Explanation And Types Of Communities

A community is a word that has been defined in many various ways. According to the political theory, community been simply defined as a “commonwealth”. And as we know, Commonwealth is an entity or state that is governed by laws and the rule of the people. Therefore, a government can also be referred as a community. The second definition, which is more/less the same as the first one, community is a group with common interests. And it is because of these centralized interests that they stay in the same geographical area. Farmers for instance, will come together to share their main interest which is farming within an area.

Thirdly, community can be referred to as a group with common policy. This is the first definition to do away with the idea geographic location. Therefore, a community is a group of people who are sharing same policies regardless of the location. An example is multinational group of companies. Community, according to the fourth definition, is group of people with same professional interests regardless of their geographical location. Although it might sound similar to the third definition, it mainly focuses on professionals. So as to maintain such kind of the community, commitment among the members of a profession is the major factor to call for. A group of people with a common heritage or ancestry can also be considered as a community. An example is the African American community that is composed of millions of people. In this definition, the most important aspect is identity, not geographical area.

Although this last definition might sound more technical, it is broader and covers a lot of aspects. It defines community as a group sharing a common social structure. It generally refers to stable and expected relations between people within a society regardless of their location.

There are three ways of looking at the community, or the way they interact. These ways can also help us define a community in a much better way.

The first type of community is the neighbourhood. “Community is geographically bound and is made up of a combination of both long term residents and transient individuals”. A neighbourhood may consist of people who don’t know one another but are sharing a physical location. Neighbourhood may yield a healthy or unhealthy interaction depending on the nature or direction it has taken.

In the second type, community is group of people who has come together for formal reasons, either sharing a profession, learning purposes, a set of goals or interests. It therefore moves away from the idea of describing a community as a geographical location and tries to bring a picture of community as a voluntary association of people sharing goals or value. Therefore, this has helped to a great extent promote integration. Here, you become a member of community out of desire and commitment not from sharing a common geographical area or even ethnic or racial background.

In the third type, community is group of people of common identity. It can be large or small, intimate or anonymous, but the key factor is to recognise yourself and share interests with the members. The common types of identity include ethnicity, racial groups, age, subculture and others. However, minority status is central to this.

There are a number of basic sociological concepts that are essential building blocks in understanding of what community is. These include; group, which explains that members think of themselves belonging together and therefore interact freely with one another. This can also be related to the definition of man as a social creature which has to relate. The second concept is aggregate, where by individuals are temporarily together in a physical location. Category is the third concept which is basically a group of people sharing similar physical or social traits. Examples are people of the same age bracket, i.e. 18-24,the disabled group of wealthy people and the old people.

In terms of ideas and background terms, community can be explained in two various ways, the primary group and the secondary group. In primary group, community is groups with intimate connections and relations, cooperation, regular face to face contact that are central to the development of and growth of and individual. The secondary group majorly consists of larger and more formal groups that are joined for a common interest that can join for various interests and goals.

The groups towards which we feel loyalty, mostly the friends, and peer are referred to as in groups. In the other hand, out groups are those towards which we feel no curiosity, sometimes antagonism. In most cases, the out groups are strangers. The attribute of antagonism is natural in the human population although it is negative. Reference groups are the groups that we mostly use to evaluate ourselves on some issues. They are mostly the elderly. Within groups, there are connections of people which can either be close or weak depending on the tie.

In the voluntary community is composed of members who are out of good will found one another and created a community. For instance, in professionalism, members find each other in the course of job and then they form a community on the basis of job. On the other hand, there are involuntary communities. Here, the members are part of the community without a conscious choice. A typical example of involuntary community is neighbourhood, no one has a choice on the kind of neighbourhood he wants to grow in.

Both voluntary and involuntary communities inter relate in normal human development. For example, in the early stages one has to go through involuntary community, the type of neighbourhood is not their choice. Then later on, may be in the profession, they will have to interact with the voluntary community.

There are also a number of countervailing factor such as norm of involvement where people use distancing as a way of defending themselves. There is also diffusion of responsibility, where the assumption that nothing outside ourselves is a responsibility and therefore should not concern us.

There are a lot of theorise that has explained community in different perspectives.Emile Durkheim has tried to use mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity approaches to explain what a community is. In mechanical solidarity, which is traditionally based, states that traditional people shared their chores equally hence this strengthen the community bond. In contrary, the organic solidarity states that in modern society we have our own roles and function. Alignments in this case are as a result of depending on each other.

The second theory is Robert parks theory. After going out to the poor neighbourhoods during his studies, Robert concluded that community is a social structure that is composed of members with shared morality and world views.

Victor turner, an anthropologist, describes a community as where people interact at either communal or visceral level unknowingly.

In conclusion, the community can be described in many ways depending to the context and composition. It is a very important to note that community is an important in individuals development. Although it may come with some challenges, community is important in the integration more so the number two type where community is a collection of people of the same profession, not race or ethnic background. Therefore, community is very important in our life long development.