‘It all boils down to respect doesn’t it?’: Enacting a sense of community in a deprived inner-city area

Abstract

Audio recordings of meetings of two community groups in a deprived inner-city area were analysed, using discursive psychological and conversation analytic techniques to explore situated enactments of ‘community’. Participants situated themselves as members; of a geographical community; of an “imagined” community; and, of other constitutive communities. A sense of community was enacted through five interactional strategies: affirming moral codes, ‘defending’ other members, distinguishing insiders from outsiders, enacting empowerment and challenging institutions. Participants regularly employed emotional displays and affirmed moral positions, both to constitute ‘community’ and to take action in it. In so doing they worked up social capital and positioned community concerns in ways more reflective of their own situated values than of criminal law or government policy.