Product Description

Community is almost always invoked as an unequivocal good, an indicator of a high quality of life, caring, selflessness, belonging. Into this common portrayal, Against the Romance of Community introduces an uncommon note of caution, a penetrating, sorely needed sense of what, precisely, we are doing when we call upon this ideal.

Miranda Joseph explores sites where the ideal of community relentlessly recurs, from debates over art and culture in the popular media, to the discourses and practices of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, to contemporary narratives of economic transformation or "globalization." She shows how community legitimates the social hierarchies of gender, race, nation, and sexuality that capitalism implicitly requires.

Joseph argues that social formations, including community, are constituted through the performativity of production. This strategy makes it possible to understand connections between identities and communities that would otherwise seem to be disconnected: gay consumers in the U.S. and Mexican maquiladora workers; Christian right "family values" and Asian "crony capitalism." Exposing the complicity of social practices, identities, and communities with capitalism, this truly constructive critique opens the possibility of genuine alliances across such differences.

Miranda Joseph is associate professor of women's studies at the University of Arizona.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #554159 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 231 pages

Customer Reviews

A powerful read!
Miranda Joseph's book is fantastic. If you tend to think the word "community" is synonymous with "a good thing," you will think again after reading this book. The book challenges some of the basic assumptions of non-profit organizations, political activists, and progressive thinkers, yet it does so from a sympathetic and decidedly leftist perspective. This is no armchair, right-wing, or libertarian attack, but rather a careful and constructive critical engagement with progressive thought and practice. The first chapter lays out a compelling case for the interrelations between community and capitalism, challenging the common, romantic idea of community as a group of people with shared identities and common interests that are necessarily opposed to and more progressive than governmental or business interests. It shows how capitalism produces communities, and so makes us aware of how we might be complicit in that which we hope to question. The remaining chapters offer case studies that exemplify this position, and so offer multiple points of entry for a diverse range of readers. Set aside some time and read this book, it will be worth it.