Contemporary Issues- Strengthening Community: A Creative Collaboration

Strengthening Community: A Creative Collaboration
Contemporary Issues Seminar
July 24-26, 2000
Co-sponsored by SAR and the Center for the Study of Community
Organizer: Cheryl Charles, Center for the Study of Community

The fourth Contemporary Issues seminar at SAR was launched with a public lecture by Mary Catherine Bateson, distinguished author and professor of anthropology at George Mason University, on the topic "'Our Kind of People?': Building Communities of Inclusion and Discovery." Over the following two days, eight scholars met to discuss potential directions for the future role of SAR in addressing this issue. Participants identified five key questions concerning this vital topic that may guide further research:

1. What are the characteristics of communities across cultures, geography, and time, that enable them to be self-sustaining and self-renewing?

2. What are the ways in which individuals, groups of people, and communities effectively participate in public life, develop leadership through generations, revitalize over time, and practice the art of community involvement?

3. What community activities, traditions, and rituals extend awareness of past and future, sustain intergenerational communications, and renew and strengthen communities?

4. How do people meet their need for "beloved community," whether or not it is based on geography or economics? Can this need for the development of trust, resilience, affection, mindfulness, and communion be fulfilled in non-geographic and non-economic ways?

5. What is the impact of types of information and information delivery systems on community building efforts, and of public policy on opportunities for—or resistance—to the linkages between community-based and institutional efforts?

The Strengthening Community seminar was funded in part by a $10,000 grant from Charles Miller, Center for the Study of Community.

Standing (left to right): Rina Swentzel, Stanley Hyland, Nancy Owen Lewis (SAR), Carl Moore, Bob Samples, Stician Samples

Seated (left to right):Cheryl Charles, Mary Catherine Bateson, Mary Beth Rogers

Participants:

Mary Catherine Bateson (Anthropology, George Mason University)

Cheryl Charles (Center for the Study of Community, Santa Fe, NM)

Stanley Hyland (Urban Affairs, University of Memphis)

Carl Moore (Professor Emeritus, Kent State University)

Mary Beth Rogers (KLRU Public Television, Austin, TX)

Bob Samples (Independent Scholar, Santa Fe, NM)

Stician Samples (Student Observer, Evergreen College)

Rina Swentzel (Independent Scholar, Santa Fe, NM)