Intro; Dedication; Foreword; Contents; Chapter 1: Introduction: The Enigma of Community; Conceptualizing Community; Communities of Place, Interest, and Communion; Place, Locale, and Shared Space; Common Interest(s); Communion; The Search for Community: Decline, Loss, and Transformation; The Community Question; The Liberal-Communitarian Debate; Contemporary Challenges to Community; The Deconstruction of Community: Singularity, Alterity, and Difference; Atomization, Fragmentation, and the Continued Quest for Community; The Relational Fabric of Community Theory; References

Chapter 2: Entering into Relation: Being as Social BeingRelational Foundations: Tönnies, Weber, and Simmel; Ferdinand Tönnies: Relational Will and Collective Entities; Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft; Social Relationships, Collectives, and Corporate Entities; Max Weber: Subjective Meaning and Social Action; Georg Simmel: Content, Form, and Sociation; Conceptualizing Social Relations; Social Status and Social Role; Definition and Typological Classification; The (Inter)action-Relation Dynamic; Typological Systems; Social Transactions and Joint Actions

Emerging Theoretical Issues in the Study of Social RelationsEmergentism, Ontological Individualism, and Critical Realism; Individualist Versus Collectivist Emergence; Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 3: Evolving Conceptions of Community; Community (Social) Group; Social System Theory; Talcott Parsons: The Social System; Community as a Social System; Parsons' Conception of Community; Community System Theory; Human and Community Ecology; Human Ecology; Community Ecology; Social-Ecological and Community Resilience; Social Networks, Cyberspace, and Community

Social Ties and Social NetworksWeak Versus Strong Ties; Personal Networked Communities; Mediated Relations, Cyberspace, and Virtual Communities; Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 4: The Field-Interactional Approach to Community; The Field Concept; Kurt Lewin: Psychological Life Space; Pierre Bourdieu: Field, Capital, and Habitus; Different Interpretations of the "Field"; Interorganizational Relations, Networks, and Fields; The Field-Interactional Approach to Community; Social and Community Fields; The Social Self, Perspective Taking, and Emergent Community

Social Field Theory: Some Interpretative ConsiderationsSocial Field, Social Capital, Interest, and Agency; Spatial, Structural, Interactional, and Transactional Relations; Concluding Remarks; References; Chapter 5: Dialogical Conceptions of the Self and Community; Dialogic Relations1: Martin Buber and Mikhail Bakhtin; Martin Buber: The Ontology of the "Interhuman"; Mikhail Bakhtin: The "Inter-individual" and Dialogic Interaction; The Notion of Betweenness; Situated Action and Dialogic Interaction; Dialogic Community Practice; Betweenness, Relational Emergence, and Community; References