ABSTRACT
Thinking about doing work or ‘practice’ with communities or in a community context, it is easy to make assumptions about who and what makes up a ‘community’, how a ‘community’ can and does work together, and even about what is included in ‘practice with communities’. Despite this, it remains very difficult to reach a consensus on the meaning of the term. The concept suffers from a nostalgic romanticism of inherent ‘goodness’. This brief engagement with the core idea of ‘community’ should act as a flag for the complexity of this practice, as the following comments reflect. Traditionally, community development writers have thought of communities as place-based or formed through common interests. Everyday community practice in white settler nations also needs to grapple with Indigenous or First Peoples’ understandings of ‘community’. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
