Elements and Typologies

in Community
Part 1: Elements and Structure
How do we know
that a community
is a "community"
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
1.LOCALITY
- An area or neighborhood, regarded as a place occupied by certain
people or as the scene of particular activities

Siwa Oasis, Egypt of mostly Berbers, with

Siwi language.
 Palmerston, Cook Islands [William
Masters]

Coober Pedy, Australia

(Underground Town)
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
2. COMMUNITY SENTIMENT
- Feeling of belongingness

- Belongingness sometimes evolve to an excessive ethnocentrism. In

China, for example, there is something that we call sinocentrism.​

- Excessive ethnocentrism sometimes results to aggression towards

visitors thus resulting to another: isolation.
The Shandias


While there is an actual Shandian Community in

Ecuador. The Shandian narrative of aggression
against the visitors perfectly fit with the Sentinelese
People of North Sentinel Islands​
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
3. NATURALITY
- One cannot create a community. A government or a state cannot
also create one. Yes, a locality can be created but a community, not.
Community only creates itself.

- The community that is Filipino did not come to be when Burgos,

Rizal, certain creoles,or Bonifacio started to use the term. Bonifacio’s
KKK did not even include Mindanao in their ‘Philippine map’.
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
3. NATURALITY
- Back then, the term Filipino was alien to every other Filipinos that
we know today. Only few Visayans and Mindanaons would
acknowledge that.

- Even today, there is still the non-acceptance on the use of Filipino

to name ‘our’ community. [ongoing ‘hate’ on KWF]
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY

- How do you support the idea that there is a ‘Filipino community’?

Should we support it in the first place?

- How can we account the multiculturalism in the country despite

the ‘dominance’ of Tagalogs in the concept of Filipino? Or, how can
we wholly discard that idea of ‘Tagalog dominance’?
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY

- It is also important to distinguish community from a crowd or

association.

What’s the difference between a crowd or association from

community?

ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED

COMMUNITY
4. PERMANENCE

- Back then, the term Filipino was alien to every other Filipinos that
we know today. Only few Visayans and Mindanaons would
acknowledge that.

- While it is problematic to think that a community is ‘absolutely

permanent’, it is better to think of it as not just passing or not
temporary.
 SOME FACTS

DAMASCUS, SYRIA
- Oldest City in the world
(11K years old)

AKLAN, PHILIPPINES
- Oldest Province in Philippines.
Est. 12th century (formerly
Minuro it Akean
 SOME FACTS

UNISAN, QUEZON
- Oldest town in the
Philippines. Est. 1921
(formerly Kalilayan)
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
5. COMMONALITY
- Members share similarities

- something that is common in your own community

What are the distinctions between Cabuyeños, Calambeños,

Rosenians?
 ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
6. ORGANIZATION
- development of its own politics and commerce
- What kind of politics is involved in your own community? Is there a
dynasty of a sort? What kind of person or persons is acting the
‘leader’?
- What kind of commerce is existent? Commuities near Aplayas will
definitely have different commerce than communities near ‘centers’,
near agora.
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
7. NAME
- Even without official name, members of a community will think of
something to name theirs. Usually it roots from the (sometimes also
invented) name of their place.

- Some examples are ‘Filipino community’, ‘Waray’, etc. These were

united by a common language.

- Unisan community is based on their location.

ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
7. NAME
- Some would even name their street and think of it as distinct
community. Pasilyos usually become a community of its own. Certain
streets in highly urbanized communities become community of its
own.

- 'Blocks’ in certain villages also do.

Can the government or anyone
put up a legal case against a
‘community’?
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
8. LEGAL STATUS
A legal case can be put up against a person or a legal group but
not against an abstract concept like community.

For example, UAE cannot ban Filipino community from entering

their country but they can ban Filipino citizens [citizenship is of
legal nature]

Community therefore has no legal status. Since it is not created

by law, it is bounded by it.
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
9. SIZE
The least populated capital city in the world is Adamstown,
Pitcairn Islands. Pop. 45 (2010 census) with a 2018 estimate of 50.
[descendants of HMS Bounty crew]

The largest cities in the world are Shanghai, Beijing, and Delhi
with pop. 24M, 21M, and 17M, respectively.
ELEMENTS OF LOCATION BASED
COMMUNITY
10. DISTINGUISHABLE NATURE & STRUCTURE
No two communities will ever be the same. First, community
locations are pretty much varied. Second, the over-all culture of
one community will always be different from another one. [It is
the very sense that a specific community became a community
that is its own.]
 10 ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY
1. Locality; it has a certain territory/ locality.
2. Community Sentiment; or feeling of belongingness.
3. Naturality; it is not a product by human will nor by government.
4. Permanence; it is not temporary like a crowd or association.
5. Commonality; members share similarity.
6. Organization; there is also a social organization, community is a
miniature society.
7. It has particular name; members are identified by a common
name e.g. Filipino.
8. No Legal Status; since it is not created by law, it is not bounded
by law.
9. It has a size.
10. It has distinguishable nature and structure.
What Does a Community Look Like?

Answering this question is to look at the structure of

community. This must not be confused with ‘community
structure’ since that phrase is usually linked with
network or graph theory.

What we want to look at here is the social structure in

community.
 SOCIAL STRUCTURE

A pattern of social relations; regular and repetitive

interactions in society.

A community structure can be examined through its

different aspects: socio-political, economic, and
cultural. Structure can be said to be an imagined
pattern behind the empirical and observable.
SOCIO-POLITICAL POLITICAL STRUCTURE
Pertains to the pattern where power or authority lies. This can
sometimes be regarded through the suffix –archy or –archal
which relates to rule or government.

The appropriation of power/ authority in this case is with a

person, a group of people, or a social class. The location of power
explains the structure of community

pertaining to the pattern of authority in general.

A Marxist analysis of society, for example, explicates the

dialectical evolution of communal primitivism to feudalism to
capitalism, and eventually, to communism.
 ECONOMIC STRUCTURE
Pertains to how relations of production, relations of distribution,
relations of consumption, and relations of exchange are existent
in communities.

These will definitely vary usually depending on how urbanized or

ruralized a community is.

We can also look at how economy is different between the three

societies Marx told: communal primitivism, feudalism, capitalism,
socialism, and communism.

How do these types of societies economically produce, distribute,

consume, or exchange?
 CULTURAL STRUCTURE
Exploring a community’s cultural structure can lead to
exploring themes such as cultural hegemony; thus the
concepts dominating culture and subordinating culture.

In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the

domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling
class who manipulate the culture of that society.
 Why are some things ‘cool’
and some things are not?
Why some are okay and some
are not?

 CULTURAL STRUCTURE
The ruling-class’ worldview becomes the accepted cultural
norm; the universally valid dominant ideology, which
justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as
natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for
everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that
benefit only the ruling class.

Different communities do have different dominant

cultures and these cultures most usually become
dominant because of a dominant agent that proliferates
the culture.