CESC Reviewer

Defining the Community

1. Network of Interpersonal Ties Based on a Common Interest

   • provide mutual support

   • sense of identity

   • sense of belongingness

   • such as

     • Civil Society

       • foundations of common interests in addressing social problems

       • operate outside government

       • work for welfare of citizens

2. Shared Political Territory and Heritage

   • group of people living in same geographic area

   • interpersonal ties are locally bounded and based on a shared government and a common cultural and historical heritage

     • sharing of spiritual and/or emotional connection

       • basis of an experience of a common problem, bond, or situated cognition that evokes a meaningful attachment

4 Elements of the Sense of Community

1. Membership

   • feeling of belongingness

   • sharing a sense of personal relatedness

   • has the following attributes

     1. Boundaries - allow others to belong and keep others out

     2. Emotional Safety - feelings of security and trust

     3. Sense of belonging and identification

     4. Personal Investment - sacrifices made to maintain membership

     5. Common Symbol System - representations of the community

2. Influence

   • sense of having importance; being valued

   • conforming of the community

3. Integration and Fulfillment of Needs

   • result of personal investment in maintaining membership via participation

4. Shared Emotional Connection

   • continued quality interaction

   • invest energy, money, and effort w/ other members

Community Structures

• community is made of social, cultural, political, and economic structures

  • keeps community intact and integrated

• Social Structure

  • rules and expectations people develop over time

    • regulate and manage their interactions

      1. Social Institutions

         • patterns of belief and behavior

         • centered on addressing basic social needs

      2. Social Groups

         • two or more groups of people who regularly interact

         • consider themselves a distinct social unit

           • primary and secondary

           • informal

           • formal

           • in-group and outgroup

      3. Statuses

         • social status

           • rank someone has re: property, prestige, and power

      4. Roles

         • what society expects us to play in a given status

           • students = to study

• Cultural Structure

  • culture is what we learn from those before us

    • culture = social construct

  • Social Production of Culture

    • culture is:

      • socially meaningful expression that van be articulated, shared, and manifested as concrete material

      • meaningfully associate even w/o a physical artifact

  • Socialization and Enculturation

    • process of imparting knowledge is partly planned and unplanned

    • society is able to develop structures that are from a collective consciousness

  • Intersection of Culture and Social Structure

    • how we organize society is dependent on a collective consciousness

      • formed via interactions

    • mechanical x organic solidarity = work together to achieve a common goal

    • cohesion - working together

    • solidarity - unity between individuals around a common goal/enemy

      • mechanical solidarity: cohesion and integration via homogeneity

      • organic solidarity: dependence of individuals on e/o

Arendt and the Political Community

1. Political structure

   • importance is threefold

     1. organized public space

        • offers them a home, distinct location where they can strike their political roots and define their political identity

        • ex: Jews possible to succeed in developing and preserving a public space, they failed to give it a concrete worldly manifestation and lacked a distinct presence

          • membership of religious community does not provide ownership rights to a territory

          • ethnic people will always have a land they can claim as their ancestral heritage

     2. theater of their actions

        • humanize the territory via words and deeds

        • memories, sentiments, and such reflected in tangible landmarks

          • monuments. statues, tombstones, commemorative buildings

          • integrate it into their history

        • territory is not simply given though title or deed

          • there is historical and cultural heritage that a people/race have built upon the land

     3. space that grows at its own pace

        • right to regulate membership

          • to prevent damage by influx of strangers

          • it is a political identity, NOT a racial one

2. Concerns re: Materialistic Justification

   • why settled political communities (PC) (ex. IPs) are attached to certain territories

     • define their identity in terms of the land

     • refusal to be rehoused

   • why PCs require clearly demarcated territory

   • why PCs have a proprietary claim over its territory and a right to regulate and restrict membership

Community Dynamics

• practice that is always forming and reforming based on:

  • lived experiences

  • current thought

  • contexts of the community

• Community Development as Dynamic

  • thinking and doing practice

  • without vigilance, we leave ourselves open to manipulation to agendas outside social justice

  • it is not a process of constant action but continuous reflection

  • Praxis

    • action, theory, reflection

  • seen in two ways

    1. economic growth

    2. well-being

• Community Profile

  • Freirean pedagogy

    • critical approach to practice = analysis of power at every level

      • via community profile

        • narratives of the people within an analysis of poverty as structural discrimination

    • do not attempt to homogenize the narratives

      • rather, analyze power at all levels and determine the source of exploitation and structural discrimination

• Impetus for Social Change

  • change must start at the grassroots

    • from oppressed individuals who engage in a process of critical consciousness

      • questioning everyday experiences

    • create the learning context for questioning that will help local people make critical connections between their lives and societal structures that make the world

• Banking Model of Education

  • tool of the status quo

    • output of education (i.e what you can do after) is primary

    • learning itself is secondary

  • corporatization of education

    • focus on employment in education (i.e prioritizing the fact you can get a job/able to work after receiving it) is a short term solution

      • it does not tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality

      • there is vicious cycle

        • so long as there is poverty, there will be the focus of creating workers

• Community Profiling

  • juxtapose the voices of the local people with:

    • statistical evidence

      • neighborhood profiles

      • national census

      • involving people

    • sociopolitical contexts and trends

    • community development interventions

  • the individual

  • the group

  • the community

  • the structures/institutions of society

  • wider society

  • listening, dialogue, valuing

    • consider that communities are heterogeneous

    • questions posed for the profile must be determined in partnership with the community

  • in engaging with communities

    • NOT there to educate

    • help them make critical connections between their own lives and larger structures

  • be anti-discriminatory

    • experience is shaped according to social difference

      • race, ethnicity, gender, faith, age, etc

  • ask questions

    • create a learning context to explore ideas critically

Emancipatory Action Research

• expose structural discrimination by challenging dominant narratives

  • create a critical practitioner with the capacity to be reflective and self-reflective in the inner and outer process of research

  • Freire: Critiquing = challenge our own inner attitudes and prejudices

• Process of participation

  • develop a clear space for dialogue

    • involve all co-participants in co-creating knowledge where research is

      • counter-hegemonic

        • challenge the status quo

      • power relationships are deconstructed

• Co-creating knowledge

  • we are all agents of change and knowledge

  • dialogue has a place in our culture

    • currently displaced by western dichotomous thought

      • view things as black-and-white, rather than nuanced

  • mutual endeavor

  • developing critical consciousness is a cycle of action and reflection where everyone is required to participate

    • a research with people without imposition

  • clear space for dialogue

  • researchers as co-subjects

  • subjects as co-researchers

    • relinquish power over the process and product