Time for reflection

So what does this all mean? What have I learnt?  Is there a community within my workplace?  On reflection and further reading I get more sense of my work community, it is fluid, not fixed, not frozen in time, as people enter and exit the community it is adapting. Looking back on the bushfire event, a strong sense of community emerged, as Bachrach & Zautra (1985) identified, a strong sense of community became evident when a group of residents were faced with a proposed hazardous waste facility. This lead to a strong sense of community emerging with problem-focused coping behaviours.  My work community is often placed in a similar position when  an emergency arises, we work together to resolve the crisis.

 

I feel Durheim (1964) is correct in his approach that a community is based around interests and skills more than locality, this theory fits well with a work community where locality is sometimes not one physically location and where skills and a common interest are very evident.

The community is adapting as I write, over the past few weeks as life settles to a more ‘normal’ routine, the community settles back into it’s traditional habits and customs.   Observing other students research and presentations, was so inspiring, how so many communities were discovered, most in places one would not imagine a community to exist.