Collective identities and community

Indeed, in order to situate her “self” within one or another collective or cultural identity, to be able to identify with a community, an individual has to compare that

“self” to one or another frame of reference, such as shared environments or narratives, for example, family storytelling (e.g. Martin, Hagestad & Diedrick, 1988; Rich, 2014). On the other hand, this relationship can work in reverse:

identifying with a collective identity provides one with “scripts: narratives that people can use in shaping their projects and in telling their life stories” (Appiah, 2005, p. 22). Chen (2009) sees empowering qualities to such transformative

“cultural discourse”, as it allows for cultural identities to form “based on an authentic, unique and indigenous self, where a cultural space is claimed and the collective selfhood can be interplayed with in-group and out-group elements” (p.

112). This became apparent through the analysis of community-based art and design engagements in Article 3 where the participants’ active sense-making of their collective identities and their relationship to the place meaningfully transformed both their collective selfhoods and the quality of the said art and design engagements. Namely this sense-making increased the participants’

shared sense of ownership and authorship towards their places and life histories.

It is important, however, to keep mindful of the potential removal of an individual’s agency, choice or responsibility from this formation of “collective dimensions of our individual identities” (Appiah, 2005, p. 21). Anthony Appiah (2005) warns against viewing collective identities as dependent on external circumstances, such as histories, in which case an individual is viewed as influenced by “capacities that are not under our control” (p. 21). Another danger resulting from a lack of criticality towards one’s collective or cultural identities, especially those externally attributed to us, lies in potentially manipulative hegemonic political, religious or other narratives that are characteristic of traditional societies, but also very common for the urbanised world of today. Both Clifford Geertz (2000) and Appiah (2005) warn against such imposed nationalistic identity formation, while acknowledging that this type of collective identities can be empowering in a context of movements for resistance. Among other critical viewpoints on collective identities, mindfulness of generalisations entered into discussion in this study, especially in Article 4, where complex, different, highly individualised identity processes among the participants arose from two seemingly similar research contexts in the Arctic. An individual’s conscious sense of self can fluctuate from one moment to another between her individual and collective identities, simultaneously enriching the collective through the multiplicity of the individual and avoiding a complete confluence of the self with the group.

Communities, groups with shared identities, geographies and histories, can be identified, often in the context of social work, from the perspective of forms of participation (e.g. Marsh, 1999; Fraser, 2005). Such are communities of circumstance that can relate to each other and form for longer or shorter periods of time as a result of a shared situation, usually beyond their control, such as a

natural disaster, as exemplified by Marsh (1999). There are also communities of interest that bring together identity groups, usually in a joint effort of challenging status quo (Kenny, 1999; Fraser, 2005). These can be formed based on shared gender, racial or sexual identities (e.g. LGBTQ groups), or economic interests (e.g.

business lobby groups). First proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave in the early 1990s, the concept of communities of practice is especially relevant to this study, as it envelops several of its main research themes and is emphasised through the community encounters in Article 2 and 4. Lave (1996) talks about the kind of identity work that can only occur through a shared community practice:

Crafting identities in practice becomes the fundamental project subjects engage in; crafting identities is a social process, and becoming more knowledgeably skilled is an aspect of participation in social practice… Who you are becoming shapes crucially and fundamentally what you “know” …

“Knowing” is a relation among communities of practice, participation in practice, and the generation of identities as part of becoming part of ongoing practice (p. 157).

Any variety of practices can serve as a basis for forming such collective identities. Hemphill and Leskowitz (2013) regard a curious case of an activist community who conduct DIY practices as a form of “radical living, learning, and knowledge sharing alternatives to dominant, corporate-driven, consumer society”

(p. 73). As community identities are not clean-cut or mutually exclusive, this kind of community of practice can also be considered a community of interest. Digital, or virtual, communities sit somewhere in between, or in all of the categories. On the one hand, they are united by a common space, though detached from physicality and temporality, and thus “collapse geography (and time)” (Mitra &

Watts, 2002, p. 486). On the other hand, depending on the type of community, they often share a practice, a dialogic one at the very least. At the same time their sharing of those conditions can be either purely circumstantial, accidental, or based on a common interest or agenda transforming them into “groups that share a common voice and agency” (Mitra & Watts, 2002, p. 486). Throughout all of the articles of this dissertation, but more explicitly in Article 5, my co-authors and I interrogated the impact of digital connectivity between geographically remote communities on their sense of community and the overcoming of the said remoteness. The idea of connectivity in community-based setup, it was concluded, needs to be approached with care due to its potential “top down” imposed premises. The agency in the ongoing connectedness through digital platforms needs to remain with the participants themselves.

In this vein, it is particularly important to talk about the fourth type of communities, community of place. Through the emergence of the digital, depersonalisation and commodification of urban space alongside deterioration of rural localities, place-bound communitarian identities and perception of place have been transformed, if not impaired (Arefi, 1999). This renders communities of place

vulnerable, due to their relationship with place transforming from “feeling at home”, belonging, being “rooted” (Tuan, 1980) to the loss of frame of reference and meaning referred to as placelessness (Relph, 1976; Houston, 1978; Jacobs &

Appleyard, 1987; Hayden, 1997).

All of the communities involved in this study were one way or another communities of place and practice. Most of them were “communities of placelessness”, too, being misplaced through voluntary or forced migratory practices, unfavourable city developments, historical injustices and other life circumstances (see Articles 1, 2 and 3). And while these circumstances require ongoing identity work in order to be processed and coped with, this identity work does not have to be a “site of deprivation”, but a possibility, instead:

For me this space of radical openness is a margin—a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a ‘safe’ place. One is always at risk. One needs a community of resistance (hooks, 1989, p. 206).