E-viri
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McBride, Keally D
Collective Dreams, 03/2006Book Chapter
The term “community” has a paradoxical presence in our everyday discourse. While many people lament not being part of a “real community,” they nonetheless use the word repeatedly to refer to groups. The problem became clearer to me after reading Hervé Varenne’s study of Appleton, Wisconsin, titledAmericans Together(1977). This French scholar began his sociological analysis by regretfully reporting that he was not able to find a “real community” in Appleton—but then went on to describe the sociological groups that he studied as “communities” anyway. Clearly the word “community” carries both normative and descriptive weight. Curiously, the ideals
