Community A large number of people living together

Community

“A large number of people living together within a specific geographical area, sharing a common way of life in such a way, that they try to overcome most of their basic needs and problems from local resources and institutions. ” (Or)

This concept of community is of great importance for human beings, as said by M. Scott Peck, “There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community”. Moreover, in developing countries where the resources are limited with respect to their problems and needs, the concept of community has become vital. Because there it becomes very difficult for the government to meet individuals’ problems one by one, therefore, it takes them at community level so that more and effective results could be achieved in a short time.

Essentials of Community: Following are the features on the basis of which we can decide whether a particular group is a community or not: a) Locality: As for locality, a community occupies a specific territorial area to reside. It means the condition for a group to be a community is that they live together in a specific geographical boundary that provides them almost all the means of subsistence. They have schools, hospitals, shops, masjids, union councils and all other major social institutions and thus are self-sufficient in the fulfillment of their basic needs.

b) Community Sentiment: The community sentiment refers to the social coherence which community people inculcate within themselves. However, every community usually has two types of sentiments which are not found in other groups. Firstly, a sense of belonging to its territory and secondly, a sense of belonging to one another. It means all its people know one another and frequently meet at different occasions. A situation of primary group is mostly created among them. Cooperation and mutual help are the formations of mutual relationship. Similarly, they belong to their locality and have sentimental relationship with it. They are not ready to leave it at any cost.

c) Common Culture: The community people share a common culture. They have their own cultural norms which are shared by the community as a whole. These local norms are the product of their local social conditions and are different and more important than those of the general community. The community people consider them their glory and perform all their functions according to them. d) Permanency: A community is not transitory like a crowd. It essentially includes a permanent life in a definite place. e) Naturality: Communities are not made or created by an act of will but are natural. g) A Particular Name: Every community has some particular name.

Elements of Community: i) Security: The term security is very complex and comprehensive. Its meaning and scope differ from country to country in accordance with the prevailing legislations, traditions and ideals. As in some countries it includes only income security while in others it covers a wide field of social life. But the following definition will reveal the term in its true perspective, i. e. , “Social security is an attack on five giants, namely want, disease, ignorance, squalor and illness. ” (Sir William Beveridge) ii) Norms: Norms are the social rules that specify appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in given situations. They tell us what we “should, ” “ought” and “must” do and what we “should not, ” “ought not” and “must not” do. They are also known as the shared expectations or ideally expected manners of behaviour as they provide us guidance to align our actions with those of others when situations are unclear or ambiguous, and provide us standards by which we judge other people and make decisions about how we will interact with them.

iii) Values: Norms are the rules for behaviour but values are the broad ideas regarding what is desirable, correct and good that most members of a society share. They are so general and abstract that they do not explicitly specify which behaviours are acceptable and which are not. Instead they provide us with criteria and conceptions by which we evaluate people, objects and events as to their relative worth, merit, beauty or morality. It means that values are the goals or objectives to attain while norms are the institutional proceedure of getting these goals.

iv) Role & Status: In sociology social status is the honor or prestige attached to one’s (social) position in the society. It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son, or daughter, playmate, pupil, or teacher, etc. However, this social status can be determined in two ways, firstly, the position/status that is fixed for an individual at birth without reference to his/her inner abilities, this is called ascribed status. It has nothing to do with the specific qualities of the individuals rather it is attached just with the physical existence of an individual. Sex, age, race, ethnic group and family background all are the ascribed statuses of the individual. Secondly, one can earn his/her social status by his/her own achievements or as a result of the exercise of his/her knowledge, ability, skill and/or perseverance. This is known as achieved status and physician, engineer, teacher, college student, president, pastor, pickpocket, prostitute, etc. are all its examples.

While, on the other hand, role refers to the function or to the dynamic aspect of the corresponding status. It refers to a set of culturally defined rights and duties which the individuals have to perform in order to achieve or maintain a particular status. This is so because status is a cultural value attainable only through the prescribed ways of behaviour called social roles e. g. a professor enjoys his/her status in college due to his/her role of teaching class students. It means status depends upon role performance. Both of them are inseparable from each other or in another way they are the two faces of a sheet of paper. The only difference between them is that we occupy a status and play a role.

v) Power: Power is the ability of an individual or group to carry out its wishes or policies, and to control, manipulate or influence the behaviour of others. It is an important element of the community which is exercised through the formal and informal structures of the political institution of a community including governmental organizations. Its function or objective is to maintain law and order in the community and to promote social well-being of its people by taking all the appropriate and possible measures. vi) Social Control: The term social control is a collective one which combines all such factors and forces which go to make the members of a group to conform to the accepted ways of common living. It is essential for the smooth running of the community as it aims at an integrated community, whose social systems make a coherent whole. While without it there would be anarchy and disorganization. That is why, it is necessary for every community to have certain approved ways of doing and thinking so that chaos and destruction may be avoided.

vii) Ranks: Rank refers to the social or official position or standing. It is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians because in the social sciences, the term is often discussed in terms of “social stratification” which typically comprises of three layers: upper, middle, and lower. Thus the ranks help to understand the structure of a society as this class difference is intrinsic to the structure of any society and to a great extent ineradicable. viii) Facilities: The term facility refers to an installation, contrivance, or other thing which facilitates something. In a human settlement the facilities are usually of two types, i. e. , some those which are owned by the individuals or families, such as housing. While the other communal ones, which are owned by the group as a whole. These include roads, markets, water supply, schools, hospitals, etc. All these facilities and services, their upkeep (dependable maintenance and repair), sustainability, and the degree to which all the community members have access to them are of great importance for the community. Because these community facilities protect public safety and enhance the quality of their life.

Types of Community: Community can be of several types but the most important ones are as follows: 1) Urban Community: Urban community represents a larger community with regard to population and space structured with residential, commercial and industrial areas at a vast stretch of land. In it life is much busy, diversified and modern with regard to occupation, standard of living, etc. There are cultural and political activities besides economic ones. There is greater social mobility due to the life being more competitive and the social change with regard to ideas, customs, traditions, etc. is easily accepted. Formal methods of social control exist in it. All the facilities of modern civic life are available here. Social relationships among its individuals are impersonal and contractual and a high degree of complexity and heterogeneity is found in their living styles and identities. In short, it can be said that urban community is a symbol of progress of the people and the society. It has developed out of the growing needs of a given people and the improvement they have made in their social organization. It marks an advance stage in human settlement as well as a marked progress in human development.

2) Rural Community: Rural community is a natural phenomenon which is small in size of population and area of land. It is present in almost every society of the world having distinct culture and pattern of social life. It is actually a product of natural free will of the people having extreme similarity in their objectives and ambitions of living. It refers to a place where people live immediately on agriculture and other traditional occupations. But agriculture is the main identity of this kind of community. People, in such a community, have simple, informal and intimate interactional processes among them and the primary groups dominate the secondary ones. They have a high degree of homogeneity in their living styles and identities while the ratio of social change and social mobility is very low because of their limited resources and skills. They have no diversity and innovation as the use of technology in rural community is very less. Basic urban/modern facilities like schools, hospitals, markets, municipal offices, police stations, etc. are absent and the people share the features of primitive mode of life. Their ranks and status are usually based on the ownership of land type of labour and there is a strong hold of social institutions which provide guidance for the behavioural patterns of its people.

3) Tribal Community: According to Oxford Dictionary, “A tribe is a group of people in a primitive or barbarous stage of development acknowledging the authority of a chief and usually regarding themselves as having a common ancestor. ” Whereas L. M Lewis believes that “tribal communities are those which are small in scale, are restricted in the spatial and temporal range of their social, legal and political relations and possess a morality, a religion and world view of corresponding dimensions. ” So we can that a tribal community is the one which is economically backward and has least functional interdependence within the community, a comparative geographical isolation of its people, a common dialect, customary laws and community panchayat as the source of power. Such type of communities are particularly present in the Indian states of Kerala, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, etc. and are well known for their own traditions and amusing culture.