New Communities in a Changing World (Research in Community Sociology)

This series aims to publish research on various dimensions of communities, with discussions of theoretical and methodological issues, and empirical research. Special focus will be on cross-cultural comparative, interdisciplinary and critical studies on community structure/change problems, policy-planning and related issues. This volume explores a variety of new communities that have emerged within recent decades. They are multidimensional and multilevel constructs that have manifested in a diversity of ways. Various researchers in this volume focus on myriad kinds of new communities and different facets of this phenomenon. They devote considerable attention to the diversity of ways in which these new communities are constructed and are perceived as such by their members. Most of these new communities are related to a variety of contemporary social issues. Consequently, some studies focus on the problems and policy implications of knowledge about new communities in both enhancing and retarding individual and community well-being. The studies in this book demonstrate diversity both in subject matter and in theoretical perspective. The new communities included in this book should help us better understand the micro-foundations of community and could provide some clues about the macro-level integration of society.