In Practicing Community, Halperin wrote of the essence of community. She believed Everyday practices showed the essence of community because they demonstrated neighbor’s ties to one another. The distinction between who was family and what was community was not clear, and this was the essence of community (pg. 49). Community was about people helping each other. Geographic location is also understood as part of community as are features of the area like the river, which Halperin claimed was something East Enders believed were part of their personal identity (pg. 30). Geographic location is also an aspect of community according to Roger Guy. It facilitated community and provided security for those unfamiliar with the city, but as with the …show more content…
Blood and marriage ties are not what made someone fictive kin, but obligation, affection, caring, and responsibility. While family was something a person was born into, fictive kin was something developed. Kinship was important but the fictive kin network was wider and could provide connections immediate family could not. It is important to keep in mind how the concepts involved in community work together. Fictive kin connections are part of self-preservation, solidarity, and reciprocity processes. Such was the case in all three books and will be discussed later. An example of a firm fictive kin connection comes from Guy when he relayed how southerners banded together to fight Puerto Ricans for the right to live on Clifton Avenue (pg. 56). This example demonstrates how different families used connections to others to carve out Clifton Street as a place of their own. Another example from Hansen demonstrates non familial ties. Samantha Barrett recorded visitors for the last three weeks of her life. All together there were seventeen friends, kin, and neighbors, each taking a turn at caring for her (Pg. 95) Halperin noted how households could contract or expand depending on needs of kinship networks. However, one need not be considered blood family to be considered kin as was the situation with Robbie Kale who took care of her “granddaughters”. These are children of the girl she raised according to Halperin, not her …show more content…
Self-preservation involved taking care of one’s self and the community. Halperin stated in the East End taking care of the community first was more important than self this why fixing a house had a lower priority than helping a family member or friend (pg. 168). However, it is important to preserve one’s reputation and individual standing first. Mary Mudge knew it was important in antebellum society to have a decent reputation (Hansen, pg. 22). Ministers during that time knew it and that congregations had to grow and that meant ministers had to know the audience and sustain interest (Hansen pg. 145). When self-preservation failed it was frustrating. One grassroots leader was distraught when her intentions, her heart, were not understood (Halperin pg. 271). Sarah Bodwell learned how frustrating failure could be and fought hard to be cleared of slander against her reputation. She knew to preserve her position as a teacher and earn a living she had to be cleared of wrongdoing (Hansen pg.
In the book Ancestral Line: The Maisin of Papua New Guinea and The Fate of The Rainforest by John Barker a concept that connects this book to what have been learned in class is the idea of kinship. I will be discussing what kinship and it’s two main components are, and how they relate to the book.
The idea of “family” is almost entirely socially constructed. From grandparents, to friends, to wives and fiancés, the means by which we decide who is related to us and who is not is decided by the person and their milieu. In Mignon R. Moore’s “Independent Women: Equality in African-American Lesbian Relationships”, Eviatar Zerubavel’s Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity and Community, and Franz Kafka’s The Judgement, this idea is tested. Who do we consider close enough to us to share our most intimate details and how do we choose them? Each piece offers a different view, which is the “right” way for each of the people described, whether broad (as in Zerbavel’s reading) or specific (as in Moore’s reading), but there are also many similarities in the ways family is defined and actualized.
In 2014 a little over 3 million children in the United States were under the guardianship of a relative other than their parent (Szilagyi, 2014). This agreement is referred to as kinship. Kinship care is defined as the care of children by relatives or close family friends, also known as fictive kin, after they have been removed from biological parents. Relatives are usually looked to as the primary resource of care support because they maintain the child's connections with the family and help to preserve the cultural values of the family. (ChildWelfare.gov) Kinship care is divided into three different categories: informal kinship care, voluntary kinship care, and formal kinship care (child welfare information gateway, 2016).
In the book, ‘American Kinship, A Cultural Account’, by David. M. Schneider, we find that he lays down the basic tenets for which a kinship ties, is considered to be
Family in the novel is described as a group of people that have a unit or bond that they share each day
What is a community? Defined in the dictionary a community is “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” (Webster). Communities bring people together but they are tear relationships apart. In the following stories the authors of this story demonstrates community as a whole. In Fully Alive, Story Telling Animal, Robopocalypse, Stepford Wives, The Happiness Machine, The Girl Who was Plugged In and The Cave, are stories that deal with community and how it is negative and positive for the characters in the books.
The concept of place, home and community is a transnational and trans-community concept. Human places have just recently been given political boundaries. Previously, human boundaries were determined the same way that animal, plant, and ecosystem boundaries were defined. They were defined by ecology and they were defined by geography of region and hemisphere.
Through these two essays, a greater sense of what community is really about emerges. Not only is community about ones surroundings, but also about the values and ideals held by that communities inhabitants. The community in which one may or may not choose to immerse ourselves in deeply effects who we are. The character, or soul, within each of us is in part shaped by the community or communities in which we belong to or reside in.
A community is comprised of a group of goal oriented individuals with similar beliefs and expectations. Currently the term is used interchangeably with society, the town one lives in and even religion. A less shallow interpretation suggests that community embodies a lifestyle unique to its members. Similarities within the group establish bonds along with ideals, values, and strength in numbers unknown to an individual. Ideals and values ultimately impose the culture that the constituents abide by. By becoming part of a community, socialization...
A Community can be defined as a group of people who don’t just live in the same area, but also share the same interests, experiences and often concerns about the area in which they live. Often when individuals have lived on a street or in an area for a while they become familiar with each other and the issues surrounding them. Children often attend the same schools and grow up together, again sharing similar experiences. In some instances adults may work together, and quite commonly all community members will share the same doctors, dentists, hospitals, health visitors and other public services and facilities.
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
Should the most selfish elite individual take heed and meditate on the ideology behind community, he/she may awaken to the fact that many persons looking after one person has more advantages and a better survival rate than one trying to preserve one. The needs of the one will never outweigh the needs of the collective group. In the end individuality inevitably leads to self-destruction; therefore, commitment to community is a requirement for contemporary Americans and vital to its survival.
According to Meriam-Webster, community is defined as “a group of people who live in the same area (such as a city, town, or neighborhood)” and “a group of people who have the same interests, religion, race, etc”. Many people think of a community as a group of people interacting in a common location. However, to me, a community is a network of people with a common goal, agenda, or concern, individuals who collaborate with one another by sharing information, ideas and other resources. A community consists of individuals who look to form relationships overtime and help one another in their future aspirations. Furthermore, I believe there are three key aspects that define a community; geography, one’s identity and
While trying to examine how my community has changed economically since the 80's, I found myself pondering what my community really was. I have had the unfortunate experience to understand how a person can feel as if they don't really belong. Since I had moved about nine times within my life, and I am only eighteen years old, I became stuck, without any ideas of what to write about. While facing this assignment, I realized that I did not know if I had a place I would consider my "community," or even my true "home."