Sociology of Community

A Collection of Readings

Colin Bell, Howard Newby

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136272530
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

First Published in 1974. In this collection Colin Bell and Howard Newby have reaped a rich harvest from the sociological field of community studies. The selection from the work in that field presented here should satisfy readers of many different tastes and interests. Specialists in the sociology of community studies will find the authors' brief, informative and succinct survey of the field and the introductory summaries to each chapter as useful for their own teaching and research as the comprehensive selection of articles itself. All those concerned with the welfare of people, whether social workers and nurses or magistrates and local authorities, will find here information about the community aspects of peoples' lives which all too often still fails to find a place in their professional training.

PART I

Theoretical Preliminaries to the Study of Community

CHAPTER 1

Theoretical Preliminaries to the Study of Community

INTRODUCTION

One of the main problems concerning the study of community is that it has little or no substantive sociological theory of its own. A branch of sociology called ‘the community’ cannot be considered in the same way as, say, ‘the family’, ‘straiification’, ‘organizations’, and so on—we can only concern ourselves with a number of community studies. This reflects the non-cumulative nature of most community studies: whilst it might justly be said that they have contributed a a good deal to sociology, they have nevertheless contributed very little to each other. Thus we cannot draw upon a body of theory of the community—rather we must fall back upon a list of individuals who have written about the concept of community itself.

Such a list is a very lengthy one. Exhortations to ‘define your terms’ have been taken to heart in this case and most sociologists who have undertaken community studies—and not a few others—have attempted to provide an acceptable definition of community. The difficulties involved in this task have already been alluded to—most definitions of community reflect not so much what community is but what it should be. Normative prescription has overridden empirical description in most cases. Not surprisingly, there is little agreement to be found among the various existing definitions of the term. Hillery’s analysis of 94 definitions of community showed that the only common element in them was the fact that they all dealt with people: ‘Beyond this common basis, there is no agreement.’¹ More recently, however, there have been some encouraging attempts to break through this apparent impasse, as some of the contributions below show.

Much of the confusion surrounding the concept of community derives from the use made of it by Ferdinand Tönnies. Tönnies’ book, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaftt first published in 1887, has provided a constant source of ideas for those who have dealt with the community ever since.² Tönnies’ greatest legacy was the typological usage of community, a typology usually expressed in terms of a dichotomy. The ‘community-society’ dichotomy along with ‘authority-power’, ‘status-class’, ‘sacred-secular’ and ‘alienation-progress’, have been represented by Nisbet as the unit ideas of the sociological tradition. They are, as he wrote, ‘the rich themes in nineteenth century thought. Considered as linked antitheses, they form the very warp of the sociological tradition. Quite apart from their conceptual significance in sociology, they may be regarded as epitomizations of the conflict between tradition and modernism, between the old order made moribund by the industrial and democratic revolutions, and the new order, its outlines still unclear and as often the cause of anxiety as of elation and hope.’³ Value judgements were thus incorporated by Tönnies into the very substance of his analysis. Equally pervasive, however, has been his conferring of the term community on a specific locale (see Part II). It is this territorial reference which has led to a dichotomy in community studies between those which focus, to put it crudely, on the people, and those which focus on the territory.

Parsons, though, avoids forcing a choice between these two approaches. His tentative definition of community (which should be treated as such) is as follows: ‘… that aspect of the structure of social systems which is referable to the territorial location of persons … and their activities.’ There follows an important qualification: ‘When I say “referable to” I do not mean determined exclusively or predominantly by, but rather observable and analysable with reference to location as a focus of attention (and of course a partial determinant).’⁴ As Parsons states, the territorial reference is central, though it is necessary to stress, with him, that the primary concern is with ‘persons acting in territorial locations’ and, in addition, ‘since the reference is to social relations, persons acting in relation to other persons in respect to the territorial location of both parties … The population, then, is just as must as much a focus of the study of community as is the territorial location.’ The Parsonian pattern-variables, breaking down as they do the solidary concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, have opened the way to analysis along these lines. Recent detailed work on communities has shown that, far from there being an exclusive continuum from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, relationships of both types are found in the same community.

A different reaction to the confusion over what constitutes a community has been to abandon it as an object of study and instead to view community studies as a method of elucidating data illustrative of some wider generalization. Such a view is echoed by Havighurst and Jansen in their ‘trend report’ on Community Research published as an edition of Current Sociology in 1967: ‘A community study is not a branch of sociology, such as ecology, demography and social psychology. Rather it is a form of sociological research that is useful for a variety of research purposes.’⁵ Margaret Stacey’s paper, reprinted below, is a spirited defence of ‘community’ as an object worthy of study. If institutions are locality based and interrelated there may well be, she argues, a local social system that deserves sociological study. She does not want to call this local social system a ‘community’ for the latter, she feels, is a non-concept. In other words, Stacey claims that the definitional debate about community is something more—it represents a much more serious conceptual disagreement. Instead sociologists should concentrate on institutions and the interrelations in specific localities.

The concept for analyzing, indeed for conceptualizing, these social groups is the ‘social network’. This concept is used by Elias and Scotson in the final paper of this section, which is taken from the concluding chapter of their study of a Leicestershire community, The Established and the Outsiders. As they see it, the ‘specific community aspects of a community’ are the ‘network of relationships between people organized as a residential unit’. Their delineation of the ‘established’ and ‘outsider’ groups may have a theoretical relevance beyond their own micro-sociological study. The examination of, to use more broadly-based terms, locally-oriented and nationally-oriented groups within the context of a local social system appears to be one area in which community studies will be increasingly fruitful.

Pahl, for example, sees the confrontation of the local and the national within a territorially limited setting as one of the key sets of interaction processes which the community study should analyse.⁶ It is unlikely that such occurrences will take place without a certain amount of conflict, as Elias and Scotson themselves show. It seems likely therefore that analyses like theirs will lead to an increasing interest in community conflict. This is particularly welcome since, apart from James Coleman’s ⁷ excellent attempt to synthesize existing knowledge of this aspect of community affairs, community conflict is a sadly neglected facet of most community studies.

NOTES

1 Hillery, G. A. Jnr., ‘Definitions of Community: Areas of Agreement’, Rural Sociology, 20, 1955, p. 117.

2 See, for example, McKinney, J. C., and Loomis, C. P., ‘The Application of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as Related to Other Typologies’ in the introduction to the American edition of Tönnies’ Community and Society (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1957), pp. 12–29.

3 Nisbet, R., The Sociological Tradition (London: Heinemann, 1966), p. 6

4 Parsons, T., ‘The Principle Structure of Community: A Sociological View’ in Structure and Process in Modern Societies (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960), p. 153.

5 Havighurst, R. J., and Jansen, A. J., ‘Community Research’, Current Sociology, XV, 1967, p. 7 (our emphasis).

6 See, Pahl, R. E., ‘The Rural-Urban Continuum’, Sociologica Ruralis, VI (3–4), 1966. Stacey, emphasizing common values rather than physical mobility as in the case of Elias and Scotson, calls the two groups traditionalists and non-traditionalists. See Tradition and Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960).

7 Coleman, J. S., Community Conflict (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957).

CHAPTER 2

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft*

Ferdinand Tönnies

All intimate, private and exclusive living together, so we discover, is understood as life in Gemeinschaft (community). Gesellschaft (society) is public life—it is the world itself. In Gemeinschaft with one’s family, one lives from birth on, bound to it in weal and woe. One goes into Gesellschaft as one goes into a strange country. A young man is warned against bad Gesellschaft, but the expression bad Gemeinschaft violates the meaning of the word. Lawyers may speak of domestic Gesellschaft, thinking only of the legalistic concept of social association; but the domestic Gemeinschaft, or home life with its immeasurable influence upon the human soul, has been felt by everyone who ever shared it. Likewise, a bride or groom knows that he or she goes into marriage as a complete Gemeinschaft of life. A Gesellschaft of life would be a contradiction in and of itself. One keeps or enjoys another’s Gesellschaft, but not his Gemeinschaft in this sense. One becomes a part of a religious Gemeinschaft; religious Gesellschaften (associations or societies), like any other groups formed for given purposes, exist only in so far as they, viewed from without, take their places among the institutions of a political body or as they represent conceptual elements of a theory; they do not touch upon the religious Gemeinschaft as such. There exists a Gemeinschaft of language, of folkways or mores, or of beliefs; but, by way of contrast, Gesellschaft exists in the realm of business, travel, or sciences. So of special importance are the commercial Gesellschaften; whereas, even though a certain familiarity and Gemeinschaft may exist among business partners, one could indeed hardly speak of commerical Gemeinschaft. To make the word combination ‘joint-stock Gemeinschaft’ would be abominable. On the other hand there exists a Gemeinschaft of ownership in fields, forest, and pasture. The Gemeinschaft of property between man and wife cannot be called Gesellschaft of property. Thus many differences become apparent.

In the most general way, one could speak of a Gemeinschaft comprising the whole of mankind, such as the Church wishes to be regarded. But human Gesellschaft is conceived as mere co-existence of people independent of each other. Recently, the concept of Gesellschaft as opposed to and distinct from the state has been developed. This term will also be used in this book, but can only derive its adequate explanation from the underlying contrast to the Gemeinschaft of the people.

Gemeinschaft is old; Gesellschaft is new as a name as well as a phenomenon. All praise of rural life has pointed out that the Gemeinschaft among people is stronger there and more alive; it is the lasting and genuine form of living together. In contrast to Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft is transitory and superficial. Accordingly, Gemeinschaft should be understood as a living organism, Gesellschaft as a mechanical aggregate and artifact.

A superior power which is exercised to the benefit of the subordinate and which, because in accordance with his will, is accepted by him, I call dignity or authority. We distinguish three kinds: authority of age, authority of force and authority of wisdom or spirit. These three are united in the authority of the father who is engaged in protecting, assisting and guiding his family. The danger inherent in such power causes fear in the weaker ones, and this by itself would mean nothing but negation and repudiation (except in so far as mingled with admiration). Beneficence and good will, however, bring forth the will to honour; and the sentiment of reverence is born in a situation where will to honour predominates. Thus, as a result of this difference in power, tenderness corresponds to reverence or, in a lesser degree of intensity, benevolence to respect; they represent the two poles of sentiment on which Gemeinschaft is based, in case there exists a definite difference of power. The existence of such motives makes possible and probable a kind of Gemeinschaft even between master and servant, and this is the rule especially if it is supported and fostered, as in the case of kinship, by an intimate, lasting and secluded common life in the home.

The Gemeinschaft by blood, denoting unity of being, is developed and differentiated into Gemeinschaft of locality, which is based on a common habitat. A further differentiation leads to the Gemeinschaft of mind, which implies only co-operation and co-ordinated action for a common goal. Gemeinschaft of locality may be conceived as a community of physical life, just as Gemeinschaft of mind expresses the community of mental life. In conjunction with the others, this last type of Gemeinschaft represents the truly human and supreme form of community. Kinship Gemeinschaft signifies a common relation to, and share in, human beings themselves, while in Gemeinschaft of locality such a common relation is established through collective ownership of land; and, in Gemeinschaft of mind, the common bond is represented by sacred places and worshipped deities. All three types of Gemeinschaft are closely interrelated in space as well as in time. They are, therefore, also related in all such single phenomena and in their development, as well as in general human culture and its history. Wherever human beings are related through their wills in an organic manner and affirm each other, we find one or another of the three types of Gemeinschaft. Either the earlier type involves the later one, or the later type has developed to relative independence from some earlier one. It is, therefore, possible to deal with (1) kinship, (2) neighbourhood and (3) friendship as definite and meaningful derivations of these original categories.

The house constitutes the realm and, as it were, the body of kinship. Here people live together under one protecting roof. Here they share their possessions and their pleasures; they feed from the same supply, they sit at the same table. The dead are venerated here as invisible spirits, as if they were still powerful and held a protecting hand over their family. Thus, common fear and common honour ensure peaceful living and co-operation with greater certainty. The will and spirit of kinship is not confined within the walls of the house nor bound up with physical proximity; but, where it is strong and alive in the closest and most intimate relationship, it can live on itself, thrive on memory alone, and overcome any distance by its feelings and its imagination of nearness and common activity. Nevertheless, it seeks all the more for physical proximity and is loath to give it up, because such nearness alone will fulfil the desire for love. The ordinary human being, therefore—in the long run and for the average of cases—feels best and most cheerful if he is surrounded by his family and relatives. He is among his own.

Neighbourhood describes the general character of living together in the rural village. The proximity of dwellings, the communal fields, and even the mere contiguity of holdings necessitate many contacts of human beings and cause inurement to and intimate knowledge of one another. They also necessitate co-operation in labour, order and management, and lead to common supplication for grace and mercy to the gods and spirits of land and water who bring blessing or menace with disaster. Although essentially based upon proximity of habitation, this neighbourhood type of Gemeinschaft can nevertheless persist during separation from the locality, but it then needs to be supported still more than ever by well-defined habits o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword—Towards a Theory of Communities
• Introduction
• Part I: Theoretical Preliminaries to the Study of Community
• Part II: The Sociology of Rural British Communities
• Part III: Peasants and Peasant Society in Southern Italy
• Part IV: The Sociology of the Inner City
• Part V: The Sociology Study of Suburban Communities
• Part VI: Lloyd Warner’s Yankee City Studies
• Part VII: The Sociology of Community—Appraisals of the Field