A review of conceptualisations and meanings of ‘community

1

Connected Communities

A review of conceptualisations and

meanings of ‘community’ within and

across research traditions: a meta-

narrative approach

Marcello Bertotti, Farah Jamal, Angela Harden

A REVIEW OF CONCEPTUALISATIONS AND MEANINGS OF „COMMUNITY‟ WITHIN AND ACROSS RESEARCH

TRADITIONS: A META-NARRATIVE APPROACH

2

A review of conceptualisations and

meanings of ‘community’ within and across

research traditions: a meta-narrative

approach

Marcello Bertotti, Farah Jamal, Angela Harden

Executive Summary

Community is a contested concept that defies easy categorisation. We aimed to collect

systematically the key ways in which community has been understood within and across

research traditions. To do this, we used a meta-narrative methodology which attempts

to unravel the „storylines‟ of research. We identified a set of meta-narratives in

sociology, anthropology and political theory. These ranged from pre-modern approaches

to community as exemplified by the study of distant „others‟ by early anthropologists to

post-modern conceptualisations which emphasise new forms of commonality, difference

and interaction in an era of globalisation and hypermodernity. We found considerable

variability amongst the set of meta-narratives, particularly between „real‟ and „imagined‟

communities, and the ongoing tension between individual and collective political

positions in framing the importance of communities. The findings from this review

provide a framework from which to think more insightfully about „community‟. This

framework could be used to facilitate a dialogue between academics and policy-makers

on how different conceptualisations might translate into different types of interventions

and might also help to guide decision-makers to consider their assumptions about

community. Finally, we suggest some implications for future research around the use of

an intersectional approach to study individuals‟ belonging to different communities.



3

Researchers and Project Partners

Marcello Bertotti,1* Farah Jamal,1 Angela Harden,1,2 Kevin Sheridan,1 Gail Barrow-

Guevara,1 Lori Atim1

Project partners:

Sylvia Potter (Information specialist)

1Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, Water Lane,

London E15 4LZ. 2Newham University Hospital NHS Trust

* corresponding author: [email protected]

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the academic and policy experts for their contribution to our

consultation events

Key words

Community; meta-narrative review; systematic review; sociology; anthropology;

political theory; theories; concepts.

mailto:[email protected]



4

Introduction

This paper presents the findings of a review of the ways in which community has been

understood from within and across academic disciplines and research traditions. We took

a meta-narrative approach to the review in order to identify the major ways in which

community has been conceptualised. A meta-narrative review is a new type of

systematic review in which the aim is to identify the „storylines‟ of research and the

shared set of theories, concepts and preferred methods used by groups of scholars over

time (1,2).

We began the review process with systematic searches across a range of bibliographic

databases in the social sciences and related disciplines. Search results were screened

and assessed according to discipline and relevance to the task in hand. In parallel, we

held two consultation meetings, one with academics from different disciplines and one

with policy-makers and practitioners with an interest in community. These meetings

were used to identify further references and to begin charting different understandings

of community. It became clear that the most relevant references appeared within

sociology, anthropology and political theory, and these became our disciplines of focus

for the review. Within each of these disciplines, seminal papers were identified and

subjected to further analysis to examine their historical roots, philosophical

underpinnings and chains of influence. This helped us to map the major storylines of the

ways in which community has been understood across disciplines and over time. A final

mixed policy and academic consultation meeting was held to share findings and check

the robustness of our analysis.

In the sections that follow we outline each of the meta-narratives we identified, compare

and contrast the different ways of understanding community within them, and outline

some implications for future research and policy making.

The meta-narratives

We identified a set of meta-narratives that map how ways of understanding community

have varied across disciplines and over time (table 1). The meta-narratives illustrate

how community came to be understood in anthropology, sociology and political theory

through tracing the key research traditions in these disciplines. The shifts in the meaning

and conceptualisation of community have been shaped largely by the

A REVIEW OF CONCEPTUALISATIONS AND MEANINGS OF „COMMUNITY‟ WITHIN AND ACROSS RESEARCH TRADITIONS: A META-NARRATIVE APPROACH

5

Table 1. Ways of understanding community within and across disciplines

Meta-narrative

Focus discipline (of most

relevance)

Roots (historical and/or

academic)

Scope Community conceptualised as Key authors

Commonality Anthrop- ology

Natural; primordial

Human society as a natural phenomenon and the study of human primitives i.e. studying distant „others‟: villages, tribes, nomadic groups

Community formation depends upon homogeneity or commonality. Community was considered the location rather than the object of

research.

Levi-Strauss (3); Turner (4)

The public

sphere and formation of ‘community’

Political

theory

Aristotle;

pre-modernity

Rather than emphasising who constitutes

the state, Aristotle looks to the values and principles (which are formalised in a set of internal arrangements/ constitution) that characterise how people associate. Later scholars reconsider the role of the state and the

influence of non-formal associations in sub-state spheres and civil society.

„Community‟ was first considered to

be formed and sustained by values and principles that characterise associations between people in a state. Later, it was considered that people could come together in non-state domains to cooperate in

common affairs.

Aristotle (5);

Paine (6)

Transitionary

perspectives on community

Sociology;

anthropology

Industrial

revolution

Preoccupation with the transformations

following the industrial revolution and its impact on traditional forms of

association. (e.g. Tönnies: gemeinschaft/community to gesellschaft/society; Durkheim: mechanical to organic solidarity).

Community is moral, localised and

intimate relationships – these no longer hold significance with

emergence of „society‟ (Tönnies); workforce specialisation requires interdependence and new forms of solidarity (Durkheim); industrialisation can negatively impact on traditional ways of life

(Marx).

Tönnies (7);

Durkheim (8);

Marx (9)

Community in urban life

Sociology; anthropology

Human ecology; emergence

of urban

spaces; The Chicago School

Relationships in urban life are not based on proximity because of the nature of individual activity and living (e.g.

transience, diversity). US urban areas

are a problem (alienation, ethnic segregation), but also a solution (dynamism). The focus is on the complex urban space in shaping community rather than the family or village.

The idea of locality challenged with the rise of urban spaces. Community characterised as dense, diverse and

transient. Emerging theories from the

Chicago School include: e.g. urban ecology; concentric and transition zones; social disorganisation theory.

Park (10); Wirth (11); Redfield

(12);

Hannerz (13); Gans (14); Downey & Smith (15)


6

Table 1 (cont‟d). Ways of understanding community

Meta-narrative Focus discipline (of most

relevance)


academic)


Community Studies

Sociology Tönnies; network analysis;

Chicago

School

Focuses on the relationships between individuals (e.g. kinship, friendship, networks)

in communities, rather than

the household.

Community is primarily networks of solidarity between individuals rather than space or locality.

Crow & Allan (16); Brint (17); Young & Willmott (18);

Arensberg (19);

Bell & Newby (20); Bulmer (21); Frankenberg (22)

Generating or mobilising community

Sociology 1960s; community development; Marx

Urban development at this time looks to changing physical spaces, often at the expense of the poor. Alternatively, community mobilisation looks to

providing „voice‟ to marginalised people around

common social concerns.

Community is an „ideal‟ to be aspired to through collective action for the fulfilment of common interests. It is not a natural phenomenon, but a social construction.

Brent (23); Marx (24)

Individualist and

communitarian approaches to community

Political theory

John Rawls;

theories of justice

The debate has focused on the critique that

individualist/liberal theory neglects the primacy of social relations.

Communitarians consider community to be a source of identity formation.

Two popular branches of scholars in the communitarian tradition are orthodox and radical, where the former emphasises the necessity of a single community and the latter considers the existence of multiple communities while still looking to

issues of membership, commonality

and solidarity.

Rawls (25); Sandel (26, 27);

MacIntyre (28, 29); Etzioni (30, 31); Jordan (32, 33); Gray (34); Frazer (35, 36)


7

Table 1 (cont‟d). Ways of understanding community

Meta-narrative

Focus discipline (of most

relevance)


academic)


Symbolic approaches

Sociology; anthropology

Durkheim and Weber; Anderson:

no academic

root

Separates ideas and meanings of community attributed by individuals from community as a form of bodily

interaction. Face to face

communication is not necessary to establish community. Community is a relational concept. It is determined by defining who is in and who is out.

Communities are constructs built on sentiments and symbols (in the minds or imaginings of members).

Cohen (37); Anderson (38); Barth (39);

Bourdieu (40)

Market economy perspectives on community

Political theory; sociology

Rise of market economies; communit-arianism: political

economy

Links social and economic structures to political discourse on community. A strong trend in this tradition has been to look at the role of communities in establishing trust in society.

Communities are not normative, nor an ideal to be aspired to in their own right but are promoted for the economic advantages that they are supposed to produce (through social capital, trust). On

the other hand, communities are also threatened by the operation

of market economies.

Fukuyama (41, 42); Putnam (43, 44); Gorz (45)

Globally oriented

approaches

Sociology; anthrop-

ology

Hyper-modernity;

globalisation

New forms of interaction and commonality/difference are explored in

an era of globalisation and communication advances.

From local to transnational flows. Community is discussed in the

context of identity, and place and centrality of geography and location are challenged. Concept of „thin‟ communities (e.g. weak ties over the internet) and „thick‟ communities based on strong ties.

Auge (46); Olwig & Hastrup

(47); Appadurai (48); Gupta & Ferguson (49)



8

emergence of the state, industrialisation, urbanism and more recently, globalisation and

communication advances. It appears, therefore, that new ways of understanding

community roughly tend to unfold in reaction to historical developments in political,

social, cultural and economic life.

In pre-modernity, early anthropologists emphasised the collective as the setting of social

life. They tended to study villages, tribes and distant „others‟ that were considered to be

culturally and socially homogeneous communities (50). Community was assumed to

exist and was not yet considered a question for investigation. It was only much later that

anthropologists would consider community to be the most important subject matter in

the discipline. In contrast, scholarly work on community in political theory can be traced

to the rise of liberalism, where ideas of freedom, rights and justice and their political and

social context were heavily theorised. Notably, scholars studied the role of the state

(Aristotle), and the role of civil society and non-state domains (e.g. Rousseau, Paine) in

shaping relationships.

The explicit theorisation of community began with advances in industrialisation in the

twentieth century, when the seminal group of scholars, Tönnies, Durkheim and Marx,

began to consider the impact of the modern environment on traditional or rural forms of

life (51). Tönnies, Durkheim and Marx, began to consider the impact of the modern

environment on traditional or rural forms of life. For example, Tönnies suggests that

community is characterized as rural, moral and intimate, while society in the modern era

is individualistic, instrumental and impersonal. For Durkheim, individuals move towards

„organic solidarity‟ in modernity where the specialization of work leads to a necessary

interdependence between people. Marx criticised the alienation that was derived from

production in capitalism.

Increasing modernity gave rise to urbanism in the 1920s/30s, which ignited new

questions about community for anthropologists and sociologists within the „community

and urban life‟ meta-narrative. Cities were considered to represent unique social and

cultural spaces that play a role in the shifting of how human organisation functions.

Community in these urban spaces were considered to be dense, diverse and transient.

Therefore, the idea of locality and the importance of proximity from earlier

conceptualisations of community were strongly challenged in this tradition. The Chicago

School guided research in this area and developed new theories of community in the

context of the modern environment (see table 1).

In the 1960s, the community studies tradition developed by both building on and

critiquing the emphasis that many urban anthropologists/sociologists put on space as the

unit of analysis. This tradition is concerned with studying all types of relationships

outside the household and has a particular focus on researching social issues. The

community studies tradition led to a substantial growth in empirical studies primarily

based on case studies and participant observation, stimulating a more interpretive

approach. Closely related to community studies is the idea of „generating or mobilising

community‟, which developed to some extent in reaction to urban development ignoring

the social concerns of the poor. Community for this tradition is considered to be an ideal



9

to be aspired to through collective action for the fulfilment of common interests. It

particularly looks to provide a „voice‟ to marginalised people around social concerns.

Community in political theory returned as a central question with the rise of debates

between individualists and communitarians. Individualists are concerned with moral

worth and the importance of the individual. Communitarians emphasise human

associations as the source of identity formation, and thus the idea of a community

becomes important for human organisation and behaviour. More „radical‟ strands of

communitarianism consider the existence of multiple forms of community, attaching

importance to ideas of membership and solidarity while still accounting for changing

socio-economic factors. The increasing impact of market economies on modern

environments evoked another tradition that linked political economy with communitarian

relations. A strong trend in this tradition has been the examination of the role of

communities in establishing trust and from that, „social capital‟ in societies.

Communities, for these scholars, are promoted for the economic and political advantages

that they can produce.

More recently, the importance of embodied interaction as an important requisite for

community was challenged by scholars, who were instead focussed on the way in which

„world of meaning‟, imaginings and sentiments function in modern societies to construct

ideas of community and cooperation, thus separating the idea of community from

interaction. Whilst previous traditions focussed their analysis on groups and interactions

between individuals, this meta-narrative is more interested in what occurs inside the

individual. This is evident in symbolic, imagined communities but also in more recent

work on belonging, attachment and affect which appear to combine sociology and

psychology to study community.

Arguably, we have now entered an era of post-modernity characterised by super-

diversity, globalisation and new ways of communication. In this context, researchers

across disciplines have challenged the centrality of geography in the research on

community. Scholars look to issues of identity in the context of technology, mass

migration and diversity and how this, if at all, relates to place in the study of community

(52).

Implications for future research This review has highlighted the multi-faceted nature of community across disciplines

over time. Several implications for research and policy emerge from our review and from

the feedback from the consultation meetings we held with academic and policy experts.

We found a fundamental gap between the conceptualisations of community in the

academic literature and the way in which community is used in policy and practice. In

the latter, the notion of community is often taken for granted and associated with

geographical space. In contrast, in the theoretical literature, community is often

expressed in an abstract manner, making it difficult to apply concepts practically. Our set



10

of meta-narratives could be used to facilitate a dialogue between academics and policy-

makers on how different ways of conceptualising communities might translate into

different ways of implementing, for example, interventions to build community

resilience. It could also be used to help decision-makers to think about what

assumptions they are making about communities and expose them to alternative ways

of understanding communities.

In this context, a useful extension of our review would be to develop a toolkit for the

identification of the different characteristics of a community that could be used in

assisting the design of policies and practical interventions. However, prior to this, the

empirical literature on communities would need to be drawn upon and combined with the

findings of the current review, which focused mainly on the conceptual literature. This

could include, for instance, the empirical work on social capital in crime, health and other

domains of public policy; research on social support and social networks from within

community and health psychology (53); and research which examines the perspectives

of members of communities themselves on how they define and value communities.

Our set of meta-narratives also suggest that individuals can be conceptualised as

belonging to a variety of communities at the same time, thanks to a range of embodied

and imagined connections with other individuals. These multiple forms of belonging raise

interesting research questions, such as, „How do individuals belonging to different types

of community influence each other?‟ and „What happens at the intersection of belonging

to different communities?‟ Intersectional analysis from within feminist theory exposes

what happens at the intersection between class, gender, age and other characteristics of

women‟s identities (54). Methodological and conceptual work from this tradition could be

applied more generally to answer the questions above and thus provide a useful new

way of understanding communities.



11

References

1.�Greenhalgh, T, Rober, G, Macfarland, F, Bate, P, Kyriakidou, O. Peacock, R.

(2005) „Storyline of Research in Diffusion of Innovation: A Meta-Narrative

Approach to Systematic Review‟, Social Science & Medicine, 61: 417-430.

2.�Greenhalgh, T., Potts, H.W.W., Wong, G., Bark, P. and Swinglehurst, D. (2009),

„Tensions and Paradoxes in Electronic Patient Records Research: A Systematic

Literature Review Using the Meta-Narrative Method‟, The Milbank Quarterly, 87

(4): 729-788.

3.�Levi-Strauss, C. [1955] (2011), Tristes Tropiques, London: Penguin Classics.

4.�Turner, V. (1967), Forest of Symbols: aspects of Ndembu Ritual, New York:

Cornell University Press.

5.�Aristotle (1996), The Politics and the Constitution of Athens, S. Everson (Ed.),

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6.�Paine, Thomas (1986) [1776], Common Sense, Isaac Kramnick (Ed.), New York:

Penguin Classics.

7.�Tönnies, F. (1957) [1887], Community and Society, New York: Harper and Row.

8.�Durkheim, E. (1964) [1893], The Division of Labour in Society, New York: Free

Press.

9.�Marx, K. (1965) [1857-58], Pre capitalist Economic Formations, C.J. Arthur (Ed.),

London: Lawrence & Wishart.

10.�Park, R. (1968), „The City‟, in Park, R., Burgess, E. and McKenzie, R. (Eds), The

City, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

11.�Wirth, L. (1938), „Urbanism as a way of life‟, American Journal of Sociology, 44.

12.�Redfield, R. (1960), The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture,

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

13.�Hannerz, U. (1969), Soulside, New York: Columbia University Press.

14.�Gans, H. (1965), The Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-

Americans, New York: Free Press.

15.�Downey, D.J. and Smith D.A. (2011), „Metropolitan Reconfiguration and

Contemporary Zones of Transition: Conceptualizing Border Communities in

Postsuburban California‟, Journal of Urban Affairs, 33 (1): 21-44.

16.�Crow, G and Allan, G (1994), Community life: An Introduction to Local Social

Relations, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

17.�Brint, S. (2001) „Gemeinschaft Revisited: A Critique and Reconstruction of the

Community Concept‟, Sociological Theory, 19 (1): 1-23.

18.�Young , M. and Wilmott, P. (1974) Family and Kinship in East London,

Harmondsworth: Penguin.

19.�Arensberg, C.M. (1954), „The Community Study Method‟, American Journal of

Sociology, 60 (2): 109-124.

20.�Bell, C. and Newby, H. (1971), Community Studies, London: George Allen and

Unwin Ltd.

21.�Bulmer, M. (1985), „The Rejuvenation of Community Studies? Neighbours,

Networks and Policy‟, The Sociological Review, 33 (3): 430-443.

22.�Frankenberg, R. (1966), Communities in Britain, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

23.�Brent, J. (2009), Searching for Community: Representation, Power and Action on

an Urban Estate, Bristol: Policy Press.

24.�Marx, K. (1965) [1857-58], Pre capitalist Economic Formations, C.J. Arthur (Ed.),

London: Lawrence & Wishart.

25.�Rawls, J. (1972), A Theory of Justice, Oxford: Clarendon Press.



12

26.�Sandel, M. (1982), Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

27.�Sandel, M. (1992), „The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self‟, in

Avineri, S. and de-Shalit, A. (Eds), Communitarianism and Individualism, Oxford:

Oxford University Press

28.�MacIntyre, A. (1981), After Virtue: A study in Moral Theory, London: Duckworth.

29.�MacIntyre, A. (1992), „Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions‟, in Avineri, S.

and de-Shalit, A. (Eds), Communitarianism and Individualism, Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

30.�Etzioni, A. (1993), The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities and the

Communitarian Agenda, New York: Crown.

31.�Etzioni, A. (1996), The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic

Society, New York: Basic Books.

32.�Jordan, B. (1992), „Basic Income and the Common Good‟, in van Parjis, O. (Ed.)

Arguing for Basic Income, London: Verso.

33.�Jordan, B. (1998), The New Politics of Welfare: Social Justice in a Global Context,

London: Sage.

34.�Gray, J. (1997), Endgames: Questions in Late Modern Political Thought,

Cambridge: Polity Press.

35.�Frazer, E. (1999), The Problems of Communitarian Politics, Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

36.�Frazer, E. and Lacy, N. (1993), The Politics of Community: A Feminist Critique of

the Liberal-Communitarian Debate, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

37.�Cohen, A. (1985), The Symbolic Construction of Community, Chichester:

Horwood.

38.�Anderson, B. (1991/1983), Imagined Communities, London and New York: Verso.

39.�Barth, F. (1969), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, Boston: Little, Brown.

40.�Bourdieu, P (1990), The Logic of Practice, Cambridge: Polity Press.

41.�Fukuyama, F. (1996), Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity,

London: Penguin.

42.�Fukuyama, F. (1999), The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution

of Social Order, London: Profile.

43.�Putnam, R. (1993), Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy,

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

44.�Putnam, R. (1995), „Bowling Alone: America‟s Declining Social Capital‟, Journal of

Democracy, 6: 65-78.

45.�Gorz, A. (1999), Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage-Based Society, Cambridge:

Polity Press.

46.�Auge, M. (1995), Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity,

London: Verso.

47.�Olwig, K.F. and Hastrup, K. (1997), Siting Culture: The Shifting Anthropological

Object, London: New York: Routledge.

48.�Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization,

Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

49.�Gupta, A. and Ferguson, J. (1997), „Culture, Power and Place: Ethnography at the

end of an Era‟, in Gupta, A. and Ferguson, J. (Eds) Culture, Power, Place:

Explorations in Critical Anthropology, Durham, NC and London: Duke University

Press.

50.�Rapport, N. and Overing, J. (2000), Social and Cultural Anthropology, New York:

Routledge.



13

51.�Jones, K.L. (1997), Community as a documentary reality: a case study of

Newtown South Aston, Birmingham, (Unpublished PhD thesis), University of

Central England, United Kingdom.

52.�Castells, M. (1996), The Information Age, Vol. 1: The Rise of the Network Society,

Oxford: Blackwell.

53.�Cohen, S., Underwood, L.G. and Gottlieb, B.H. (2000), „Social Relationships and

Health‟, in: Cohen, S., Underwood, L.G., Gottlieb, B.H. (Eds), Social Support

Measurement and Intervention: A Guide for Health and Social Scientists, Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

54.�Brah, A. and Phoenix, A (2004), „Ain‟t I A Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality‟,

Journal of International Women’s Studies, 5 (3): 75-86

External links

For further information about the following:

�Methodology (meta-narrative approach to systematic review);

�Diagram flow of the development of meta-narratives over time.

�Fuller version of each meta-narrative

please click on the following link:

http://www.uel.ac.uk/ihhd/projects/Meaningsofcommunity.htm

http://www.uel.ac.uk/ihhd/projects/Meaningsofcommunity.htm



14

The Connected Communities

Connected Communities is a cross-Council Programme being led by the AHRC in partnership

with the EPSRC, ESRC, MRC and NERC and a range of external partners. The current vision for

the Programme is:

“to mobilise the potential for increasingly inter-connected, culturally diverse,

communities to enhance participation, prosperity, sustainability, health & well-being by

better connecting research, stakeholders and communities.”

Further details about the Programme can be found on the AHRC‟s Connected Communities web

pages at:

www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/connectedcommunities.aspx

http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/connectedcommunities.aspx

Documents

A review of conceptualisations and meanings of ‘community