A community is a social unit of divergent size that shares a common goal, ideal and values. This is a standard definition in most theories of communities (cf. Canuto, Marcello A. & Jason Yaeger (2000), Christensen, K., et al. (2003)) The concept is thoroughly investigated in both psychology and the social sciences e.g. sociology, anthropology. There are of course many types of communities, and many different philosophical views on communities (e.g. Vico, Kant, Royce, Dewey, Gadamer, Apel). Some researchers do not even accept the term community. Stacey (1969) called it a non-concept; other researchers offer classifications of communities and divide them into general categories as: Place, Interest and Communion (Willmott 1986; Lee and Newby 1983; and Crow and Allen 1995). Place is understood in geographical terms e.g. a community can develop at a working place. According to the literature, this type of community is also called a location; hence, it is the place and time of the community that creates it. The second category – the community of interest is based on a shared interest rather than a location even though these categories may overlap. The third category is communion. In the weakest form of the concept it is as a sense of attachment to a place, group or idea (whether there is a ‘spirit of community’ or a “sense of community). In its strongest form ‘communion’ entails a profound meeting or encounter – not just with other people, but also with God and/or creation. Of course these categories overlap; e.g. fan cultures could involve both place interest and communion. This classification of communities seems to imply a growth of complexity from place to communion, however as the categories mingle it is quite difficult to say that a religious community is more complex than a workplace community. However, they are, of course, different in content.

 

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