What Defines Community?

by Dora Raymaker · 2009-05-09 12:59:00 UTC
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a 3 x 3 grid of squares, each containing a different colored circle; from top to bottom left to right: violet, cyan, pink, green, black, blue, yellow, red, orangeThe American Heritage Dictionary defines "community" in part as

1. A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government.

2. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
a. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.
b. Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
c. Sharing, participation, and fellowship.

3. Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
a. Sharing, participation, and fellowship.

The phrase "autism community" is often used as though there is a single monolithic group of us--that by virtue of commonality of interest in autism, everyone with an autism interest is part of the same community. That because we share autism in common, we share a similar identity, or should have a sense of fellowship (senses 2. and 3. of the definition are those applied).

More academically, a "community" is sometimes defined more as "a readily available, mutually supportive network of relationships on which one [can] depend" (Sarason SB. The psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. Jossey-Bass Inc Pub; 1974.) People who are part of a community, who have a sense of being part of a community, experience a sense of belonging, shared culture including shared values and symbols, shared art and expression, and emotional safety and identification.

Considering the fragmentation and adversary present within the larger population of people with interest in autism, it's hard to see there as being a single monolithic "autism community" either under the more general dictionary definitions or especially under the more specific academic definition.

Would it be helpful to consider more than one community with interest in autism, each with its own unique shared culture, shared values, shared symbols, shared (more specific) interests, and sense of emotional safety and identification? That instead of an "autism community" we have multiple "autism communities?"

Dora Raymaker
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