"Though similar to 'community' in its warm connotations, 'neighborhood' can be defined much more precisely...it is a subdivision of the city, scaled to the practical, physical social, and emotional needs of ordinary human beings" (Fleming 45). The neighborhood is the physical space where communities can be formed. And there are probably a lot of different communities within a neighborhood.
This helps me immensely since I used to think of a community as a purely physical or shared space, but reading Fleming has helped me move past that and think of community more as a feeling - positive or negative. Community is a purely human creation - I think. Although, I also think that it's natural for people to want to feel a connection to something.
It is interesting to note that communities are usually described positively. For example, the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago. "It was a place that also exhibited all the features of social organization - including a 'sense of community, positive neighborhood identification, and explicit norms and sanctions against aberrant behavior'" (Fleming 73). People always want a sense of community - well-defined social norms and a sense of belonging.
Later Fleming discusses integrating public housing residents into suburban areas (which are another whole mess), but "public housing residents apparently do not want to leave the central city, do not want to abandon their family, friends, and neighborhood to live among potentially hostile whites in automobile-dependent suburbs" (Fleming 123). No matter how "terrible" a neighborhood may be (due to various reasons), people still develop a sense of community. Which further reinforces my idea that community is a feeling.
I find the case of North Town Village very interesting. It is very artificial, forced community building. At least the developers realized that "simply putting residents side by side...would not be enough to promote community among them" (Fleming 137). They "solved" this problem by making a community covenant (Fleming 137) and with the Story Telling Project (Fleming 148). However, the community covenant still treated the low-income residents as "others." And they had to define language that would be used to describe low-income community members in a non-offensive manner. Couldn't they just call them residents like the "market-price residents"? At least they tried.
In reading this, I was thinking of ways that community could be negative even though it has such a positive connotation. I started thinking of online neighborhoods (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that allow for communities that are potentially destructive to the members. These neighborhoods allow people with, for example, eating disorders to come together and share stories. This is not inherently harmful, but there is nothing and no one that really regulates these communities. Sure there is acceptable behavior, etc., but who is to say that people really follow it. So these communities develop into negative places because instead of sharing "positive" support, the members post tips and tricks about how to hide food, stave off hunger, and pictures of Holocaust victims for "Thinspiration."
So I'll relate this back to a community in a physical, rather than internet, neighborhood. There are neighborhoods where the community is formed by mutual terror. Like the north end of Flint. The social norms of the community are set by the lack of safety. So that is another more physical example of a negative physical community.
In general, I am just annoyed by urban redevelopment projects because they don't take into account the residents who actually live there. And in trying to create a community, they destroy one instead. Maybe it's not the "ideal" community (whatever that is), but it's a community.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Proximity and the Post Colonial Part 2
". . . crossing borders previously thought to be impermeable" (Flemming, 24).
By itself this sounds so lovingly optimistic. The breakdown of controlled access. However, Flemming is not Post Colonial, and he sees this as the destruction of proximity, a vital component of citizenship and community. It is literary the kriptonite of democracy. An empirical Post Colonial observation of these permeable borders reveals something more negative than positive. (Warning: I am going to speak generally and broadly) The transition from Colonial to Post Colonial is the traditionally defined by the change in proximity from the colonizer and the colonized. I.E. the colonizer leaves. What they usually leave behind is a discursive influence that determines political structures, socioeconomic status, and communication networks. The utopian idea that when the Colonizer leaves, the Colonized take control of the community. What has been happening however is that the colonized have regained control over the geographical network but not the discursive network.
Thus borders between post colonial communities and the colonizer are only permeable because their discourses are now shared and parallel due to a previous close proximity, which gave way to a colonized community. Thus values of community, discourse, production, economics, genre etc. are fed continuously in the post colonized.
Blogging for instance has grown widely in Post Colonial networks. Groups like Rising Voices provide grants and instruction for implementing the technological and educational needs to bring blogging platforms to these communities. They even have an instructional manual on how to set up a local wifi network in poor agricultural communities. They even had a discussion on their listserv about whether or not blogging hurt or helped indigenous knowledge.
The idea is that these communities become more self sustaining through blogging. In a word, blogging is a forum where communities resolves conflict (going with Flemming's lexicon here). That conflict, matters of concern, or something to that affect, in these post-colonial communities has been everything from preserving a language (though many blog in English) to protecting indigenous land.
I guess what I am getting to is that issues of proximity are more complex that Flemming seems to want to admit. The colonized history of the wold prevents us from limiting conversations of community direct and current proximity. I'm not saying that shared discourses between two geographic, political entities makes a community, but it does have impact how community functions in each of those places.
By itself this sounds so lovingly optimistic. The breakdown of controlled access. However, Flemming is not Post Colonial, and he sees this as the destruction of proximity, a vital component of citizenship and community. It is literary the kriptonite of democracy. An empirical Post Colonial observation of these permeable borders reveals something more negative than positive. (Warning: I am going to speak generally and broadly) The transition from Colonial to Post Colonial is the traditionally defined by the change in proximity from the colonizer and the colonized. I.E. the colonizer leaves. What they usually leave behind is a discursive influence that determines political structures, socioeconomic status, and communication networks. The utopian idea that when the Colonizer leaves, the Colonized take control of the community. What has been happening however is that the colonized have regained control over the geographical network but not the discursive network.
Thus borders between post colonial communities and the colonizer are only permeable because their discourses are now shared and parallel due to a previous close proximity, which gave way to a colonized community. Thus values of community, discourse, production, economics, genre etc. are fed continuously in the post colonized.
Blogging for instance has grown widely in Post Colonial networks. Groups like Rising Voices provide grants and instruction for implementing the technological and educational needs to bring blogging platforms to these communities. They even have an instructional manual on how to set up a local wifi network in poor agricultural communities. They even had a discussion on their listserv about whether or not blogging hurt or helped indigenous knowledge.
The idea is that these communities become more self sustaining through blogging. In a word, blogging is a forum where communities resolves conflict (going with Flemming's lexicon here). That conflict, matters of concern, or something to that affect, in these post-colonial communities has been everything from preserving a language (though many blog in English) to protecting indigenous land.
I guess what I am getting to is that issues of proximity are more complex that Flemming seems to want to admit. The colonized history of the wold prevents us from limiting conversations of community direct and current proximity. I'm not saying that shared discourses between two geographic, political entities makes a community, but it does have impact how community functions in each of those places.
Proximity and the Post Colonial Part 1
Flemming introduced a lot of ideas about how productive dialectic occurs in the various ways people organize themselves in terms of proximity and conflict.
He states:
"We remain physical creatures, inherently embodies, inextricably situated, resolutely sensitive to proximity; and the weakest and most vulnerable among us remain the most spatially dependent of all." (Flemming, 15)
And . . .
"The case study at the heart of this book has presented strong evidence for a close relationship between physical location and individual and social welfare in our society and thus good reason to think that place and rhetorical well being are linked as well. The scenes depicted in Part 2 were materially so different from one another, and associated with such dramatic differences in socioeconomic status and opportunity that it seems noncontroversial to claim that different places in the country offer residents different changes for health, prosperity, and happiness. Place matters, and this is as true for rhetoric as for education and employment." (Flemming, 184)
And . . .
"Some of this can be explained, of course, by the changing conditions of residence, work, and play in our time, changes that have allowed us to think that we are less dependent on place than we once were, that physical proximity is no longer relevant, that cities have become obsolete, that new modes of transportation and communication have accomplished 'an awesome technological destruction of distance,' that the 'new' economy, driven by these less attached to and less dependent on place than ever before. The evidence for these changes has been summarized elsewhere: corporations dispersed across the globe ,their components linked by high-speed communication and transportation networks; a dramatic rise in the mobility of capital, with international trade increasingly comprised of financial services and investment funds rather than raw materials and agricultural goods; and labor astonishingly mobile as well, with jobs relocating overnight from one place to another, crossing borders well, with jobs relocating overnight from one place to another, crossing borders previously thought to be impermeable." (Flemming, 24)
He states:
"We remain physical creatures, inherently embodies, inextricably situated, resolutely sensitive to proximity; and the weakest and most vulnerable among us remain the most spatially dependent of all." (Flemming, 15)
And . . .
"The case study at the heart of this book has presented strong evidence for a close relationship between physical location and individual and social welfare in our society and thus good reason to think that place and rhetorical well being are linked as well. The scenes depicted in Part 2 were materially so different from one another, and associated with such dramatic differences in socioeconomic status and opportunity that it seems noncontroversial to claim that different places in the country offer residents different changes for health, prosperity, and happiness. Place matters, and this is as true for rhetoric as for education and employment." (Flemming, 184)
And . . .
"Some of this can be explained, of course, by the changing conditions of residence, work, and play in our time, changes that have allowed us to think that we are less dependent on place than we once were, that physical proximity is no longer relevant, that cities have become obsolete, that new modes of transportation and communication have accomplished 'an awesome technological destruction of distance,' that the 'new' economy, driven by these less attached to and less dependent on place than ever before. The evidence for these changes has been summarized elsewhere: corporations dispersed across the globe ,their components linked by high-speed communication and transportation networks; a dramatic rise in the mobility of capital, with international trade increasingly comprised of financial services and investment funds rather than raw materials and agricultural goods; and labor astonishingly mobile as well, with jobs relocating overnight from one place to another, crossing borders well, with jobs relocating overnight from one place to another, crossing borders previously thought to be impermeable." (Flemming, 24)
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
"It is important to realize that communities like these are not physical but symbolic entities, constructed for a complex mix of reasons around affinities rather than visible borders, which means they are notoriously hard to pin down as an identifiable thing, a stable group, or a discourse with explicit defining features. In fact, the most significant feature of a community is not what or where it is (with its shifting features and overlapping boundaries) but how it functions," (Flower, 10).
So, where is the public? The quote above seems to fit in with Dewey's concern that the public is something that needs to found. In this case, Flower offers a description of community that also identifies how to find it. A place to start may be what affinities can cause a community to gather around them.
Flower states,"The community literacy I am hoping to document is an intercultural dialogue with others on issues that they identify as sites of struggle," (Flower, 19).
These "sites of struggle" are approached by community members in order to solve them. Can this process create a community? "Community literacy happens at a busy intersection of multiple literacies and diverse discourses. It begins its work when community folk, urban teens, community supporters, college-student mentors, and university faculty start naming and solving problems together," (Flower, 19). Thus enters Dewey's idea of inquiry, which allows allows these problems to be solved.
But the definition of community can become more complicated especially when trying to distinguish it from the term "public."
"And public, collaborative engagement often starts with but does not end with personal inquiry. Community literacy, then, attempts to move writers toward transformative action and collaborative engagement guided by a particular image ofpublic and rhetorical action. These choices can be defined by the ways this symbolic or rhetorical community tries to function," (Flower, 20).
So, where is the public? The quote above seems to fit in with Dewey's concern that the public is something that needs to found. In this case, Flower offers a description of community that also identifies how to find it. A place to start may be what affinities can cause a community to gather around them.
Flower states,"The community literacy I am hoping to document is an intercultural dialogue with others on issues that they identify as sites of struggle," (Flower, 19).
These "sites of struggle" are approached by community members in order to solve them. Can this process create a community? "Community literacy happens at a busy intersection of multiple literacies and diverse discourses. It begins its work when community folk, urban teens, community supporters, college-student mentors, and university faculty start naming and solving problems together," (Flower, 19). Thus enters Dewey's idea of inquiry, which allows allows these problems to be solved.
But the definition of community can become more complicated especially when trying to distinguish it from the term "public."
"And public, collaborative engagement often starts with but does not end with personal inquiry. Community literacy, then, attempts to move writers toward transformative action and collaborative engagement guided by a particular image ofpublic and rhetorical action. These choices can be defined by the ways this symbolic or rhetorical community tries to function," (Flower, 20).
Monday, February 8, 2010
And one other thing...
The more I read, the more I wonder how community literacy fits in with conflict resolution. It seems as if it can be used in that capacity, but where exactly does it fit?
Open Mind & Understanding Discourse
OPEN MIND: a mind willing to accept new ideas according to Google Define.
I have always thought that keeping an open mind is one of the most important things a person can do in order to help society to run smoothly. I think that things would be a lot different if only people were willing to give unknown ideas a try.
Anyway, I feel that these readings today just solidified that idea. Especially Peck et al. It was fascinating to read about their program and how it was able to make a difference in the school. Sadly this type of program would not be possible everywhere. And I fear that situations like this where one group of people doesn't understand the other is only getting worse with the "digital divide," not just in class, but also in generations.
Understanding Discourse.
In the readings for this week I was definitely able to understand discourses better. According the Higgin's piece "Community Literacy to them was "search for an alternative discourse" ...a way for people to acknowledge each other's multiple forms of expertise through talk and text and to draw on their differences as a resource for addressing shared problems. "
In Peck et al. "the aim of community literacy is to build a discourse in which people not only acknowledge difference (e.g., where urban teens and university mentors can talk about race), but in which people do productive work together."
Ah, in a perfect word, where minds are open :)
I feel that these definitions are pointing towards the same idea, which Jessica describer in her post---if I may quote her---"community literacy was being literate in the forms of communication of the community you are a member of." I agree and I couldn't have put it any better :) I Think these definitions are pointing to this idea. In Higgins they are describing community literacy as a building of a new literacy in which all members can understand and communicate in. In Peck, its is the same thing-finding a way for people to share a literacy and therefore be productive together.
I have always thought that keeping an open mind is one of the most important things a person can do in order to help society to run smoothly. I think that things would be a lot different if only people were willing to give unknown ideas a try.
Anyway, I feel that these readings today just solidified that idea. Especially Peck et al. It was fascinating to read about their program and how it was able to make a difference in the school. Sadly this type of program would not be possible everywhere. And I fear that situations like this where one group of people doesn't understand the other is only getting worse with the "digital divide," not just in class, but also in generations.
Understanding Discourse.
In the readings for this week I was definitely able to understand discourses better. According the Higgin's piece "Community Literacy to them was "search for an alternative discourse" ...a way for people to acknowledge each other's multiple forms of expertise through talk and text and to draw on their differences as a resource for addressing shared problems. "
In Peck et al. "the aim of community literacy is to build a discourse in which people not only acknowledge difference (e.g., where urban teens and university mentors can talk about race), but in which people do productive work together."
Ah, in a perfect word, where minds are open :)
I feel that these definitions are pointing towards the same idea, which Jessica describer in her post---if I may quote her---"community literacy was being literate in the forms of communication of the community you are a member of." I agree and I couldn't have put it any better :) I Think these definitions are pointing to this idea. In Higgins they are describing community literacy as a building of a new literacy in which all members can understand and communicate in. In Peck, its is the same thing-finding a way for people to share a literacy and therefore be productive together.
Community vs. Local Literacies
“Community literacy could be (but is not) another name for what Barton and Hamilton (1998) call ‘local literacies’ – the diverse, daily forms of reading and writing used by working-class people, often overlooked or dismissed in our preoccupation with the elite literacies of school or business” (Flower 18).
What???
I guess I was thinking of community literacy as local literacy - according to Flower's definition. I always thought that community literacy was being literate in the forms of communication of the community you are a member of, and with service learning, you bring a different type of literacy to a community. For example: Our lunchtime programs at local elementary schools. We go out into the East Lansing community - into elementary schools - and bring a new type of literacy, German, to the elementary school kids.
“Community literacy…is an intercultural dialogue with others on issues that they identify as sites of struggle. Community literacy happens at a busy intersection of multiple literacies and diverse discourses. It begins its work when community fold, urban teens, community supporters, college-student mentors, and university faculty start naming and solving problems together” (Flower 19).
However, this problem-solving approach makes a lot of sense, really, but I'm not sure how it relates to the service-learning I've done. My first experience with service learning was in the College of Ed. We went to local urban schools and helped a classroom teacher once a week. Sometimes I worked with individual students or groups of students. Other times I helped the teacher run experiments in the classroom. I'm not sure the College of Ed. really went out of the way to find a problem and a way to solve it. I don't think they really payed attention to the needs of the "customer" (as Flower said). So why did they call it service learning? I thought of it more as field work. Maybe they called it service learning because we were in an urban school helping the downtrodden minority.
Maybe I can make my work with German Outreach fit this definition. So it is increasingly important for students to learn a language other than English these days. There isn't a lot of money to fund these programs (problem identified by university faculty and community partners). So we go into the schools to expose the students to another language at an early age, and even if they don't end up choosing German, they have a positive experience learning a language and choose to study one in the future. Hmm... Not sure that fits either.
Flower does cite Dewey and his active approach to democracy and education, and I think that service learning fits right in with Dewey's approach of being an active participant.
So my question is why can't community literacy be local literacy, too? And don't we, when we go out into the community, pick up the literacy of that community?
What???
I guess I was thinking of community literacy as local literacy - according to Flower's definition. I always thought that community literacy was being literate in the forms of communication of the community you are a member of, and with service learning, you bring a different type of literacy to a community. For example: Our lunchtime programs at local elementary schools. We go out into the East Lansing community - into elementary schools - and bring a new type of literacy, German, to the elementary school kids.
“Community literacy…is an intercultural dialogue with others on issues that they identify as sites of struggle. Community literacy happens at a busy intersection of multiple literacies and diverse discourses. It begins its work when community fold, urban teens, community supporters, college-student mentors, and university faculty start naming and solving problems together” (Flower 19).
However, this problem-solving approach makes a lot of sense, really, but I'm not sure how it relates to the service-learning I've done. My first experience with service learning was in the College of Ed. We went to local urban schools and helped a classroom teacher once a week. Sometimes I worked with individual students or groups of students. Other times I helped the teacher run experiments in the classroom. I'm not sure the College of Ed. really went out of the way to find a problem and a way to solve it. I don't think they really payed attention to the needs of the "customer" (as Flower said). So why did they call it service learning? I thought of it more as field work. Maybe they called it service learning because we were in an urban school helping the downtrodden minority.
Maybe I can make my work with German Outreach fit this definition. So it is increasingly important for students to learn a language other than English these days. There isn't a lot of money to fund these programs (problem identified by university faculty and community partners). So we go into the schools to expose the students to another language at an early age, and even if they don't end up choosing German, they have a positive experience learning a language and choose to study one in the future. Hmm... Not sure that fits either.
Flower does cite Dewey and his active approach to democracy and education, and I think that service learning fits right in with Dewey's approach of being an active participant.
So my question is why can't community literacy be local literacy, too? And don't we, when we go out into the community, pick up the literacy of that community?
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