UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

Generally "community" has positive connotations, as communities provide identity, companionship, support, yet communities can also be constricting, parochial, exclusionary. Communities are not static: They come into being, evolve and may dissolve. Living in Liquid Times (Bauman 2007) the certainty of modernity "evaporates" and uncertainty permeates our daily lives destabilizing our sense of "belonging." Community has also become a principal arena of organized collective action to change or preserve the status quo. Communities are thus complex, dynamic, contested, and contradictory. This course explores these issues in theory and practice, from the academic literature to its use society at large. The idea of community is contested: its definition is not clear lacking a consistent body of knowledge with theories about its origins, functions, and use in contemporary society. Scholarship in post-colonial and transnational studies has redrawn conceptual maps: The course also explores decolonizing traditional understanding(s) of community.