Community has many meanings, contexts, and definitions.
Community can refer to psychological sense of community (Glynn, 1981; Parker et al., 2001), an aggregate of physically colocated individuals (McLeroy, Bibeau, Steckler, & Glanz, 1988), individuals who share a pattern of interaction (Hunter, 1974), social capital and social networks (Kawachi, Kennedy, Lochner, & Prothrow- Stith, 1997), or a political entity (Long, 1986).
For our purposes, community is a collection of people who share interaction, location, and/or a sense of belonging to one another. Community is often thought of as a neighborhood or group of people, who share the same physical space; yet virtual communities constructed through social media and other “traditional” Internet resources (e.g., e-mail) are prevalent.Scholars over the past decades have lamented about the loss of community or the loss of close interpersonal relationships in a physical space (Putnam, 1995). There are a number of challenges to constructing healthy communities, including citizenship deficits, scarce resources, increased economic competition, greater focus on individualism, and globalization. The loss of community is important as healthy communities have positive health, social, and economic outcomes for its members (Kawachi et al., 1997; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997).
The challenges to healthy community are generally factors that relate to conflict. People from different cultural backgrounds, scarce resources, and increased competition are all factors that can lead to increased conflict in a community. Many scholars illustrate the negative effects of community conflict. For example, Warfield (2006) illustrated the ways in which disenfranchisement of minority groups can lead to interethnic conflict under certain conditions. In these conditions, the conflict often leads to violence and distrust among groups. In the first edition of this Handbook, we noted that the consequences of community conflict appear to polarize individuals and lead to violence more so than in the previous two contexts (interpersonal and organizational).
We argued that the conflict over scarce resources that typifies community conflicts results in “us versus them” scenarios because the parties involved perceive lack of intimacy/closeness or lack of coordinated activity. Yet the “us” and “them” often live and work in close physical proximity or have social structures that are interdependent, and thus, conflict communication becomes a frequent activity.The authors of the chapters in this section focus on exploring these types of community conflicts. They do not advocate for trying to minimize or avoid conflict because of the importance for addressing the underlying causes of community conflict and also the ongoing nature of the conflict (i.e., the conflict continually needs to be managed). Rather, they emphasize the effective management of conflict that may reduce the negative consequences and facilitate growth and opportunity from conflict. The authors see the necessity of conflict and yet explore ways to learn and address conflict in an ethical and constructive manner to build trust and positive relationships. We organize this section by first having a chapter that provides an overarching framework for conflict communication, ethics, and civic engagement. Then, we include four chapters of specific types of community conflicts: environmental conflict, trust/conflict in community-academic partnerships, religion and conflict, and moral conflict. We conclude this section with the chapter introducing the notion of designing dialogue to address community conflict.
In Chapter 18, Cheney, Beck, and Cline bring together three separate strands of literature to create an integrative framework for examining community conflict: (1) conflict, (2) engagement, and (3) ethics. Their purpose in bringing these strands together is that they see that scholars of conflict need to consider ethics in their work with communities. By conflict, they focus on the commitment to air multiple viewpoints and work through conflict.
By engagement, they synthesize literature that includes activities such as outreach, partnering, service learning, and community-based research. Finally, ethical concerns are relevant when considering community intervention or effecting change in a community. In addition to reviewing and critiquing the literature in each of these areas, they integrate these strands using a case study of Libby, Montana, which experienced high levels of asbestos and the negative health effects associated with it. Cheney et al. illustrate the intersection of conflict, engagement, and ethics as various entities tried to address the effects of asbestos in the community.In Chapter 19, Peterson and Feldpausch- Parker address public participation in environmental conflict. The authors explain that the legal context and social demand for public participation have brought environmental conflict to the fore. They identify various approaches to engaging in public participation. In particular, they review, synthesize, and critique public hearings (the most commonly used method of public participation) and consensus-based processes. Finally, they discuss the development of promising research lines identified in the first edition of this chapter. Specifically, they note that frame theory provides a focus on the experiences that shape negotiators’ respective frames for conflict. They also illustrate that critical performance study is an innovative approach to environmental conflict as it provides a rich basis for the sources and social dynamics of reflexivity. The third promising approach is systems analysis; it offers an integration of biophysical processes and social practices that converge in environmental conflict.
In Chapter 20, Lucero and Wallerstein address a particular type of community engagement: community-academic relationships in the context of health research projects. The authors begin with a case study to illustrate the conflict and trust issues that can occur in a community-academic partnership.
They explain that building trust enables partnerships to have open communication, information sharing, and conflict management. Lucero and Wallerstein introduce the principles of community-based participatory research, a form of community engagement that emphasizes co-construction and equal power/influence in research projects involving communities. The authors then integrate these principles into a model of trust development and decline to illustrate how managing conflict and building trust can occur within this type of community engagement. They conclude by offering recommendations to future community-academic partnerships on how to improve their understanding of trust as a way to reduce conflict and also offer future research directions.In Chapter 21, Croucher discusses the importance of religion for conflict in communities. Religion is a source for many community conflicts, and Croucher advocates for increased research in this area. He argues that religion should be studied from a cultural perspective in terms of values and identities. In the chapter, he explores the philosophical/ doctrinal traditions and roots of conflict in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, the three largest religious groups in the world. He summarizes these doctrines in terms of geography, key beliefs, texts/figures, and denominations/ sects. Croucher then examines how religious identification and strength of religious devotion (religiosity) have been studied in relation to various conflict traits/behaviors, including dissent, relational conflict, and conflict styles. He concludes by offering future work linking religious identification/affiliation and religiosity with conflict research as this is an underdeveloped area in communication studies.
In Chapter 22, Littlejohn and Cole introduce moral conflict—a clash created between groups or individuals based on incommensurate philosophical assumptions or moral orders. Communication in such situations can be strident and destructive, but with conscious intent and a creative approach, civil, even productive, discourse can take place in the face of moral difference.
Productive discourse allows for rich opportunities for interpersonal learning, improved relationships, and creative collaboration. The authors begin by defining moral conflict and utilize a case study of Pornotopia in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to illustrate it. They then review the theoretical influences and case studies that have informed research on moral conflict. Littlejohn and Cole explore three discourses of conflict as they relate to moral conflict: (1) advocacy, (2) negotiation, and (3) redefinition. They argue that redefinition, through transcendent communication, holds hope for the transformation of intractable conflicts.In Chapter 23, Barge and Andreas address the problem of community conflict as exacerbated by citizenship and democratic deficits. That is, people are participating less and less in community activities and also do not trust democratically elected leaders to represent their interests. They argue that deliberative democracy through dialogical practices is a key way to address citizenship and democratic deficits. Dialogue is a conversational process where parties take turns addressing each other to coordinate their meaning making and relationships. Barge and Andreas then use notions of communication as design and dialectical theory to articulate the challenges that designers of dialogues need to address when they create processes and events. Communication as design explicates ideals for communicative practice and creates thick descriptions of the interactional problems. Dialectical theory emphasizes the tensions of dialogues and the ongoing nature of conflict. The authors address three core questions in their chapter and offer examples of how these questions can be answered: What characterizes dialogical forms of communication? What dialectical tensions may emerge during dialogue? How can dialectical tensions be managed when designers plan and structure dialogue?
In sum, research on community conflict represents a variety of perspectives and communities.
Underlying these chapters is a focus on belonging to one’s own community and interdependence to other communities. These interdependencies create challenges that often result in conflict as communities attempt to reconcile value, moral, cultural, and religious differences. In addition, the importance of dialogue is paramount in addressing community conflict in an ethical manner that builds trust and fosters creativity. These chapters help illustrate the intricacies in managing community conflict.References
Glynn, T. J. (1981). Psychological sense of community: Measurement and application. Human Relations, 34, 789-818.
Hunter, A. (1974). Symbolic communities: The persistence and change of Chicago’s local communities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kawachi, I., Kennedy, B. P., Lochner, K., & Prothrow-Stith, D. (1997). Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. American Journal of Public Health, 87, 1491-1498.
Long, N. E. (1986). The city as a political community. Journal of Community Psychology, 14, 72-80.
McLeroy, K. R., Bibeau, D., Steckler, A., & Glanz, K. (1988). An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Education Quarterly, 15, 351-377.
Parker, E., Lichtenstein, R. L., Schulz, A. J., Israel, B. A., Schork, M. A., Steinman, K. J., & James, S. A. (2001). Disentangling measures of individual perceptions of community social dynamics: Results of a community survey. Health Education & Behavior, 28, 462-486.
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: American’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65-78.
Sampson, R., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.
Warfield, W. (2006). Managing racial/ethnic conflict for community building. In J. G. Oetzel, & S. Ting-Toomey (Eds.), The Sage handbook of conflict communication: Integrating theory, research, and practice (pp. 479-500). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.