ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of community within the wider context of stakeholder engagement. First, we examine early notions of community as defined by rurality, homogeneity, social cohesion, and collaboration, which continue to inform place-based understandings of community that are used in stakeholder engagement. Second, we draw on nationalism and social movement studies to discuss cultural-symbolic understandings of community that are built around shared collective identities. Third, we draw on social network approaches to discuss community as made up of relations and practices of collaboration – as well as conflict – among people who are part of the same formal and informal social networks. Through the typology of place-based, cultural, and relational understandings of community, this chapter proposes a pluralistic approach to defining community. By adopting a more pluralistic understanding of community, this chapter contributes to the conceptual development of understanding who makes up the stakeholders in processes of inclusive stakeholder engagement.
