COMMUNITY

In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing a populated environment. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

In sociology, the concept of community has led to significant debate, and sociologists are yet to reach agreement on a definition of the term. There were ninety-four discrete definitions of the term by the mid-1950s.

Traditionally a "community" has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location.

The word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household. The word can also refer to the national community or international community.

The word "community" is derived from the Old French communit which is derived from the Latin communitas (cum, "with/together" + munus, "gift"), a broad term for fellowship or organized [2] society.

Since the advent of the Internet, the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations, as people can now virtually gather in an online community and share common interests regardless of physical location.

German sociologist Ferdinand Tnnies distinguished between two types of human association: Gemeinschaft (usually translated as "community") and Gesellschaft ("society" or "association").

If community exists, both freedom and security may exist as well. The community then takes on a life of its own, as people become free enough to share and secure enough to get along. The sense of connectedness and formation of social networks comprise what has become known as social capital

Social capital is defined by Robert D. Putnam as "the collective value of all social networks and species (who people know) and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other (norms of reciprocity)."[6] Social capital in action can be seen in all sorts of groups, including neighbors keeping an eye on each others' homes.

To what extent do participants in joint activities experience a sense of community?

In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis identify four elements of "sense of community": 1) membership, 2) influence, 3) integration and fulfillment of needs, and 4) shared emotional connection.

Cultural (or social) anthropology has traditionally looked at community through the lens of ethnographic fieldwork and ethnography continues to be an important methodology for study of modern communities. Other anthropological approaches that deal with various aspects of community include cross-cultural studies and the anthropology of religion.

Cultures in modern society are also studied in the fields of urban anthropology, ethnic studies, ecological anthropology, and psychological anthropology. Since the 1990s, internet communities have increasingly been the subject of research in the emerging field of cyber anthropology.

In this sense it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient settlement, whether a hamlet, village, town, or city.

The second meaning is similar to the usage of the term in other social sciences: a community is a group of people living near one another who interact socially. Social interaction on a small scale can be difficult to identify with archaeological data. Most reconstructions of social communities by archaeologists rely on the principle that social interaction is conditioned by physical distance.

Therefore a small village settlement likely constituted a social community, and spatial subdivisions of cities and other large settlements may have formed communities. Archaeologists typically use similarities in material culture from house types to styles of pottery to reconstruct communities in the past.

This is based on the assumption that people or households will share more similarities in the types and styles of their material goods with other members of a social community than [12] they will with outsiders.

In ecology, a community is an assemblage of populations of different species, interacting with one another.

Community ecology is the branch of ecology that studies interactions between and among species.

It considers how such interactions, along with interactions between species and the abiotic environment, affect community structure and species richness, diversity and patterns of abundance.

Species interact in three ways: competition, predation and mutualism. Competition typically results in a double negative that is both species lose in the interaction. Predation is a win/lose situation with one species winning. Mutualism, on the other hand, involves both species cooperating in some way, with both winning.

Community development, often linked with Community Work or Community Planning, is often formally conducted by nongovernment organizations (NGOs), universities or government agencies to progress the social well-being of local, regional and, sometimes, national communities.

Less formal efforts, called community building or community organizing, seek to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.[16] These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda.

Community development practitioners must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities' positions within the context of larger social institutions.

Community service is usually performed in connection with a nonprofit organization, but it may also be undertaken under the auspices of government, one or more businesses, or by individuals.

It is typically unpaid and voluntary. However, it can be part of alternative sentencing approaches in a justice system and it can be required by educational institutions.

A number of ways to categorize types of community have been proposed; one such breakdown is:

1. Geographic communities: range from the local neighborhood, suburb, village, town or city, region, nation or even the planet as a whole. These refer to communities of location.

2. Communities of culture: range from the local clique, sub-culture, ethnic group, religious, multicultural or pluralistic civilization, or the global community cultures of today. They may be included as communities of need or identity, such as disabled persons, or frail aged people.

3. Community organizations: range from informal family or kinship networks, to more formal incorporated associations, political decision making structures, economic enterprises, or professional associations at a small, national or international scale.

Communities are nested; one community can contain another for example a geographic community may contain a number of ethnic [28] communities.

Possibly the most common usage of the word "community" indicates a large group living in close proximity. Examples of local community include:

A municipality is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a town or village.

A neighborhood is a geographically localized community, often within a larger city or suburb.

A planned community is one that was designed from scratch and grew up more or less following the plan. Several of the world's capital cities are planned cities, notably Washington, D.C., in the United States, Canberra in Australia, and Braslia in Brazil. It was also common during the European colonization of the Americas to build according to a plan either on fresh ground or on the ruins of earlier Amerindian cities.

In some contexts, "community" indicates a group of people with a common identity other than location. Members often interact regularly. Common examples in everyday usage include:

A "professional community" is a group of people with the same or related occupations. Some of those members may join a professional society, making a more defined and formalized group. These are also sometimes known as communities of practice.

A virtual community is a group of people primarily or initially communicating or interacting with each other by means of information technologies, typically over the Internet, rather than in person. These may be either communities of interest, practice or communion. Research interest is evolving in the motivations for contributing to online communities.

Some communities share both location and other attributes. Members choose to live near each other because of one or more common interests.

A retirement community is designated and at least usually designed for retirees and seniors often restricted to those over a certain age, such as 56. It differs from a retirement home, which is a single building or small complex, by having a number of autonomous households.

An intentional community is a deliberate residential community with a much higher degree of social communication than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political or spiritual vision and share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include Amish villages, ashrams, cohousing, communes, ecovillages, housing cooperatives, kibbutzim, and land trusts.

A business community is often an administrative community with possibilities to add CV's and other business-related information.

An interest community is a based on specialized areas such as art, golf or bird watching.

A general community is wider in its range opening for its users to create areas, pages and groups.

Special nature of human community

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