The Community as A Social Field

Volunteer Meanings in the Making of Place

“…Below we provide a conceptual framework for addressing these issues. The interactional theory of community (Kaufman, 1959(Kaufman, , 1985Wilkinson, 1970aWilkinson, , 1991, which asserts that community is a field of place-oriented social interaction, serves as the analytical foundation of our discussion. Before concluding, we highlight the potential applications of the interactional approach for public agency natural resource managers.…”

“…Attempts at answering the latter question, theoretically, have been relatively naïve in the natural resource management and decision-making literature. The interactional theory of community advocated by Harold Kaufman (1959Kaufman ( , 1985 and Kenneth Wilkinson (1970aWilkinson ( , 1991 and further elaborated upon by their colleagues and students provides a useful framework for addressing the aforementioned questions, as well as examining the relationship of community to place and for focusing natural resource management decisionmaking upon aspects of this relationship.…”

“…As opposed to community, the community refers to "settlements … in which locale is a basic component" (Bernard, 1973, p. 3; emphasis in original). The three major theories taking local territory as the base for community -human ecology (Hawley, 1950;Park, 1936;Quinn, 1960), social systems (Sanders, 1966;Warren, 1978), and the interactional approach (Kaufman, 1959(Kaufman, , 1985Wilkinson, 1970aWilkinson, , 1991) -emphasize and utilize the concept of place, albeit in varying degrees and at different scales.…”

“…From the interactional perspective (Kaufman, 1959(Kaufman, , 1985Wilkinson, 1970aWilkinson, , 1991, the theory of community which we draw upon throughout the remainder of this chapter, placedefined as a geographic location with material form invested with meaning and value (Gieryn, 2000) -can be viewed as a necessary but not sufficient condition for the community. No local community exists nowhere; every local community exists, in fact, somewhere.…”

“…The latter of these -the place-oriented collective actions, also referred to as the "community field" -is the inherent and indispensable ingredient of community from the interactional perspective (Kaufman, 1959(Kaufman, , 1985Wilkinson, 1970aWilkinson, , 1991. The community field provides a unique framework for examining the relationship of community to place, and for focusing natural resource management and decision-making issues upon aspects of this relationship.…”