Folks, I've been lecturing computer science audiences for years about the fallacy of Presentism: that there is no need to look to the dark pre-Wired ages for any knowledge. Never thought I'd have to lecture social scientists, even those interested in the Internet. Well over a century ago, Ferdinand Tonnies started the community-company debate going with his book about gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. Not that I agree with his either/or approach, but a huge amount of theorizing AND scholarship has developed around this issue. At the risk of offending some, here's my quick take: a community is a set of (possibly bounded) extra-household relationships that provide sociability, support and identity. A company is a set of legally defined rights and duties organized around an economic purpose. It's pretty clear that you can have community within a company -- that's what much ofindustrial relations and communities of practice literature is about. But even with that, community doesn't become an identity with company. They are 2 analytically separate things. Could you have "company" within community. To really push things, my sense is that's what the 'wages for housework' folks a decade+ ago tried to do, and that's why it failed. Happy Whatever Holiday You're Celebrating Barry (who's celebrating cleaning his office) ___________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman@chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 ___________________________________________________________________ On Sun, 23 Dec 2001 air-l-request@aoir.org wrote:
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 12:01:00 -0500 (EST) From: air-l-request@aoir.org Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Air-l digest, Vol 1 #248 - 1 msg
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Community versus Company (John Daly)
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Message: 1 Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 14:55:01 -0500 From: John Daly <dalyj@erols.com> Organization: self employed To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] Re: Community versus Company Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org
This discussion has been informative. I am interested in groups of people interacting over the Internet the way we are interacting via this listserve. So let me ask some questions about terminology.
Are we who are subscribed to the AoIR listserve a "community".? If so, what are characteristics that allow us to be so categorized? If, as I suspect, we would be better described be a term other than "community", what collective noun would you suggest?
Does the fact that there is an "Association of Internet Researchers" make a difference"? What would be the correct collective noun for a similar group subscribed to a listserve if subscribers did not link also through a formal organization?
Communities seem to involve institutionalized relationships and practices among community members. What, if any are the key institutional relationships and practices involved in our group (other than the formalized ones of the AoIR)?
Finally, what are the institutional factors that make participation in this listserve more (or less) valuable to our professional work?
-- John Daly
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