HESP ReSET Project, State University of Novosibirsk

SOCIAL IDENTITIES IN TRANSFORMING SOCIETIES

Summer School 2006 

Module: Community and Identity (Richard Jenkins) 

Four half day sessions

Basic core reading: 

(1) Zygmunt Bauman, Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World, (Polity, 2001)

(2) Karen A Cerulo, ‘Identity Construction: New issues, new directions’, Annual Review of Sociology 1997.

(3) Anthony P Cohen The Symbolic Construction of Community (Tavistock, 1985; later Routledge).

(4) Gerard Delanty, Community (Routledge, 2003).

(5) Richard Jenkins, Social Identity (2nd edition, Routledge, 2004): Chapter 10.

(6) Joel M Podolny and Karen L Page, ‘Network Forms of Organization’, Annual Review of Sociology 1998.

(7) Alejandro Portes ‘Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology’, Annual Review of Sociology 1998.

(8) Etienne Wenger, ‘Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction’. Downloaded from Wenger’s own web-site: www.ewenger.com

Session One: Concepts of Community

This doesn’t claim to cover anything but it will introduce what I think are the five most important (and overlapping) meanings of the word ‘community’:

• Community as Location: Place and residence
• Community as Collectivity: Membership and belonging
• Community as Quality of Life: Security and safety
• Community as Connections: Networks and capital
• Community as Practice: Knowledge and virtual relationships

 

I will also briefly discuss (a) the other sense in which the word ‘community’ is used in social science, in the context of research methods: the ‘community study as a pragmatic approach to doing research, and (b) the rhetorical political uses of the word ‘community’. In the other sessions I will focus on some of the above meanings of community.

Session Two Co-existence and belonging

Bauman, Cohen, Delanty (chs. 1-4)

Session Three Social capital and security

Portes. See also:

J. Farr ‘Social Capital: A Conceptual History’, Political Theory, vol. 32 (2004), pp. 6-33

I. Falk and S Kilpatrick, ‘What is Social Capital? A Study of Interaction in a Rural Community’, Sociologia Ruralis, vol. 40 (2000), pp. 1-24.

S. S. Smith and J. Kulynych, ‘It may be social, but why is it capital?’, Politics and Society, vol. 30 (2002), pp. 149-86.

D. Mihaylova, Social Capital in Eastern and Central Europe, Budapest: CEU Central for Policy Studies (2004)

Session Four Postmodern community?

Cerulo, Bauman, Podolny and Page, Wenger. See also:

E. Wenger, ‘Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems’, Organization, vol. 7 (2000), pp. 225-46.

© Àäìèíèñòðàöèÿ ïðîåêòà “Social Identities in Transforming Societies” 2005 ã. Âñå ïðàâà íà ìàòåðèàëû ïðåäñòàâëåííûå íà ñàéòå ïðèíàäëåæàò óêàçàííûì àâòîðàì èëè àäìèíèñòðàöèè ïðîåêòà è îõðàíÿþòñÿ çàêîíîäàòåëüñòâîì îá àâòîðñêèõ ïðàâàõ, ëþáîå èñïîëüçîâàíèå áåç ðàçðåøåíèÿ ïðàâîîáëàäàòåëåé çàïðåùàåòñÿ.