Community: you can’t escape it!
This week, it felt like wherever I looked, I couldn’t escape thinking about community! In class last Wednesday, when trying to define community, I felt drawn to the idea that a community is fundamentally about relationships. Communities thus take work and emotional labour from the various parties within them in order to generate mutual benefits. However throughout the week, I began to re-evaluate that definition, thinking it was perhaps too narrow.
On Thursday, I went to a special film series at my local non-profit movie theatre, the Revue Cinema. The theatre has worked hard at creating special programming that is meaningful to the surrounding community since re-opening as a non-profit in 2007. In the theatre that day, the mood was very warm and neighborly. Watching a movie together was certainly not the type of work I was envisioning when generating my definition…but this certainly felt like a community in the moment! I was left thinking how valuable community spaces like this are, even if the people inside don’t necessarily know each other.
On Saturday morning, I attended a public consultation on seniors issues facilitated by my local MP, Arif Virani and the federal Minister for Seniors, Filomena Tassi. Walking into the Parkdale Intercultural Centre, I was worried I would stick out like a sore thumb. Although the average age was about 40 years older than me, I didn’t feel out of place or excluded like I expected to. Instead I joked with the lady sitting next to me about the addictive nature of the provided Timbits, and found myself nodding empathetically at people’s points. As we had discussed on Wednesday, communities are often predicated on an “in” group and an “out” group. I had assumed because I wasn’t over 65, I would be excluded but left feeling more connected to the people in my local community regardless of age.
Thinking back on these experiences, I still think intentional relationship-building and accountability in communities is important, but I also don’t want to negate the value of casual, broader communities. I am looking forward to investigating all the different forms of community this term and thinking about what they can offer to inclusive policymaking.
