Home About Us Reports Research Paper 2001 The Language of Community in Canada Page 8

About Us

Reports

Research Paper

The Language of Community in Canada

The language of community proposed that the activation of community as a political objective involves not just consultation – bringing communities into public processes – but equally the stimulation of community. It involves generating participation through promotion of volunteerism and charitable activity; engaging community members to provide support and services to meet the collective needs and represent the interests of the group; encouraging groups to care for and take responsibility for the public domain by watching over and managing the playgrounds, parks, schools, community centers, hospices and libraries which serve the community.

It is understood that there are multiple benefits to be had from drawing communities into processes of governance. The inclusion of isolated or marginal members of society; improved social cohesion; the delivery of services which are tailored to the needs of real people at lower cost; and the restoration of a sense of shared values and belonging. Any and all of these advantages may be the result of activating communities in governance.

While the language of community is tinged with nostalgia for a simpler past, it is also founded upon a belief that we live in a new world which has been radically altered by the information revolution. Boundaries are porous, social relations have been disembedded from place and time, and the ties of work and family have become fluid and unstable. Communities are no longer static and inert but multiple, open and over-lapping and an individual’s relationship to community is flexible, active and intentional. One can choose one’s affiliations. Correspondingly, old forms of governance based on an invariable, paternalistic state no longer obtain. Governance through community – a new form of partnership between community and the state – is thus appropriate.

There is a tension which runs through this investigation of the language of community in Canada. It is undertaken with the recognition that, as the past half-century has demonstrated, insulated, bureaucratic processes of governance have not only produced questionable outcomes and arguably hindered individual initiative, they have also proven to be politically unacceptable and have resulted in the emergence of powerful social movements based in communities. Community involvement is thus not only salutary but a political reality. Voting for local, provincial and federal representatives is no longer enough; participation is also necessary. On the other hand, the adoption of governance through community as a response to the breakdown of the welfare state, is also fraught with difficulty. Community, as such, is indefinable except in the particular, unstable, inherently exclusionary, and difficult to reconcile with systems of representative government.

To a certain extent, the ‘new’ policies of governance through communities associated with Tony Blair’s ‘Third Way’ and George W. Bush’s ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ have been implemented in Canada for decades – certainly since the establishment of an official policy on multiculturalism in 1971. There are basic assumptions underlying this language, however. There is a supposition that communities are more than simply a sociological reality, a by-product of the social nature of human beings. Communities are invested with ‘goodness^.’ They are a positive force. There is a similar assumption that community is a more natural locus than traditional political institutions for addressing issues of collective concern. The affinities and shared values of community will produce decisions which are more appropriate to collective needs. Finally, the language of community balances on a certain edge between the assumption that communities are good, strong and should be given power over public tasks and the notion that communities need to be activated and assisted. This highlights an important point: that effective communities do not just happen. Not all communities have the right kind of ‘social capital^.’

This paper highlighted some of the inconsistencies of these assumptions. Consultation and activation of community may not result in the optimum provision of public goods; the protection of local or specific community interest may cause an undersupply of public goods, a carving-up of the public interest. Secondly, the assumption that community is more ‘natural’ or better at managing public resources must be critically examined. It is based in community development approaches popularized in the 1960s which focused on giving marginal groups a voice in decision-making, and tinged by a sentiment which is profoundly opposed to experts and bureaucrats. Does it make sense, however, to channel funds into the community sector for training and capacity building when, at the same time, financial support for public services – parks, libraries, public transportation and public housing, for example – is being reduced? Is the investment in community capacity in fact the creation of a parallel bureaucratic machinery?

The assumption that community is good or a positive force must also be examined critically. Communities do not necessarily represent the public good; rather they represent a range of equal and often opposing ‘goods^.’ While sex work is reviled by many in society, the claims and interests which that community promotes are as legitimate as those of the Canada Family Action Coalition, a conservative Christian organization. The weakness of a model of governance based on citizenship in community is that it becomes difficult to establish universal values according to which some communities can be criticized. In Canada’s multi-cultural and diverse state this clash of equal and opposing communities has seen expression, for example in the antagonism between Greek and Macedonian communities at the time of the establishment of the Macedonian state during the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation in 1992 and the on-going animosity between some religious communities and the gay community; these are merely high-profile examples of communities in dispute, each laying claim to the public good. The public good is not determined by individual communities but defined and winnowed down in the debate and public discourse between and among different communities. As such, the belief in improved social cohesion through investment in community misses the point. Activating communities may not necessarily bridge differences among people. The vibrancy of Canadian society is not inherently threatened by debate and conflict among communities, rather by how such debates are managed.

Finally, the recognition that not all communities are effective leads to an important question about whether it is possible for the state to strengthen or engage in communities through external intervention. Can vibrant communities be created? Is it possible to make community both the target and instrument of government policy at the same time allowing it to maintain its independence within civil society? This paper highlighted a number of the practical difficulties associated with such a policy.

First, while the language of community equally embraces geographical and virtual communities, in fact place is not a neutral factor. Government exists spatially and borders are important and limiting. In particular, the state must incorporate a more comprehensive – and critical – understanding of the cross-border implications of investing in ethnic, and other, communities of identity, beyond the borders of the nation state.

Accessibility to and control of the community’s architecture or infrastructure is also important in both place-based communities and in virtual communities. The meaningful participation of community members – whether locally or on-line – occurs in sites which are accessible and encourage active engagement and not merely passive consumption.

Further, the notion that contemporary communities are based on individual agency and personal desire does not take into account that membership in communities may not necessarily be a matter of choice or personal agency. Not all individuals can afford – or have the capacity – to choose their affiliations. In the absence of a universal social system, citizenship through community may thus further exclude people on the margins of society. There is thus a friction which must be recognized between, on the one hand, engaging people in community to take control of their own lives and imposing values on them. The extent to which communities are built on exclusion and conflict as much as inclusion and shared values has similarly not been recognized in the conceptualization of governance through community.

There are, finally, a number of practical difficulties for the state in engaging with communities: the difficulty in recognizing of legitimate community, problems in identifying authentic representatives and leaders with whom to consult, potential deficiencies in formal structures and accountability, the lack of homogeneity and the fact that unanimity is ephemeral. Within communities there must always be those who disagree. While managed debate, conflict and discussion is at the heart of a lively community, it also makes interaction between the state and community a difficult proposition. While social capital, strong networks, a multiplicity of active and engaged leaders make for a healthy community, it remains a question whether these traits can be generated externally through a government policy of community activation.