Geographical and Non-

Geographical Community
Context

EIC 3011
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
NUR ANNIZAH ISHAK
 Outline
1. Introduction
2. Community Context: Non geographical
3. Community Context: What makes a geographic community?
4. Common features of community:
1) Common location
2) Common ties - a) experiences; b) Attitudes, cultures, or beliefs; c) Access to common
resources and institutions
3) Social interaction - a) Bond; b) Virtual communities
4) Interdependencies
5. Membership in Multiple Communities
6. Measuring geographic communities
3) Measuring interactions and social capital – i. SNA; ii. Formal interviews; iii. Participant
observation
4) Geographic boundaries – i. Distance-based approach; ii. Local government; iii. Trade-offs
7. Conclusion
1. Introduction
 The consensus within the literature seems to be that there is no ‘all
purpose’ definition of community.
 However, there are two main types of communities: interest
communities and geographic communities.
 Interest communities do not usually have a spatial base but are
connected through a common interest.
 Examples include the sporting community and the academic
community.
 A geographic community is one defined over a geographic space.
 Some type of social interaction or common tie is usually included in
this type of definition as well (Poplin, 1979).
1. Introduction
 Negative connotation of ‘community’. Among them:
 1. Communities create insiders and outsiders - those who belong and
those who do not.
 2. Communities often have barriers to entry in place to protect the
way of life for the people in the community.
 3. Loss of opportunities that may be available outside the
community (Harington, 1997, p. 29) – keep barriers to keep outsiders
out.
 I.e: an ethnic community may have the advantage of giving its
members protection from racism and creating a comfortable, known
environment.
 However, it may also inhibit their learning of the host country’s
language and culture. This in turn may foster racism.
 2. Community Context:
Non-Geographical Communities
 A community that based on some commonality other than
location.
 Such as a belief system, cultural background, area of interest
or common experience
 Also referred to ‘nonplace communities’
 Anderson & Carter, 1990
 I.e: professional communities, racial ethnic communities,
religious groups, friendship networks, group of patients
experiencing common problems, groups of workplace
colleagues.
 Non-Geographical Communities –
cont.
 Serves a number of purposes to enhance members’
sense of well-being.
 1. They provide an arena for forming relationships
 where a person can receive support, encouragement,
praise and information.
 relationship
can provide feelings of belonging and
connectedness that most people seek in one way or
another.
Non-Geographical Communities –
cont.
 2. They provide a sense of identity of who they are.
 i.e: ethnic group, muslims, catholics, MERCY,
international student, etc
 3. Give sense of reassurance and security even when
they are separated from other community members.
 regardless of geographically, their community
membership and its contribution of their identity as
community remain intact
 UM students/Malaysian society abroad
 3. Community Context:
What makes a geographic community?

 A necessary condition for a geographic community is that

it has a geographic boundary.
 ‘Population size, density and heterogeneity’ are the most
frequent demographic variables used to characterize
geographical communities”.
 Fellin, 1995, p.41
 Also referred to ‘place communities’ – that they comprise
a designated are or location.
 Geographical Communities – cont.
 1. ‘Population size’ – is the total number of persons
living in a designated community
 The community might be large, widely spread out
farming areas or counties within an urban area.
 2. ‘Density’ – is the ratio of people living within in
particular space.
 Population and density are often closely related.
Extremely dense areas are usually have high populations.
 3. ‘Heterogeneity’ – refers to the extent to which
community members have diverse characteristics.
Geographical Communities – cont.
 A community may vary in its levels of heterogeneity
depending on its residents’ economic status, racial
and ethnic background or age range.
 The largest communities are ‘metropolitan’
 With at least 50,000 people which compose more than ¾
population.
 Usually compose of many smaller neighborhood,
communities and small cities.
 ‘suburban’ & ‘satellite’
4. Common features of community:
1) Common location
 Most communities have a common location.
 The common location gives the community something in common
that is not shared with others outside of the location.
 This means that places such as towns and cities can be defined as
communities with nothing more in common than that they share
the same location.
 However, a common location is not essential for a community to
exist because members may have something in common other
than the location.
 A community that does have a common location can be called a
geographic community.
Common features of community:
2) Common ties
a) Experiences
 A common experience can bring people together and create a
community.
 Such communities can be seen after unexpected tragedies such
as terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and wars.
 Members of a group who survive such an experience often form
bonds with one another due to the shared experience.
2) Common ties
b) Attitudes, cultures, or beliefs
 The way in which community is perceived is likely to depend on
a person’s attitude, culture, or beliefs.
 For example, Māori tend to take a more holistic view of
community than Europeans do, including extended family
relationships in the definition (Harper, 2001; Spellerberg, 2001).
 In extreme cases, communities may remove themselves from
the rest of society in search of their own way of life.
 Examples of this include enclosed communes and monasteries.
 Indigenous people/way of living
 2) Common ties
c) Access to common resources and institutions
 Common resources and institutions create communities through the shared
use of these facilities.
 It is a common tie in the sense that people who share resources and
institutions will have repeated, and often regular, interactions with each
other.
 Examples include local government areas where there are shared
community centres, local amenities, and services.
 Individuals may select the area that they live in based on the services
offered.
 Tiebout (1956) suggests that if there were enough communities, individuals
would reveal their preferences for public goods through their choice of
community.
 people living in the same community would be homogeneous in terms of
public goods and so a local public goods equilibrium may be Pareto-
efficient.
4. Common features of community:
3) Social interaction
a) Bond
 the strength of bonds within the community as the defining feature (English
and Zimlich, 1997).
 these bonds may refer to active participation in the community
(‘community spirit’) or they may be something deeper such as members
who have grown up together and who have parents who also grew up
together.
 People who can trace back family members who lived in the same area are
seen as locals (Philio, 2002).
 Incomers are people who were not born in the area. Members often see
them as a threat to the bonds held by the community of locals.
 #Kelantanese @ sarawakian???
3) Social interaction
b) Virtual communities
 Members of communities on the Internet are usually homogeneous in
interests and attitudes
 but heterogeneous in characteristics such as age, ethnicity, and socio-
economic status (Wellman and Gulia, 1997).
 Individuals, who may never have met in person, can communicate
with one another and share common interests.
 Although these would not be classified as geographic communities
because members are not from a common location, they are a type of
community with common ties and social interaction.
3) Social interaction
 Just as some people may live in a location but not feel part of the local
community, so too can people feel part of a community in which they no
longer reside.
 Putnam (1995) describes social capital (social interactions) as “features of
social life — networks, norms, and trust — that enable participants to act
together more effectively to pursue shared objectives”.
 2 types of social capital.
 i) Bonding - tends to be inward-looking and focuses on a particular
group.
 ii) Bridging – is outward-looking and is generally made up of ‘weak’ ties
that link people in different social spheres.
 Onyx and Bullen (2000) found that bonding capital was greater in
rural areas and bridging capital was greater in larger metropolitan
areas
 Social interaction is vary across societies (Putnam, 2000)
Common features of community:
4) Interdependencies
 Interdependence encompasses the sense of belonging and support
that members of a community may feel.
 It is the idea that members are part of a network in which the actions
of one member influences other members.
 An individual cannot hold social capital as it arises between
individuals  leads communities are interdependent.
 The more social capital held in the community, the more
interdependent that community is likely to be.
 2 important aspects of this interdependence – trust and norms
4) Interdependencies
 Dasgupta (2000, p. 51) defines TRUST - “correct expectations about
the actions of other people that have a bearing on one’s own choice
of action when that action must be chosen before one can monitor
the actions of those others”.
 Reciprocity – collective agreement
 A NORM - is something that motivates individuals to forgo self-
interest in order to act in the interests of the group.
 Actions that are considered to be good will be rewarded by the
society that adheres to the norm, and actions that are considered to
be bad will be punished. SANCTION
 Coleman (1990) stated Norms have the potential to overcome public
good problems through the threat of social exclusion for those who
defect
5. Membership in Multiple Communities
 Eachindividual is probably a member of multiple
communities (Fellin,1995).
 Members of the university, college, residential
community, professional community, work group
community and etc
 Involvement in multiple communities reinforces
an individual’s sense of belonging and expands
potential access to resources.
5. Membership in Multiple
Communities - cont
 Also provide support for group members.
 I.e;
 University community provides you with access to
library resources and knowledge about value and skills.
 Residential community gives you neighborly support
and potential friendship.
 Professional community furnished you with information
about jobs, ethical decision making and new work
skills.
 6. Measuring geographic communities
1. Measuring interactions and social capital
1. Social network analysis - “the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows
between people, groups, organizations, computers or other information/knowledge
processing entities. SNA provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of
human relationships.
2. Formal interviews to determine the various relationships in the community – social
capital.
3. Participant observation - informal discussions with members of the community and
is known as participant observation
2. Geographic boundaries
1. Distance-based approach - focusing on a designated distance or time of travel. The
advantage of this measure is that it allows a focus on a specific resource or
location.
2. Local government - viewing the community as a collection of community groups
headed by some type of local government
3. Trade-offs between too small or too big - too small: may be many interactions
occurring between communities that are missed due to the focus on the narrowly
defined community. Too large then much of the detail may be lost.
 CONCLUSION
 Community is a word commonly used in the English language.
 The meaning of the word varies depending on the person using it
and the circumstances in which it is being used.
 Community tends to mean different things to different people.
 For some it is simply a group of people; for others it is an area
of residence; and for still others the meaning of community
may be much more personal.
 Emphasized their importance as a context for human behavior.
 5 Theoretical perspectives – structural, human ecology,
functionalist, social-psychological and social system.
 Which one is the best?
 Most people are members of multiple communities.
Thank You