On Community by Frances Grant
“When our greatest shared characteristic is separation, how have we still found a way to come together, and does this redefine our understanding of community as a population?”
Community: a settlement of people living in the same place or a group who shares similar interests.
Not often is community reduced to a social security net. Yet, when our greatest shared characteristic is separation, how have we still found a way to come together, and does this redefine our understanding of community as a population?
Rural Northern Scotland has always had a relationship with isolation. Its charm synonymous with its physical remoteness from large urban centres. Being forced into individual isolation does not change the values at the core of our social fabric but rather exposes them.
Our social fabric is bound by the thread of collective responsibility. For many, this is not new, as an example groceries have always brought back for others from the nearest town. This social fabric is not contemporary but our exposure to it is. When you take away the noise we create from our usual routines we are left with what living collectively really is: shared investment in each other.
by Frances Grant