Field Notes on Science and Nature A Book by Michael R. Canfield www.hup.harvard.edu An endless living worldWhy Sketch?Letters to the FutureOne and a Half Cheers for List-KeepingLinking Researchers Across Generations+8 More The Student, The Fish, and Agassiz
Doing community There is a Japanese catchphrase, community suru, literally "making" or "doing" community. I will never forget the queasy feeling that came over me when I first heard that term, phrased as if community were a kind of event. Hold an event, bring people together, get people who might otherwise never meet to interact. It's a wonderful thought. I have nothing against events per se. However, if they are not spontaneous and voluntary, they will not last. That is my objection to the keep-it-lively concept of community. The perception of community as event stems, I think, from a yearning for the festivals and rituals that once flourished in rural communities in Japan. But those events occurred precisely because a community existed, not the other way around. Toshiharu Naka, Two Cycles Togetherness connectionurbanism