How do we define community?

Host & reporter: Annie Anderson
Participants: David Zeman, Alicia Montgomery, Robin Teater, Gracie McKenzie, Suzette Riley, Jodi Gersh, Yu Vongkiatkajorn, Jerry Millhon, Cornelia Reichel, Lauren Pabst

Notes:
Opening questions: What’s the tie that binds community together? How do we let communities define themselves? (Why is it important to know and to what end are we defining community?)

• Generalizing community is damaging: the erasure of the individual when talking about “community” broadly –> we are all part of many communities/intersectional community. Using nuance to discuss community is what builds trust.
• The definition comes from within the community, which could be based on a common experience/geography/identity/etc, by allowing the people inside the group to tell us who they are.
• Always try to describe behaviors, not groups of people, while also centering people in the story.
• The time to learn about a community is NOT in a crisis.

Words at play: empathy, listening, connectedness, authenticity