ancient cities

formed by kin and clan, the question remains of
whether employing the term community is even
applicable in these instances.
Thirdly, the dis-embedding of community from
local sites of social interaction, due to developments
in media and communicative technology,
has decisively altered the means by which community
is constituted. In this view, community has
become less dependent upon face-to-face forms of
social interaction and more upon virtual networks
of connectivity. Accordingly, the emergence of new
communicative technologies, such as the proliferation
of personal and professional social networking
sites on the Internet, offer immense potential
with regard to the fostering of social bonds across
lines of both distance and difference. Although
debates continue as to the actual rather than potential
degree of democratization such innovations
facilitate, the growing predominance of virtual
networking supports the thesis that spatial and
residential proximity are no longer defining prerequisites
for the constitution of community.
Undoubtedly, innovations in virtual technology
have greatly facilitated the expression of new
forms of community and group membership.
Although care is needed to avoid the conflation of
the idea of connectivity with that of community,
the type of attachments formed in virtual networks
can, if they are not communities in themselves,
certainly provide the basis for them. In this regard,
the claim that virtual communities exist in parallel
expression with grounded communities is a highly
plausible one. While such a claim collapses the
distinction between real and imagined communities,
a key point of contention involves a questioning
of the degree of obligation and commitment
such communities seemingly require. If face-toface
interaction and residential location are no
longer the primary determinants of community
belonging, the episodic nature of virtual communities
is indicative of their highly personalized and
compartmentalized nature.
Rather than being rendered obsolete by the transformative
impact of the effects of globalization, the
importance of community in urban studies today
arguably lies in the achievement of newly emergent
forms of belonging. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman
has suggested that much contemporary scholarship
has demonstrated a veritable “lust” for community
in this regard. As the global economy becomes
Community
175
increasingly dependent upon the transnational flow
of people, capital, goods, and services, the changing
face of international mobilities and virtual technologies
continues to fundamentally reconfigure the
form and function of community in everyday life.
Alan Gerard Bourke
See also Chicago School of Urban Sociology; Community
Development; Community Studies; Gated Community;
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft; Human Ecology
Further Readings
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2001. Community: Seeking Safety in
an Insecure World. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Caldeira, Teresa P. R. 1996. “Fortified Enclaves: The
New Urban Segregation.” Public Culture 8(2):303–28.
Calhoun, Craig. 1998. “Community without Propinquity
Revisited: Communications Technology and the
Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere.”
Sociological Inquiry 68(3):373–97.
Desai, Ashwin. 2002. We Are the Poors: Community
Struggles in Post-apartheid South Africa. New York:
Monthly Review Press.
Durkheim, Émile. 1984. The Division of Labour in
Society. London: Macmillan.
Hampton, Keith and Barry Wellman. 2003.
“Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports
Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb.”
City and Community 2(3):277–311.
Park, Robert. 1952. Human Communities: The City and
Human Ecology. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and
Revival of American Community. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Shatkin, Gavin. 2007. Collective Action and Urban
Poverty Alleviation: Community Organizations and
the Struggle for Shelter in Manila. Aldershot, UK:
Ashgate.
Stoller, Paul and Jasmin T. McConatha. 2001. “City Life:
West African Communities in New York.” Journal of
Contemporary Ethnography 30(6):651–77.
Tönnies, Ferdinand. 1963. Community and Society. New
York: Harper.
Vromen, Ariadne. 2003. “Community-based Activism
and Change: The Cases of Sydney and Toronto.” City
and Community 2(1):47–69.
Wacquant, Loïc. 1993. “Urban Outcasts: Stigma and
Division in the Black American Ghetto and the French
Urban Periphery.” International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research 17(3):366–83.