Publication type
Journal Article
Author
Publication date
April 1, 2007
Abstract:
Studies of community undertaken over a period of some forty-five years by the author and his colleagues are re-considered to show how the signifcanve of 'communities-in-the-mind' has been inadequately appreciated. The distinction made by Clifford Geertz between 'experience-near' and 'experience-distant' is used to sharpen up certain assumptions and approaches of community sociologists, including Frankenberg. Some possible explanations for the decline in the perceived importance of community studies from the late 1960s are discussed in the context of the growing centrality of social class in sociological analysis in the 1970s and 1980s. Reference is made to recent research on personal communities by Liz Spencer and the author to illustrate how an ellision between 'experience-near' and 'experience-distant' approaches may be achieved. It is concluded that the imputed community-on-the-ground, often based on materialistic assumptions, should not be conceptually privileged over the real community-in-the-mind.
Published in
Ethnologie Française
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 37 , p.223 -232
ISSN
462616
Link
- http://www.puf.com/Serial.aspx?serial_id=000256
Notes
Not held in Library or ASL.
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