Reply to comment

I like the phrase used by Martin and Mohanty: "Conceptualizing community differently without dismissing its appeal and importance." I enjoy the wording of this idea, becasue this is a very similar topic to one that was discussed in my Urban Culture and Society class. We were all told at the beginning of class that it probably be the first and only time that we would hear a sociology professor say that he hated "community". The context of this statement was in the viewing of three different film clips in which the word "community" was thrown around arbitrarily. It was used to refer to a phyiscal space, different groups of people residing to, and a racial group among others. These different interpretations are certainly all valid, like the ones presented in the articles, however they were approached in very strange ways and each person didn't want to see another's view of community. Misunderstanding was caused deliberately in order to take advantage. I'm afraid that "community"is a word that is all too quickly becoming trivialized.