The Battle for Community
What is community?
Social capital versus multiculturalism
The politics of behaviour
Saturday 29 October 2005
10.30 – 12 noon
What is community?
The prime minister recently appointed a minister for communities, underlining the importance placed on the issue today. Community is generally considered to be a good thing, offering mutual support and indeed joy to participants. But what is the essence of community? The traditional conception, and the focus of government attention, is close-knit groups rooted in a geographical location, but this is thought to be declining in the context of a more flexible and individuated society. Should we aim to preserve and foster community on this geographical model, or are we too nostalgic about it? Is this kind of community in fact inimical to urbanity, stifling creativity and breeding conformism?
Few of us would relish the prospect of living in isolation, but can we have the benefits of community without unwelcome obligations and the feeling of being watched? Some argue that more voluntary ties based on common interests and beliefs, regardless of location, are more authentic forms of community. Might true community even be found online?
Kenan Malik broadcaster, writer and author of The Meaning of Race and Man, Beast and Zombie
Oona Muirhead director of strategy and communications, LGA
Austin Williams director Future Cities project; technical editor, Architects’ Journal
Ken Worpole author and urban policy advisor
Chair: Dolan Cummings convenor, The Battle for Community
1.30 – 3pm
Social capital versus multiculturalism
Two of the big ideas in social policy in recent years have been social capital and multiculturalism. But are the two complementary, or even compatible? One stresses the need for close ties and familiarity, while the other emphasises difference and particularity. It has been argued that cultural diversity fosters social capital within particular communities while eroding it at a societal level and leading to the kinds of racial conflicts seen in northern English towns in recent years. Communities based on local or ethnic identities can appear inward looking, parochial and led by self-elected leaders.
Do tight social bonds within particular communities militate against connections with society at large? Or might the habits of community translate from the ethnic to the civic? What does this tell us about social capital itself? What should we value about community?
Brian Barry author ‘Culture and Equality’
Jane Franklin senior research fellow Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group London South Bank University
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn author of ‘Race-Etiquette’
Trevor Phillips chair, Commission for Racial Equality
Chair: Munira Mirza researcher and writer on cultural policy
3.30 – 5pm
The politics of behaviour
Problems once seen as having socioeconomic causes are increasingly understood in more individual terms. Poverty, education and crime are all discussed in terms of the biographies of those affected or involved. And it is at the level of individual behaviour that the government seeks to intervene, whether in early childhood through the Sure Start initiative or later through school discipline or parenting orders, through the criminal justice system with ASBOs or more generally with smoking bans or clampdowns on happy hours, for example.
It is argued that traditional community has broken down in many areas and that many parents lack the skills to socialise their children, making it incumbent on the state both to step in and moderate behaviour, and also to put in place longer term measures to foster mutual respect and civility. But is the problem overstated, or even misdiagnosed? Can society be remade through orders and contracts? How effective, and how legitimate, is this approach?
Nick Cohen Observer columnist
Alex Deane barrister and chief of staff to David Cameron MP
Frank Field Labour MP and author ‘Neighbours from Hell’
Stuart Waiton Generation Youth Issues; author, ‘Who’s Antisocial?’
Chair: Dolan Cummings convenor, The Battle for Community