Typologies of Communities

Types of Community in Sociology

There are two types of communities, rural and urban communities, due to
different social conditions in both rural and urban areas.

Rural Community

Rural community is a natural phenomenon. It is present in every society of the

world having distinct culture and pattern of social life. It is actually a product of
natural free will of the people having extreme similarity in their objectives and
ambitions of living. Agriculture is the main identity and element. People of this
community mostly have. Face to face ‘interaction with high degree of homogeneity in
their identities. Basic urban facilities like school, hospital, market, municipal office,
police station etc. are usually missing in this community.

Urban Community

Urban community is the opposite of rural community. The urban people

lifestyle is highly impersonal with each other along high degree of complexity and
heterogeneity in their living style and identities. It is actually a product of rational
choice. A complex division of labor with specialization in their jobs is the identity
of urban community. Modern civic facilities are usually available.

Richard Millington defines five different types of communities:

1. Interest. Communities of people who share the same interest or passion.

2. Action. Communities of people trying to bring about change.

3. Place. Communities of people brought together by geographic boundaries.

4. Practice. Communities of people in the same profession or undertake

the same activities.
5. Circumstance. Communities of people brought together by
external events/situations.
Categories of Community according to Social in silico (2014)

1. A community of interest
A community of interest consists of members who are interested in –
and passionate about – the same topic. The topic could be a TV show, a
celebrity figure or a subject area such as an historical event. Community
members come together with the purpose of sharing their enthusiasm and
knowledge about this topic. Given that members might be located
anywhere in the world; online tools are vital for the ongoing interactions of
the community.
 2. A community of practice
The term community of practice was originally introduced as an
concept in the field of education to refer to groups where members who
share a profession or craft come together to share experiences and expertise,
and thereby improve themselves professionally or personally. MOOCs could be
a particularly interesting example of online communities of practice, except
that in many cases the tools available for direct interaction among members of
a course are very limited, if they exist at all.

3. A community of inquiry
A community of inquiry also has an educational focus, the aim
being to bring together people involved in considering a problem from an
empirical or conceptual perspective. The idea is that, by bringing together
different members of the community, a greater overall understanding of
the subject at hand might be obtained. Science as a community falls into
this category, as might hack days and similar participatory events where
the end output is not clearly known in advance.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/climateinteractive/13944682478/

The story of the group of blindfolded men each trying (incorrectly!) to identify
an elephant is an example of when a community of inquiry would be useful. In such
cases, each person would pool their experience to create a bigger picture

4. A community of action
This type of community is focused on bringing about change in the
world. The Open Access community would fall into this category. As the
Open Knowledge Festival showed, if the unifying ideology is large enough,
a community of action may in fact be comprised of multiple sub-
communities. So the “Open” community includes communities interested in
Open Data, Open Spending, Open Education and Open Science. Each of
these may be
 able to learn from similar challenges faced by the others. Online tools can
be important for these groups to coordinate their activities as well as to
share news and resources about what they have achieved with others who
may be interested, but who are not active members of the communities of
action.

5. A community of place
A community of place consists of members who are co-located – this
might include a neighborhood watch scheme, a parent-teacher association
at the local school, or a group of independent shop keepers from the same
part of a town. It’s likely that most members will know, or get to know,
each other in person due to the opportunities for meeting up offline that
are afforded by them being in the same location.

6. A community of circumstance
This type of community consists of people who come together to share
experiences related to being in a particular life situation or other
circumstance, rather than a shared interest. This might include health
communities – from people fighting cancer, to those experiencing adverse
drug reactions – as well as LBGT communities.

Paul James and his colleagues have developed a taxonomy that maps
community relations, and recognizes that actual communities can be
characterized by different kinds of relations at the same time.
A. Grounded community relations. This involves enduring attachment to
particular places and particular people. It is the dominant form taken by
customary and tribal communities. In these kinds of communities, the land is
fundamental to identity.
B. Life-style community relations. This involves giving primacy to
communities coming together around particular chosen ways of life, such as
morally charged or interest-based relations or just living or working in the
same location. Hence the following sub-forms:
 community-life as morally bounded, a form taken by many traditional faith-
based communities.
 community-life as interest-based, including sporting, leisure-based and
business communities which come together for regular moments of
engagement.
 community-life as proximately-related, where neighborhood or
commonality of association forms a community of convenience, or a
community of place.
C. Projected community relations. This is where a community is self-
consciously treated as an entity to be projected and re-created. It can be
projected as through thin advertising slogan, for example gated community, or
can take the form of ongoing associations of people who seek political
integration, communities of practice based on professional projects, associative
communities which seek to enhance and support individual creativity,
autonomy and mutuality. A nation is one of the largest forms of projected or
imagined community.