modern plural society is probably unsustainable. The moral tone of communitarian statements about the family is also questionable. This is not so much because it expresses a preference for marriage and stable two parent families over libertarian sexual attitudes, but because it opens the way to stereotyping, blaming and stigmatising single parents, and advocating welfare cuts which will make successful childrearing even more difficult.

We have also in Chapter Two looked at the growth of community delivery of services, and the practice of community development. Again we have found much to commend in terms of participation, accountability, relevance to local people and even value for money. But we have noticed also that many projects and models of community care are used to mask retrenchment of state welfare services, or to buy off or co-opt local opposition. Community development when sponsored independently of, or in opposition to, the state and using Freirian techniques can have a powerful emancipatory and educative impact. In contrast state led community development is full of inherent contradictions which impose serious limits to what it can achieve.

Social analysis

In various places in the book we have discussed how social scientists from different disciplines have approached community and local studies. Geographers, Planners and the Chicago urban sociologists, offer sophisticated techniques of quantitative and spatial analysis based on Census or survey data for local areas, but struggle to capture the aspects of community that transcend place. The functionalist tradition of community studies is instructive, but finds it hard to move away from the accusation that such studies are one off, atheoretical and not very good at dealing with conflict and change. Qualitative and interpretative sociology is useful for exploring the meaning of community for various types of people. Anthropology offers ways of looking at culture and ethnicity as well as what is probably the most powerful tool of all, social network analysis. This technique is excellent for mapping relationships, both between individuals and organisations, and even the electronic linkages of cyberspace. Its Achilles heel may be its mathematical abstraction, and not simply because it repels the less numerate. Intrinsically it is hard to capture in mathematical form the variation in the nature of different relationships; while intensity of contact between two people can be measured it is much harder to quantify the levels of affection and/or hostility and the relative importance of a kind word to a neighbour as opposed to lending money or twenty four hour caring for an incontinent elderly relative. It is out of such acts of reciprocal exchange and altruism that the networks of personal relationship and ultimately the quality of community life is built.

Historical trends

Despite many reservations about conservatism and nostalgia we have found it hard to dispense with the Tonnies paradigm of the transition from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft society, and the contention that through the processes of urbanisation, modernisation and globalisation, something in the nature of community has been irretrievably lost. The nature of, and especially the value attached, to this loss is a matter for debate. Some remnants of traditional Gemeinschaft community do, despite everything, persist. There is also some force in the argument that individuals have been liberated from the constricting bonds of traditional community, and can enjoy the freedom of constructing networks and communities of whomsoever they choose. However the long term process seems clear, and electronic networking takes it a stage further. Privatisation leads to atomised and fragmented local social systems, while global communication and economic interdependency favour remote and massive institutions. Human life appears to the individual as compartmentalised, fragmented, normless and meaningless while at the same time society is organically unified on a global scale as never

before. It is not surprising that so many people long for the rebuilding of community, however misguided their nostalgia, or however undesirable some of its unforeseen consequences might be.

The future of community

In order to enage in debate on future trends and policies we need to refer to the factors that might favour or hinder the rebuilding of community as advocated by communitarians. In an age when the rationality of the Enlightenment has burnt itself out it may be nigh on impossible to retain objectivity, even if this were desirable. In the discussion we will find many complexities and contradictions. In the changing contemporary world are features which in turn alarm and excite those who value the notion of community. It will be extremely difficult to impose a coherent analysis on what is happening, for there are many different perspectives which may throw light on the subject. But it is precisely this, the impossibility of grand narratives and unambiguous theories that is a feature of the present age and the central "big idea" (sic.) of those who call themselves postmodernists (Baumann 1992, Wagner 1994, and Lyon 1994).

One key national and international trend is the growing polarisation of the haves and the have nots. With the idolatry of market forces it is no accident that poverty is growing in urban Britain and a new class of the excluded is emerging all over Europe. Clearly such polarisation is detrimental to world peace, social cohesion at the national level and in a climate of acquisitive individualism to the possibility of solidarity and mutual care at the local neighbourhood level. Indeed any serious analysis of these patterns of social injustice brings into question the very notion of community, with its implied valuing of consensus and the common good. A more critical form of sociology, based on assumptions of inherent conflict in global society, such as Christian emphasis on the imperfection of humankind, the emphasis on class struggle seen in Marxism and its derivatives, and the critical social analysis of feminist and black writers may have much to offer.

Social polarisation inevitably has political consequences. While it may be possible for the market to keep at least two thirds of the population in the growing affluence to which they have become accustomed, and therefore politically compliant, a substantial number are counted among the excluded. For these people the image of a postmodern world where all imaginable choices are possible is a cruel fantasy; they may have time to spare but leisure is a commodity they cannot afford to buy. A basic welfare safety net, coupled with increasingly repressive surveillance and policing, and the fragmentation of this "underclass" into ethnic and lifestyle sub groups may be enough to stave off their political mobilisation, or uprising. But the result will certainly not be a society at ease with itself.

One feature of the polarisation process may modify the picture. There is growing evidence of increasing geographic segregation of the "underclass" population from affluent neighbourhoods. As deprivation becomes concentrated in regions of economic decline such as former coalfields, in public housing estates on the periphery of major cities and in the ethnic minority "ghettos" of the inner cities, people struggling with poverty, and with limited access to transportation, are more and more likely to have social networks consisting mainly of people like themselves (Green 1994). The silver lining from a communitarians perspective is that there are in these circumstances increased possibilities for economic activity based on rules other than the market, for the growth of communal solidarity and socio-political mobilisation. Thus in an unexpected way the very thing that communitarians fear, the breakdown of social cohesion may lead to the rebuilding of local oppositional and marginalised communities.

Whether such communities can ever become self sufficient even at a subsistence level, or whether they will remain dependent on the largesse of mainstream society depends on political choices which will not be easy for governments to make. It seems unlikely, given the circumstances of postmodern western culture, with its apolitical fragmentation, that community mobilisation of excluded people can emerge spontaneously. It would need a substantial input of

radical community organisation, of the kind that capitalist states are least likely to sponsor or fund to transform resistance from sporadic sniping at the system to effective mass action. Either way there is likely to be suffering and conflict both for their members and society as a whole, and more defeats than victories along the way.

Despite all this community values continue to put up a low level resistance to market forces, across the social spectrum. We have described earlier the process of commodification, by which every single good or service comes to have a price, and can be evaluated in monetary terms. Increasingly market values come to dominate sectors which previously were seen as non-commercial, not for profit, such as health, education and the voluntary sector. Even the classic British example of the gift relationship, blood donation (Titmuss 1970), seems to be under threat as discussion takes place on offering payment per pint, while human organs, semen and processes such as in vitro fertilisation or surrogate motherhood have already been offered in the market place. However, commodification can be resisted in some areas, and needs to be held back if communitarian values are to prevail.

One area which continues to hold out to the incursion of market forces is domestic labour and family care, where unpaid labour (usually by women) is still the norm. In this case, despite feminist demands, and the growth of paid child-minding, the market mechanisms are less than perfect, for the monetary costs would be immensely beyond what the resources of the state, or the profitability of capital could bear. Many people are not going to stand idly by and see their children and elderly relatives, and by extension their friends, neighbours and even homeless strangers neglected, simply because they cannot afford to pay for basic care. A minority of people will continue to offer generous help as individuals, and to organise together to form baby sitting circles, collections for medical charities, neighbourhood care schemes, luncheon clubs and night shelters. The withdrawal of the state from such services leaves a great opportunity for such community activity. While most of the people involved will recognise that this is second best to the whole community of a nation state making adequate provision for welfare, such projects will be essential for social well being, and a powerful witness to the moral bankruptcy of post-modern individualism.

The same rationales apply to almost all of the community sector, where voluntary unpaid effort is both economically essential and central to the ethos. Running the local scout group, sitting on the management committee of the community centre, or being active in local politics, will be among the last activities to warrant a pay packet. The principle of voluntarism in local communities is certain to survive, and as information technologies enable worldwide communities of interest to coalesce more easily there will be many new opportunities. But for community activism to flourish it needs to be underpinned by a philosophy that goes beyond considerations of cost saving and individual duty.

Values for an alternative communitarianism

While the sociological debates about modernity and postmodernity can give us useful insights into the nature of the social world in which the processes of community takes place, the philosophical approach of postmodernism is likely to prove barren. The pick and mix approach to life also extends from the candy counter to the realm of values. In the New Age environment where all is relative, even religion or belonging to a community becomes a matter of consumer choice (O'Neill 1988). In philosophy, sociology and literature "all that is solid melts into air" in Karl Marx's phrase, into a plethora of narratives and images, drawn from a treasure chest of earlier styles, and stuck together in a meaningless collage, where the possibility of a unifying truth or universal aesthetic is discounted. (Kellner 1988, Baumann 1988). A postmodernism which merely revels in the fragmentation, enjoys pick and mix culture, and indulges itself in electronic global networking is no answer for the excluded and marginalised people of places like Newham. Indeed one of the strongest critiques of postmodernist thinking is that it lacks any firm ethical base, or notion of social justice on which social and political action might be built.

The communitarians are right about the importance of values as a pre-requisite for community. But the ground is less firm when they seek to specify the common core of these values. Etzioni lists commitment to democracy and the Bill of Rights, and respect for other groups, as being basic to the United States community (Etzioni 1994 p157). However, the limited political and cultural context in which these are set, together with their vagueness make them useless as a general framework for community life. Instead we will sketch some core values around which people of many faiths and none might engage in community development and organising. For some these values will have a religious basis, for others they are those of socialism or common human decency. But they could be endorsed by most who see community work as a worthwhile task. They should not however be seen as democratically derived consensus or lowest common denominator values which can become the shared basis of national life. It is at this point that they distance us from the communitarian project of Etzioni, and the pragmatism of Alinsky. For these values are likely to be in conflict with the dominant culture, especially when put into practice. The nature of community they engender is largely an oppositional rather than a consensus one. They have in them the seeds of an alternative form of communitarianism, that begins from the bottom up, that challenges the status quo, and could offer a degree of liberation from enslavement to market forces and political vested interests.

The first of these values is the importance, one can even say sacredness of the human person. People matter, indeed they matter more than things or money. An alternative communitarianism therefore needs to value the dignity, potential, opinions and contribution to society of every person however imperfect, and to resist the trend to be dominated by the market.

The second key value is that of solidarity, community or mutuality (Holman 1993). People are not by nature isolated individuals but only find meaning, purpose and fullness of life in relationship with others. An alternative communitarianism therefore values building relationships, sharing resources, collective life and group action for its own sake while recognising the ambiguities, compromises and conflicts which community entails. At the same time it must resist the temptations to romanticise and absolutise community, to accept closure of the boundaries of particular communities and to impose community values and standards on unwilling individuals, other than in the extreme case of antisocial behaviour where legal sanctions might apply.

The third value is that of neighbourliness. An alternative communitarianism presupposes some value in the Judaeo-Christian concept of neighbour love. Whether this remains purely on the basis of self interest and mutual obligation, or extends to self sacrificial altruism, neighbourliness reaches out to others, especially to those in need. "Who is my neighbour?" demands an answer which goes beyond the end of the street and transcends natural friendship or in-group loyalty. The parable of the Good Samaritan remains relevant, although it needs to be guarded from idiosyncratic interpretations such as Thatcher's homily on wealth creation! The point of it is that care and responsibility must extend at some personal cost and risk across social boundaries to all whom we encounter.

The fourth key value is that of Justice and Equality. Alternative communitarianism is based on the doctrine that all people are created or born equal and looks forward to a world, or is guided by a utopian dream, where everyone will have a fair share of resources and an equal opportunity to flourish. The poor and the weak would not be excluded from participation, and there would be no discrimination based on race, class, gender or any other given or ascribed characteristics. However, distant the prospect this radical equality should remain a goal at local and global levels. Therefore anti-racism, anti-sexism and other aspects of social justice are central to the enterprise today, although the details of policy must remain open to debate and political resolution.

Finally a longing for harmony between all people and the peaceful resolution of conflict must guide this alternative communitarianism. As long as human beings remain imperfectly human, social and political life takes place in the arena of conflict. While on the one hand concern for justice often polarises conflict, on the other a concern for neighbouring and the very notion of

community pushes in the direction of harmony. It is obvious that alternative communitarians will take different ideological positions over the role of conflict, and that even an individual may respond in pragmatically different ways in specific conflicts (e.g. only confront on "winnable issues"). However, in all but the most extreme cases most will prefer to explore democratic, negotiating, constructive strategies before embarking on confrontations which have the potential for violence and destruction.

Strangely these values seem premodern, irrational and unmarketable, therefore ill at ease in a modern world. In a postmodern world, they may be more at home if only as nostalgia for the imagined communities of yesteryear, or as harbingers of the New Age. They seem at the same time both conservative and revolutionary. Perhaps their true significance is that they are of eternal value, being drawn from a book inspired by one who was there in the beginning and will be there at the end of time.

Our alternative communitarianism has numerous affinities with the model of dialogical communitarianism advocated by Frazer & Lacey (1993). Their feminist reading of political and social theory rejects both liberalism with its stress on individual autonomy and standard communitarianism with its relatively naive view of homogeneous and consensual social structure. Instead they work from a relational concept of the human subject, (persons in community if you will) and an understanding that social process and practices as well as social structure have an effect on social reality. Here they draw in part on Giddens notion of structuration (1984). Their approach seeks to be interpretive in valuing the experience and accounts of people, but also critical or evaluative in recognising that inequalities and oppressions violate ethical norms. They recognise the pluralism and fragmentation of post-modern life, but hold that it is still possible for individuals to remain integrated persons, even when engaged in intra-personal dialogue and overlapping networks of relationships. Although the oppression of women is for them a key issue it is by no means the only one, and their practice of politics would involve alliances with other marginalised groups in struggle for transformation. Such change would be sought at the levels of language and culture, of the distribution of power and economic outcome, and across the illegitimate divide of public and private life. To such a praxis for change we now finally turn.

A strategy

Alternative communitarians will need to develop a praxis based on the values outlined above. They will be eager to be involved in community life, in community development and political action. They will wish to live and organise according to their values, in collaboration with others who share all or part of their vision. They will have strong and distinct views, which will not always be politically popular, but they will resist the temptation to become fundamentalist and sectarian. Honest open debate, and accountability to the widest possible constituency will be very important. This has serious implications for those who are in any sense producers of culture and ideas; writers, artists, politicians and intellectuals. They will be less concerned about their personal contribution, reputation and freedom of expression, but more conscious that they and their products are inter woven with the social fabric which covers their nakedness! They will therefore want to acknowledge and support the role of ordinary people in community in shaping ideas, art and policies.

Alternative Communitarians will accept the need for a distinct lifestyle as active members of face to face communities. For most this will mean seeking to live as households in neighbourhoods, rather than as private individuals in anonymous residential estates. It will imply taking responsibility for the welfare not only of partners and children, but of extended family, of neighbours and friends, and of any fellow human being in need. Many alternative communitarians may find strength from belonging to a local religious congregation or faith community, where a sense of shared values and heritage binds people together, provided that such a group is not sectarian and inward looking. An alternative communitarian lifestyle might also imply some self imposed restrictions on consumer choice, for example choosing to live in a place because of closeness to personal networks rather than because of amenities, convenient location or status. It could mean cutting down on the time spent in employment, commuting and international

conferences, not to mention computing, for the purpose of giving more attention to other people's needs. For high earners at least, in a society where taxation no longer attempts to redistribute wealth towards the poor, there is the challenge to turn down high salaries (Holman 1993), or at least to give away that which is surplus to basic needs.

An active life as an alternative communitarian would demand a commitment to encouraging others in voluntarism and community involvement. Time would be spent seeking to enable more people to become involved in the existing active networks of community life, and developing a wider range of groups, projects, organisations and structures for voluntary involvement, with an emphasis on serving, empowering and articulating the needs of the socially excluded. It would be recognised that some networks or organisations would be formed on a residential neighbourhood basis, and others on the basis of common interest with people gathered from a wider catchment area. Some such groups would inevitably develop into professionally run voluntary sector service agencies but the dangers of being co-opted by the state or seduced by the market need to borne in mind. Many community groups can be viable and effective without needing to take on bureaucratic formal management structures or paid staff, and will be best advised to stay in the world of the jumble sale and the informal chat over a cup of tea.

Finally alternative communitarianism entails moving beyond community development to political action. It involves solidarity with the socially excluded and entering into their struggles for social justice. Where possible it means working for grass roots communities to be democratically and effectively represented in the local power structures such as the City Councils, Health Authorities and Urban Development Partnership programmes. Often there will be a need to campaign effectively from outside the structures, with lobbying, petitions and direct action such as boycotts and demonstrations. Many such campaigns will be local or single issue movements, and it may sometimes be difficult to choose between competing causes and conflicting marginalised groups in struggle. However, alternative communitarians will not ignore global responsibilities. Social analysis which points to international causes of oppression, will need campaigns and action at the global level. Here perhaps information technology may have a role to play, as it aids networking and coalition building, enables sharing of experience and could build international solidarity as never before.

The agendas of this alternative communitarianism are modest, especially in comparison with those of the communitarian platform of Etzioni and his network. However, they are I believe less open to sloganising and ideological highjacking, and more solidly rooted in social analysis of the postmodern condition. They fully recognise the messy and conflictual nature of human society and yet are informed by some of its nobler aspirations and ideals. While the fulfilment of such hopes is unlikely to be seen this side of Kingdom come, simply by engaging in the struggle one bears witness to two timeless virtues, Justice and Love. It is on these pillars alone that real community can be built.

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Wirth L., (1928), The Ghetto, Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Wirth L., (1938), "Urbanism as a Way of Life", American Journal of Sociology vol 44

Worseley P. ed., (1970), "Communites and Cities", Chap 7 in Introducing Sociology, Harmonsdworth, Penguin

Wykurz G., (1994), "I'm still not sure how housing affects peoples teeth - the community as partners im medical and dental education", Community Health Action, Journal of Community Health UK, 32: 16-18

Young M. and Wilmott. P., (1957), Family and kinship in East London, London, Penguin edition 1962.

Zorbaugh, H.W., (1976), The Gold Coast and the slum, a sociological study of Chicago's Near North Side, Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Internet References

ATTACH (1995) Leaflet and further information available by Email from100066.434@compuserve.com

Beamish A., (1995), Communities On-Line: A Study Of Community-Based Computer Networks, Thesis Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, available at http://alberti.mit.edu/arch/4.207/anneb/thesis/toc.html

Kapor M, (1994), Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet, available at various sites but directly fromhttp://www.eff.org

Scime R., (1995), Cyberville and the Spirit of Community; Howard Rheingold meet Amital Etzioni, is no longer available on the web

Postman N., (1995), "No time like the present; an interview with Neil Postman", Netguide, July 1995, no longer available on web

Schwarz E., (1991), Building Community in a neighbourhood avilable atgopher://gopher.civic.net:2400/00/cdiscv/cmtyandneighb/bldg_cmty

Schull J., (1977), The Case for Community Development, available atgopher://gopher.civic.net:2400/00/cdiscv/cmtyandneighb/case

Theise E.S., (1995), "Aspects of Community networking; On virtual Community", the URL for this ishttp:://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/0/Community/communets/laplaza/summit/taostalk.txt

Other Internet resources for community work, community research and communitarianism

With the rapid expansion of Internet Services the aim of this section is simply to give a small number of useful entry points to a global information network. Many of them are already connected by hypertext hot links. It is recommended that users surf and explore, using the standard search engines and directories of services which are available electronically.

World wide web sites for Communitarianism

The COMMUNITARIAN NETWORK maintains a web page with the key Etzionidocuments and a mailing list for discussion of communitarian themes.connect via http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/index.html

The Communitarian Open site maintained by Dario Zanon in Itally is a useful discussion forum for communitarian ideas...http://vega.unive.it/~joyce/cos

The Canadian Communitarian forum is found at http://www.canniff.com/canforum.html

An archive of on line discussions on communitarianism are found at http://www.hhh.umn.edu/PUBPOL/PUBPOL-L/9602/0014.html

A basic introduction to communitarianism is athttp://www.cpn.org/sections/tools/models/communitarianism.html

and a trenchant critique by Bea Campbell at http://www.democraticleft.org.uk/redkite/bea.html

Web sites for community issues and resources

VOLNET an on line database for the voluntary and community sector. A samplemay be examined and details of how to subscribe can be seen by connecting tohttp://orca.unl.ac.uk:8001/volnet.html

Neighbourhoods On-Line is the home page of the Institute for Civic Values, Philadelphia. It covers many issues around community development and community building. The URL ishttp://libertynet.org/~edcivic/iscvhome.htmlorhttp://libertynet.org/community/phila/nol.html

The Community Tool Box includes many resources for community development and is found athttp://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/homepage.html-ssi

Virtual community etc

The Morino Institute holds much useful information on community networking and virtual community athttp://www.morino.org/

Research resources on the Web

ARVAC the Association for Research in the Voluntary and community sector has a prototype web site (linked with the Community Operations Research Network) at

htttp://www.gre.ac.uk/~wl04

INSNA the International Social Networks Association has a home pagecovering every aspect of social network analysis. It also operates asubscriber mailing list (Socnet .. see below). URLhttp://thecore.socy.sc.edu/insna.html

The key site for Participatory Action Research ishttp://www.ids.ac.uk/pra/test/main.html

SoftwarePrograms for network analysis (all work on DOS/PCs)

Burt R., STRUCTURE , from Center for the Social Sciences, 420 West 118thStreet, 8th Floor, Columbia University, New York NY 10027, USA

Borgatti, Everitt and Freeman UCINET available by contacting Steve Borgattiat the University of South Carolina (Borgatti@sc.edu) or in UK contactMartin Everitt at University of Greenwich (M.G.Everett@greenwich.ac.uk).

Krackplot is a utility to represent networks data graphically. It interfaceswith UCINET and details are available from the same sources. Krackplot has a web site athttp://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~krack/index.html

Programs for Community Surveys and Data Analysis

Compass; the community profiling software, from Policy Research Instituteat Leeds Metropolitan University, 16 Queen Square, Leeds LS2 8AJ, tel. 0113283 3225, Email pri@lmu.ac.uk A web site is being developed athttp://www.theplanet.net/policyri

EPI INFO Public domain software for epedemiology and public health (usefuland user friendly for local surveys) is produced by the Centers for DiseaseControl, Epidemiology Program Office, Atlanta, Georgia GA 30333, USA andmay be available free from friendly contacts in local Public Health Departments in the UK. In case of difficulty contact Aston CIU, Durning Hall, London E7 9AB.

For Qualitative Analysis of Textual Data

Ethnograph (DOS) Text Base Alpha (Dos) NUDIST (Windows and Mac versions)

The best information point for these and other programs is the CAQDASproject in the Sociology Department at the University of Surrey, Guildfordtel. 01483 259455.Their Web site is at URL http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/caqdas .

Useful subscriber mailing lists

CIVIC VALUES@CIVIC.NET co-ordinated by Ed Schwarz of Institute of Civic Values, a very active list covering US political issues from a communitarian perspective1 "subscribe CIVIC-VALUES your name" to majordomo@civic.net

2 COMMUNITARIANS@CIVIC.NET the official mailing list for the Communitarian Networksend one line Email message "subscribe COMMUNITARIANS your name" to majordomo@civic.net

3 SOCnet@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu see INSNA abovesubscribe by sending a one line subscribe message as above to"subscribe SOCNET your name" to LISTSERV@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu

4 PAR-talk an electronic mailing list for exchange of information about particiaptory research in

community developmentsubscribe by sending a one line subscribe message "subscribe PAR-announce-L firstname lastname "to LISTSERV@cornell.edu

5 In the UK community-Youth-work @mailbase.ac.ukis a relatively new mailing list for youth and community workerssee their associated web site for subscription detailshttp://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists-a-e/community-youth-work

There are many other useful mailing lists and Bulletin boards and usenetgroups which are well catalogued at easily accessible Internet and Janetlocations. Start from http://www.mailbase.ac.uk

Version of November 20 1996