communities of practice
Relations make up our “I,” as our society, our cultural, spiritual, and political life. It is for this reason, I think, that everything we have been able to accomplish over the centuries has been achieved in a network of exchanges, collaborating.
Packy McCormick • Web of Relations
How do fragments of affinity and interest become "socially scalable"?
Richard Kim • From Nothing to Something with R.N.G.
Relational infrastructure refers to the social connections, interactions, and collective intelligence that underpin a community, network or group's ability to collaborate, solve problems, and drive change. It is an emergent framework of trust, shared values, and common goals that allows individuals, groups, and organizations to work together
... See moreSam Rye • On Relational Infrastructure
How can we build up an infrastructure, both physical and metaphysical, tangible and intangible, to enable the development, the practices and use of collective imagination? We’re particularly interested in how the collective works here — what it means for us to imagine together, how the grouping of intelligence progresses our ability to envisage and
... See moreOlivia Oldham • Imagination Infrastructure — What Do We Mean?
The role of informal, everyday interaction—sometimes unpredictable and serendipitous—should not be underestimated. But this requires a place-based social infrastructure that encourages such interaction. Neighbourhood churches (or other places of worship), religious activities, schools, butcher shops, markets, town squares, beauty parlours, taverns,... See more
What Is Community?
If we want a better democracy, we need the same for community entrepreneurs. For too long now, these people have done this work without being paid, recognized, or even acknowledged. On Facebook, they are called group admins; on Reddit, they are moderators. But they aren’t just admins or moderators. They are leaders. They are entrepreneurs - forging
... See moreNew_ Public • Celebrating the labor that holds up our democracy: the community entrepreneur
Relationships are the energetic core of communities. They are the glue. They are the reason people keep showing up. They are the biggest (and yet ironically the most intangible) value that communities create. Relationships are the community’s soul and source of life. Without relationships, the community is an empty shell.
Fabian Pfortmüller • Community = relationships
the best ways to imagine may be the ones that position this work as a collaboration—done with people rather than to or for them—giving people and communities the freedom to learn by doing and to adapt the general into the particular.