The concept of community is multifaceted and often used loosely in social sciences, incorporating various definitions and types, ranging from sociological to geographical interpretations. Historically, figures like F. Tönnies emphasized community as an organic, cohesive social collective, while others later highlighted its territorial aspects. The changing nature of community dynamics, influenced by modernity, urbanization, and technology, suggests a shift towards complex relationships and a blurred distinction between communities.

1. Community

2. • Like the concept of society, the concept of community is ill-defined and loosely
used in social sciences.
• It is a term having numerous meanings both sociological and non-sociological.
• It is used in an omnibus way to refer to a wide variety of specific social units.
• In common parlance, the word ‘community’ is used for a collection of people who
do related kinds of work, such as the “teachers community” or the “doctors
community”.
• It is also used to denote a collection of people who share something in common as
the “Hindu community”, the “Parsi community”, or the “Christian community” without
necessarily living in a particular area.
• Sometimes, it is used to describe a supposedly coherent group, such as
‘international community.
• Such loose use of the word ‘community is always misleading and indicate just to
amorphous mass.

3. • The term has been used in the sociological literature to refer directly to types of
population settlements, such as rural community or urban community, to
supposedly ideal-typical ways of life in such places; and to social networks whose
members share common characteristics apart from or in addition to common
location.
• It has also been used to focus primarily cultural differences as traditional
communities and modem communities.

4. • A nineteenth century sociol­
ogist, F. Tonnies, who has been described
as the founder of the theory of community, defined ‘community in his
book Geminschaft and Gesallchaft (Community and Society) “as an
organic, ‘natural’ kind of social collectivity whose members are
bound together by a sense of belonging, created out of everyday
contacts covering the whole range of human activities”.
• Society – associations in which self interest is primary justification of
Membership.
• Tonnies contrasted this type of collectivity with another, called an
association, which is consciously organised for specific purposes
and whose members are bound together by common regulations or
interests.

5. • In nineteenth century thought this form of social association was
characterised by a high degree of personal intimacy, emotional depth,
moral commitment, social cohesion, and continuity in time.
• It was feared that these were precisely the features which were
disappearing in the transition from a rural-based to urban industrial
society.

6. Definitions:
• There have been many attempts to define the concept community. These have
taken two distinct directions—the ‘organic’ conception and the ‘ecological’
conception of community.
• Scholars (such as F. Tonnies and Max Weber), who have perused the organic
conception, placed emphasis primarily on belongingness, close personal contacts
and identity of interests as the chief character sties of community, while the
followers of second conception, i.e., ecological, have highlighted its geographical or
territorial character.
• For them, it is a collectivity the members of which share a common territorial base
of operations for daily activities.

7. As R.E. Park (1921) writes:
“Community, in the broadest sense of the term, has a spatial and a
geographical connotation.” This geographical conception of community
involves the idea of a definite and permanent occupation of a given
territory. But community is not a mere geographical expression.
The relations among the people resident within an area must be such as to
constitute those people a community. There must be some degree of
mutuality, organisation and consensus, some interaction and
communication. By ‘community’, Weber meant that members “known each
other” and have a degree of common consciousness and identity and
exclude those unlike themselves.

8. MacIver and Page write (1949):
• “Wherever the members of any group—small or large—live together in such a way that they share, not
this or that particular interest, but the basic conditions of life, we call that group a community.”
• At other place, they have defined it as “a strongly knit group occupying a single geographical area and
living a common life”.
• Sociologically, the idea of community often includes some commitment, identity and a feeling of
common living and shared fate.
• Thus, close-knit neighbourhood or religious groups are commu­
nities. In this sense, Weber regarded
status groups, like Indian castes, as communities.
• But MacIver and Page here differed with Weber who has not regarded castes as communities. They have
stated, “a social caste has social coherence but it lacks the community’s territorial basis”.
• Many sociologists (past and present) have attached much importance to the territorial character of the
community as we see in the following definitions.

9. For the last few years, this third sense of community is gaining ground and has been widely used. The old
territorial character of the community (closed boundary) has relatively little to do and more or less given up
in favour of quality of relationships (a sense of belonging and shared identity).
Summarising the ideas of different writers, the characteristics of community may be stated as under:
(1) A grouping of people.
(2) A delimited geographical area or locality (not much applicable to modem communities).
(3) A common culture and a social system which organises their activities.
(4) Consciousness among the members about their unity and a sense of belongingness (we-feeling).
(5) Act collectively in an organised manner.
(6) A division of labour into specialised and interdependent functions.

10. • the essence of community is a sense of common bond, the sharing of an identity,
membership in a group, holding some things physical or spiritual, in common esteem,
coupled with the acknowl­
edgement of rights and obligations with reference to all
others so identified (Alex Inkeles).
• The natural small community of permanent residents such as a village, a town, or a
neighbourhood combines all these elements.
• F. Tonnies (1887), L. Wirth (1938) and many other sociologists contend that as
community grows in size, the nature of relationships between its member’s changes
accordingly.
• Wirth noted that the size of the community prevents residents from getting to know
most of the people in the community. It also facilitates spatial (or physical) separation,
based on race, ethnicity, social class and lifestyles.

11. • Physical proximity, though an important element of community, does not itself make a
community.
• Direct face-to-face interaction can be replaced to some degree by symbolic interaction
fostered by the media of communication.
• Communities may be large as much as a vast nation or they may be very small like a
primitive tribe, a horde, a nomadic group, or neighbourhood.
• A village, a town or a metropolis are other examples of a community.
• Community exists within greater communities—the town within a state, the state within
a nation and the nation within the world community.
• There are certain human groupings for which there is no clear-cut answer about their
community character.
• Such groups may be termed as borderline cases such as a monastery, a convent, an
immigrant group or a prison. MacIver and Page have accepted these groups as a
community.

12. Changing concept of community:
• The stable, solidary and intimate primary group type of ‘perfect community’
is fast disappearing as a result of industrialisation, urbanisation, modern
means of communication and information technology.
• The local unit is increasingly absorbed into the larger economic and political
society.
• Individuals no longer live wholly or even largely within the primary group
but are oriented with reference to the larger social world outside.

13. • Individual interests, transcending the locality, are integrated on a national
or international level.
• As contacts have become more varied and extensive, they have also
become more formal and external.
• The person is fractionalised, participating in each of his several or many
groupings with only a limited aspect of his total self As a concrete, total
personality, he is commanded by no one group, not even by his family.
• Intimacy has given way to acquaintanceship or to anonymity on the basis
of above ideas some sociologists have put forth a thesis known as “loss
of community”.

14. • Old characteristics of community, i.e., locality and community sentiment or ‘we-
feeling’ are being eroded by the forces of modernity.
• These forces have fractured the myth of ‘homogeneous community’.
• The ‘Muslim community”, the ‘Hindu community’, the ‘Black commu­
nity’ or the
‘women’s community’ are now fractured into feminists versus conservatives or liberals
versus conservatives or various other strands (leftist versus rightest) of opinions.
• At many times, it is seen that women do not necessarily side with women just because
they are women or belong to women community.
• In the end, we may conclude that the concept of community has become
uncommonly elastic when we hear about the newly developed concepts like ‘global
village’ or ‘global community.
• Thus, this concept is now no more limited to a single or limited geographical area.

15. The distinction between community and society as follows:
1. Society is a web social relationships. But community consists of a group of
individuals. It is a specific group.
2. Society is abstract. Community is concrete.
3. A definite geographical area is not necessary for society. But a definite
geographical area is essential for a community. It is bound by the territorial units.
4. There can be more than one community in a society. Most societies consist of
more than one community, varying in size, physical appearance, organization and
specialized functions.
But there cannot be more than one society in a community.
5. Society is an intangible artifact. But community is a natural entity.
6. In the society, the group is merely means to an end.
But in the community, the group has a life of its own, superior to that of its
temporary members. The group is an end in itself.

16. 7. Community sentiment or a sense of unity is not essential in a society.
But community sentiment is indispensable for a community.
8. In a society the common objectives are extensive and coordinated.
But in a community, the common objectives are comparatively less extensive and coordi­
nated.
9. In a society, the common interests and common objectives are not necessary.
But in a community, a common agreement of interests and objectives necessary.
10. In the society, members have doctrine, public opinion, contractual solidarity and individual
will.
But in the community, members have faith, customs, natural solidarity and a common will.
A community may be big or small. A big community, such as a nation, contains within it a number
of small communities and groups with more close, numerous common qualities. Small
communities like village or neighborhood are the examples of the primitive world. Both the types
of communities, big or small, are essential to the full development of life.