Conceptualisations and meanings of 'community': the theory and operationalisation of a contested concept

这篇讨论文件探索了“社区”作为一个有争议的概念的概念化和意义，重点关注了21世纪世界各地的科学家如何使用各种方法捕捉“社区”。它评估了研究群体中最近的理论和实证发展，确定了过去和现在研究之间的连续性和差异。它概述了社区运作的最新发展，主要借鉴了注释参考书目“21世纪研究社区”中的100部作品（Mah和Crow 2011）。除了关注研究人员如何在最近发表的研究中捕捉“社区”的含义之外，该论文还利用了对具有最近在“社区”领域进行研究经验的广泛研究人员的采访，以及项目顾问委员会成员对项目的投入。与区分不同类型社区的方法不同，我们探索了研究社区的理论、实证和方法发展，强调了四个相互关联和重叠的主题：联系、差异、边界和发展。未来的研究人员将从这些主题如何成为当代试图捕捉“社区”不断变化的本质的辩论主题中学到很多东西。

This Discussion Paper explores conceptualisations and meanings of 'community' as a contested concept, focusing on how 21st-century researchers across the world have gone about capturing 'community' using a variety of methods. It takes stock of recent theoretical and empirical developments in researching communities, identifying continuities and differences between past and present research. It presents an overview of recent developments in the operationalisation of community, drawing primarily on the 100 works in the annotated bibliography 'Researching Community in the 21st Century' (Mah and Crow 2011). In addition to this focus on how researchers have gone about capturing the meaning of 'community' in recently-published research, the paper also draws on interviews conducted with a broad range of researchers with recent experience of undertaking research in the field of 'community', and on input to the project from members of the project advisory board. In contrast to approaches which distinguish between different types of communities, we explore theoretical, empirical and methodological developments in researching communities which highlight four interrelated and overlapping themes: connection, difference, boundaries and development. Future researchers will have much to learn from how these themes have been the subject of debate in contemporary attempts to capture the changing nature of 'community'.