Concepts and meanings of community in the social sciences Valerie Walkerdine and David Studdert

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Concepts and meanings of community in the social
sciencesValerie Walkerdine and David Studdert
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AHRC Connected Communities Programme

• Attempts to develop new ways of thinking and
  about and engaging research with changing forms
  of community

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Our project

• Review of concepts and meanings of community in 9
  social science disciplines and fieldsAnthropolog
  y
• Cultural studies
• Sociology
• Geography
• Social psychology

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• Community studies
• Education
• Health
• Policing
• Online communities

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Policy

• In addition, we looked at meanings and concepts
  used by 20 government, NGO and voluntary
  organisations, across the UK, using their
  websites and ran a workshop for policy makers and
  community activists and practitioners.

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Conclusions

• Our research concluded that while there were
  differences between social science disciplines in
  terms of approach to community, there were a set
  of fundamental problems standing in the way.

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An alternative to broken communities?
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Concepts and meanings from policy

• Community development
• Active participation
• Empowerment
• Involvement
• Engagement

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What we learnt from the workshop

• 1. A strong distinction needs to be made between
  policy which relates to the implementation of a
  political agenda and community activism
  undertaken by voluntary groups, which tends to
  operate on an asset-based approach, which uses a
  framework of listening what a locality wants.

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• 2. There is a real problem for academic research
  in relation to partnerships with policy and grass
  roots organizations, in terms of timescale.
  Academic research takes a long time to get funded
  and to be undertaken. This does not fit well with
  an agenda which demands rapid response and
  change. It is therefore a challenge to think
  about how researchers and policy makers and
  practitioners can fruitfully work together for
  mutual gain.

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• 3. While there may be implicit references to key
  theories such as social capital and
  communitarianism within policy and practice
  literature, the constraints are twofold having
  to operate to a political agenda, fixed in
  manifesto commitments and having to respond on
  the ground to that agenda as the starting point
  for thinking about what is being demanded by the
  community concerned.

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Is there another way?