THE ART OF COMMUNITY-BUILDING - CONVERSATIONS ON SUSTAINABLE WAYS TO CO-EXIST

Abstract

The Art of Community-Building is a book for leaders and group facilitators with reflections on how to develop culturally sustainable community-building. It was carefully crafted based on three pillars: the author's personal and professional experience, recollected as auto-ethnographic notes that are used as research data; interviews with leaders who have other experiences with communities that converge with and diverge from the author's; and the readings the author has have done independently and during the Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability at Goucher College.

The combination of these pillars resulted in six chapters. In chapter one, the author delineates the positive impact of becoming more awake to what communities are and how they affect our lives. In chapter two, the author describes several political agendas behind how we use, or erase, the word “community”, and proposes we make this use in an intentional and generative way; the author also elaborates on his definition of community, so we can find community dynamics in any group we are part of, including our families and work teams, amongst others. In chapter three, the author explains what he believes are the three pillars of a culturally sustainable community culture—authenticity, authority, and sense of place—and how we can identify the multiple ways in which they could be expressed or repressed.

In chapter four, the author details three roles we can perform in a community—member, leader, and facilitator—and how we can use them to create positive change in our lives and those of others; this chapter is enriched by the unique ways in which five inspiring people perform those roles. In chapter five, the author shares the needs, beliefs, and strategies map, which is the framework he uses to facilitate community-building initiatives. Though the author does not offer a step-by-step methodology, they serve as an open guide for those searching for something a bit more concrete on which to base their own action. In chapter six, the author explains his journey to becoming an active member of a cultural sustainability community and offer his reasons why he thinks readers should also join or be more active in this community.