The Sociology of Community

Abstract

Community is one of British sociology’s most enduring concepts and fields of study. Its history has been an uneven one, with periods of both vibrancy and dormancy. At one particularly low point Philip Abrams perceived that the concept of community was ‘slowly being evicted from British sociology’ (1978, p. 13). He was in a good position to judge, from his vantage point as editor of the British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology as well being as an established researcher in the field of community himself. His diagnosis of the travails of the field revolved around what he called the ‘paradox of the sociology of community’, namely ‘the coexistence of a body of theory which constantly predicts the collapse of community and a body of empirical studies which finds community alive and well’ (1978, p. 12). There was nothing uniquely British about this paradox, although Abrams’s (1968, 1981, 1985) knowledge of the history of British sociology gave him a sense of perspective of how this paradoxical situation had evolved in the British context. He was also well-placed to reflect on why in this context the concept of community that Robert Nisbet identified as ‘the most fundamental and far-reay’s unit-ideas’ (1970, p. 47) was so contested but also so resilient.