From Thick to Thin: The Seven Dimensions of Communality
From Thick to Thin: The Seven Dimensions of Communality
This chapter attempts to break away from the narrow and vague definitions of community that plague scholarship as much as popular thought. Rather than reduce community to a single facet of social reality, whether networks of ties or shared symbols, or begin with the dichotomizing frame of authentic/inauthentic community, this chapter depicts community as a seven dimensional social phenomenon. Different instantiations of community vary with regard to the thickness of their webs of social ties, practices of exchange and mutual aid, frequency and depth of talking, production of a symbolic or psychological sense of belonging, degree of economic interdependence, extent to which politics and justice reaffirm rather than sever relationships, and strength of a moral order emphasizing collective rather than private interests. While networked individualism, as a result, can be understood as a genuine instance of community, it remains relatively thin with respect to several of the dimensions of communality.
Keywords: Dimensions of communality, Webs of ties, Communal exchange, Talk, Sense of community, Economic community, Political community, Moral community, Networked individualism, Thick community
MIT Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
