ABSTRACT
‘Community’ is, rather like justice, an essentially contested concept, for which there are as many definitions as there are observers. It was once said in the 1930s that when ‘five economists are gathered together there will be at least six opinions’. Community invokes the same impression. There are very many different definitions of ‘community’; and the term is used variously in common parlance. We speak of ‘communities of interest’, ‘community care’, ‘community policing’, ‘community centres’ and simply of ‘community’.
