Chapter 9 Rural community in a globalizing world

The community can be considered as an empirical category of thought and hope. This is how various understandings of real, imagined, invented, local, and global communities are created. Sociological studies give meaning to this heuristic category and its historical representations and its values centered around a world of proximity, primordial loyalties, solidarity, face-to-face communication, production, reproduction, knowledge, and environmental preservation. Community equally expresses the existence of a territory where populations reproduce; a place for a convivial exchange among generations, traditions, and respect to cultural heritages and ethnic boundaries. The rural community is seen as the guardian of present and past histories of groups identified by struggles for subsistence, resistance, and celebration of memories from ancestors. Community provides the foundation for sociability and sustainability. In the context of a fluxional, risky, and individualized society, community members are becoming more vulnerable as their pleas for solidarity and safety are unheard. Although the rural community described here has been an object of speculation and violence that affect our world, the concept of community is still desired. Accordingly, its relevance is renewed for a prosperous rural future in a globalizing world.