ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the discussion about the relationship between social knowledge and social context by introducing a social psychological framework to theorise community and its relations to knowledge. It considers the public sphere of communities and how the concept of the public sphere can contribute to the understanding of different forms of community life and how these are related to different modes of knowledge production. Communities produce a common stock of knowledge that endures over time and gives to community members the points of reference and the parameters against which individuals make sense of the world around them and are able to connect their individual stories with larger narratives of community life. The absence of common knowledge linking up stranger and community reveals with great precision the fundamental social psychological role of common and shared knowledge in linking individual and community life and producing the experience of belonging.
