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- Title
City Mouse, Country Mouse: The Persistance of Community Identity.
- Authors
Hummon, David M.
- Abstract
This paper analyzes how people define their relation to different forms of community. Interviews with 77 Californians revealed that respondents either chose a community identity as a city person, suburbanite, small-town person, or country person, or rejected such identification as meaningless, stigmatizing, constraining, or a source of identity conflict. Those who identify express a sense of belonging, based on ties of sentiment, interest, value, or knowledge. They also use community imagery to interpret self: Self-designated city people, for instance, characterize themselves as active, liberal, city-wise; small-town people, as friendly, family-oriented, less materialistic, unpermissive; country people, as easy-going, independent, practical, ordinary, outdoor folk; suburbanites, as people of the middle ground. This rich, complex pattern of community identification suggests the limited value of traditional sociological images of community decline and placelessness.
- Subjects
CALIFORNIA; UNITED States; GROUP identity; INDIVIDUALITY; ROLE ambiguity; PERSONALITY; SOCIAL cohesion; INTERVIEWING
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 1986, Vol 9, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF00988246