communities beyond borders

Community Beyond BordersJohn Boyer (joboyer@vt.edu)

Dept. of GeographyVirginia Tech

Twitter: @plaidavenger

Tuesday, December 16, 14

The technology tools now available to communicate and to deliver content are

AWESOME!!!

...more humans are communicating in more ways, more of the time,

than ever before....Tuesday, December 16, 14

So for a class the size of a small

town...there are a few

general strategies we use in super-

large classes...

Strategy #1: Increase the bandwidth

large classes...

Strategy #2: Expand options

large classes...

Strategy #2: Expand options

Strategy #3: Make a class into a community

large classes...

And I am increasingly going fully on line....

...and do be successful at that, you need to build community....Tuesday, December 16, 14

BUT!!!! Im just a geography professor!

What do I know about communities?

BUT!!!! Im just a geography professor!

What do I know about communities?

However, the more I thought about it....

...from Latin communis: things held in common, a broad term for fellowship or organized society. A social unit of any size that

shares common values and/or common interest, which affects the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

(face-to-face, local, national, international, interest group, virtual)

What is a “community”?

Community throughout history

It all starts with family…the clan or kinship group….

….then extends to the tribe

….people helping out their people, and in exchange they help you. We work together, we live together, we experience life together.

We have a shared identity. We have shared interest...Tuesday, December 16, 14

But these are peeps and communities on the move, not yet tied to a certain space, or geography.....

...from hunter gatherers to farmers: we started geographically hanging out in a single space, a defined place, and our numbers in that space grew into villages…..and small towns….which turn into

bigger towns....

Ag revolution to industrial revolution to post-industrial evolution...and these places

(which evolve into cities, city-states, nations, empires, etc.) have more and more and more peeps in them

So we are each in a group of people with a shared life, shared experiences in this shared space, perhaps still with shared interest,

although as our numbers get bigger, those interests expand exponentially....

More and more and more people doing more and more specialized work, we make stuff, we buy stuff, we make money, we have leisure

time so we create religions and arts and sports and hobbiesTuesday, December 16, 14

So communities become bigger and more complex, but there is still that shared sense of identity. This is not just my tribe its my town.

Its my place. Its my culture. Its the home football team.

I mean,times have

really, really changed....

I mean,times have

really, really changed....

...or have they????

And even in “small” urban areas, NOW THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS!!!

And specialized sub-communities sprung up from the larger communities: The local Methodist or Baptist church, the Rotary

Club or The Lions Club, the PTA, the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts....even the concepts of ‘neighborhood’ and ‘subdivision’

TIME FOR A ROUND OF:ASK THE AUDIENCE

TO ANSWER!Tuesday, December 16, 14

What named community are you from? How do

you self-identify?

TO ANSWER!Tuesday, December 16, 14

you self-identify?

TO ANSWER!

What sub-communities did you have there?

you self-identify?

TO ANSWER!

Are those civic interest groups increasing in size?

you self-identify?

TO ANSWER!

Are those civic interest groups increasing in size?

Do you think your hometown has a vibrant “sense of community”?

ASK THE AUDIENCE:Community Generation Gap Speed Round

How many of you have lived in the same town your

whole life?

whole life?How many of you younger peeps plan on living in your hometown for life?

So where do you folks spend the majority of your time

interacting with other humans with similar interests?

So where do you folks spend the majority of your time

interacting with other humans with similar interests?

SO....as the steady progression of the human story has gone forward for millennia, we have become increasingly urban (now over half the planet in an urban area), with more and more people around us (7.5

billion of us)…..while simultaneously being able to travel further and further, for cheaper and cheaper, making it easy to move around, and thus scatter our tribe, and even our families to

different geographic areas…

World Urbanization Rates

...making get togethers special

...or is it affording us the opportunity to now NOT see our tribe?

From defining family, to defining clan, to defining a place, to defining the culture at a specific place....then sub-cultures of

specific components of your life

So community has transformed....

...over time as urban areas and populations have grown, the evolution of specific internets groups EXPONENTIALLY grew, as

more people meant more stuff people are interested in, which meant more opportunities to do those different things that you like to do, but weren't available in your clan, or village, or small town…

Tribe to village to neighborhood to city….as our geography circle expands, so do our opportunities to find people who like the stuff that you like….who

do the stuff you do….who share the same interests you share….

Tribe to village to neighborhood to city….as our geography circle expands, so do our opportunities to find people who like the stuff that you like….who

do the stuff you do….who share the same interests you share….

HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!!! THAT IS A COMMUNITY!!!!!

And now, let’s erase geography, and eliminate borders...

...and head into the digital infinite Tuesday, December 16, 14

Communities have gone on-line!!! With perhaps more participants than in “real life”!

(...and I’m not not talking about shopping, or brand loyalty building, or YouTube vids or dating services or shallow materialistic self-absorbed crap...)

And everything I have said thus far about increasing human interaction and connections and

community forming....

....multiply by a billion interactions a second.

WHY I THINK DIGITAL COMMUNITIES--SANS BORDERS--

ARE GREAT

We are building a global neural network

You are not alone.

(Isn’t overall human happiness a good thing?)

It is helping humans help other humans.

It is bridging cultural divides, just for fun...

It is empowering consumers AND entrepreneurs

-Power to the (entrepreneur) people!

-Individuals, and individuals working together as a shared voice, can focus and enact change like never

before

I am increasingly trusting my community over traditional sources when it comes to news....

They increase a tendency towards democracy....

They are going to exponentially increase educating the world: Learning Communities

….and on a personal note: I want to create on-line courses that completely eliminate geographic barriers, but also destroy social

barriers in their entirety: students interacting with each other, and me, on equal footing, but also with politicians and scientists and

everyone else….by building community.

A COMMUNITY working together can achieve more than an INDIVIDUAL can on their own...and can make

the impossible possible with a collective voice.

A COMMUNITY working together can achieve more than an INDIVIDUAL can on their own...and can make

the impossible possible with a collective voice.

...GROUP SYNERGY evolves organically

Aung San Suu Kyi Noble Peace Prize Winner

and chairperson of the National League for

Democracy in Burma

Led to live Skype session with her

Initial interest from Burmese student

Skype shout out & social networking by students

Home may be where the heart is,

but in the 21st century communities are where your interest lie...and in a digital world without

borders, that is everywhere and anywhere, with limitless options

...and the fascinating possible FUTURE of borderless communities???

Training for space? An entire virtual existence?

A more comfortable virtual existence?An entire virtual existence?

The future of warfare?Tuesday, December 16, 14

But for now, local still matters, because we are flesh

and blood humans, and we live in the local-totally-real

world….but in an increasingly borderless world where you,

the user, create your community.

So who is your community? In an on-line world,

the world is your oyster.

....so what will we do with it?Tuesday, December 16, 14

communities beyond borders

shared identity

general strategies

superlarge classes

small towns

geography professor

common values andor

single space

certain space

Education

beyond growth beyond borders: a panacea

beyond borders - pdf.usaid.gov

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