Elementos instrucciones tipo R

Boundary processes relating to the nature of communities’ associations with one another will be described as alignments. For a constituent community or community member to be aligned means either being within the same community boundary, or being able to negotiate a boundary to find sufficient agreement/similarity such that the two communities can be seen to have support towards an action, value or ideal. These negotiations are founded in values and meaning. Alignments are examples of the successful negotiation of community boundaries to achieve a purposed result. There was also active non-alignment, at times involving conflict with other communities. Non- alignment was evident where a community did not want to be seen as being associated with another, usually in direct response to differing values, agendas and related activities.

While there were many examples of alignments and non-alignments in the data, the boundary processes of understanding and navigating these was not always a conscious process. However some were very aware of the existence of alignments between constituent communities.

“.. And so, you know, you work out the best way to do something and then you’ve got to take the politics and the alliances and things into account before you work out how to implement it.” (3c)

The preceding quote indicates an understanding of the importance of alignments within the rural community. The following quote presents the boundary process of building alignments: mixing amongst other constituent communities, understanding their activities, and identifying differences

and common links networking with ‘the right’ people or communities, that is, those who can further the community’s purpose.

“Like they came down last Saturday for something and I can take the day off or I can, yeah, get things done. .. And if you don’t go you miss out. .. And that’s what it’s all about – it’s that networking and being there.” (1a)

The following presents some alignments that were found in the data.

5: 2.3.1 Individuals in constituent community alignments

Most alignments observed were between individuals of different communities rather than officially between the collective memberships of constituent communities. There were many examples of individuals from cause communities creating alignments with individuals from other constituent communities to facilitate project outcomes.

Various people were described as having alignments across the rural community. This became important where there was need to engage support.

“And because she’s a local person, she brought with her huge experience of how to get the community in volume.” (2c, participant’s emphasis)

All participants found members’ vocations to be significant in facilitating access to other communities and building alignments and support.

“.. And because he was [a formal community leader] and he’s a great community worker, he’s able to engage a lot of community just from who he is.” (1a)

One cause community found a member’s alignment with the media to be particularly useful in promoting activities.

“I think a guy like [Member], his contacts in the media, you know, that helped a lot too.” (2g) While another relied on a member’s alignment with the arts community to understand the dynamics and alignments within the rural community.

“I was with the Arts before I came here so I have contacts with all these Regional Arts people on the [rural area]. Now I don’t do anything on the [rural area] unless I actually talk to a few

of those key people, because they give me the heart and soul. And they also tell me the truth.” (3a)

This quote not only pointed to the role of alignments to facilitate access to resources, but also the need for information to be able to navigate these alignments and thus inform the negotiation of boundaries.

5: 2.3.2 Multiple membership and alignment

Given the small population within rural communities, individuals with multiple memberships across constituent communities were frequently a part of the boundary processes in alignments. All participants spoke of other constituent communities of which they had been or were currently members. Multiple membership highlighted the values that formed the basis of alignments.

It was frequently acknowledged that it is often the same people making things happen in the rural community.

“.. in country towns there’s a small core of people in different spots of the town at different levels socially, doing different things, but it’s a real small group of people that are making things happen. Whether it be making sure the potholes get filled or the golf course gets cut, the bowling green gets cut or there’s enough people for the dart team at the RSL Club.” (1b)

Consequently some constituent communities within rural areas had similar membership, yet with a different purpose for existing.

“I’m also a member of [cause community] .. and these two other committees are made up from people on that committee as well because that’s the only way to do it on the rural area – a small population.” (3f)

Given the almost identical membership in the preceding scenario these communities were not identifiable by the specific individuals involved, nor conflicting values previously identified as frequently demonstrating difference. The purpose and agendas were the differentiating aspect of the boundary process defining these communities.

Three values were apparent in alignments associated with multiple memberships: a positive

welcoming environment for the rural community; the rural community shaping its own destiny; and social interaction as a community cornerstone. The development or maintenance of a positive environment included the economic, social and physical aspects; ensuring viability from all these perspectives.

“.. they also see that they have got a viable little community and they worked up to get things, and have a safe community. You know, all the social things.” (2g)

The agenda was further evident in discussions about improving amenities through land care and street scaping projects, as well as the creation of central focal points that felt inviting and would thus facilitate community activities, events and gathering points for social interaction.

Another underpinning value was about communities having control of their own destiny.

“And we talk about community development, but that’s community development, when you let the community control their destiny.” (3d)

This was highlighted as important not only in valuing self-determination and ownership, but also in enabling the rural community to respond to their challenges. The following quote demonstrates that where an active local voice was able to ‘stand- up’ for the community wishes, it was valued and appreciated.

“.. And yeah, but the town come together with that, even the new people, you know stuck together and said, ‘No.’ .. We’re very, very lucky. Very lucky.” (2e)

It was expressed by some that local action needed to occur at the risk of making mistakes.

“If we want to go and do that, experimental, and waste three or four thousand dollars, they still let us do it. .. because that keeps that originality and that will keep them going.” (1c) This quote also demonstrates that maintaining local control was seen to be an important aspect of maintaining engagement in cause communities. Maintaining engagement was in turn seen to increase the capacity of rural communities to respond to challenges.

Social interaction was another common value underpinning alignments associated with multiple memberships across interest and cause based constituent communities. One example was the role of sporting communities in bringing people together and facilitating interacting socially, aside from the competition.

“.. they’re pretty important, not to win or lose cricket matches or football matches but as a place for society to gather and mix and then go through. .. it’s just an extension of society.” (1b)

In addition to sporting communities, this agenda was seen as underpinning most RCD constituent communities and their activities. It was not the activities per se, but the social and boundary processes that they enable which held ongoing value to members.

“.. Now for the community the outcome is going to be the putting on of the night, but .. we’re going to be establishing relationships with people in all the towns. .. To me that’s community development in a small scale, in action, bringing people together of, from all different walks of life, creating connections, doing fund raising activities and all of that sort of stuff. ..” (3b)

As alignments were founded in common values across communities, even when they were through multiple memberships, the associated identity with each community remained intact for the member of the alignment. This was particularly true for constituent cause communities and was demonstrated in participants maintaining their social patterns and only interacting as a community when furthering the cause.

“.. But beyond that we, you know we don’t meet socially, we seem to see each other at board meetings and that’s it. Whereas I suppose we’ve all got our own group of friends. And that’s the way it goes.” (2j)

The examples of alignments in these sections (5:2.3.1 and 5:2.3.2) indicate that alignment boundary processes were not about reconstructing boundaries or meaning in communities, but about links, and connections, building on networks, bringing the communities identifiably alongside another in the path of their activities. These connections were either existing due to membership across

multiple communities, or were purpose built. In both cases, the alignments were utilised to facilitate the cause.

5: 2.3.3 Formal community alignments

Alignments formally acknowledged between collectives were observed. These constituent community boundary processes were also based around a common value, or need.

The data provides examples of alignments between sporting communities and schools, cause communities and schools, local councils and cause communities, and between various cause communities. Some communities were aligned in response to the need for similar facilities, infrastructure or resources. In these instances working collaboratively achieved the desired gain within each community while reducing costs and resources, for example, in sharing buildings.

“We’ve put two of our sports centres into the schools and they’re community, joint community/ education department. .. it saved us having to have an empty sports centre somewhere, or having, trying to get community people to run them ..” (1c)

It was also evident in sharing administrative resources whereby paid administration provided support to volunteer community endeavours through maintaining secretarial requirements.

“.. and Council provide administrative and material support to the group, taking care of agendas, minutes, actions arising from meetings and ensuring adherence to terms of reference and matters of procedure.” (1c)

Other alignments were founded around a common interest or value. One example of this was a constituent community’s engagement with a local primary school.

“.. [Rural town] Primary school, we’re going to support the newsletter, where, we’re going to support their events like school fetes, graduation dinners. We’re going to do a monthly award for students which have done something, probably outside their comfort zone. ..” (2b) Within both communities, communication and social interaction was valued, as was celebrating personal growth and achievements. There was accordingly a sharing of resources and infrastructure to encourage these values in the children of the rural community.

Mutual benefit was important in many alignments between collectives. All the preceding examples had mutual benefit for the communities involved. The support given to the school returned a benefit to the cause community by raising their profile in the hope of increased membership from young families. This was a stated agenda:

“You know, we wanna I suppose, encourage the younger families to sort of support us as well.” (2b)

Alignments at a collective level were facilitated through multiple memberships of members. Two cause communities had some shared membership with the local business association. However the new cause community stepped out and actioned a broader membership around a specific activity and ideals. So while aligned and maintaining membership overlap, they were not identified as the same constituent community. Another example was two separate initiatives with predominantly the same membership and similar interests. One initiative was a government led process for a co- ordinated community response, whereas the other was a grass-roots response to a common experience which highlighted a community need. They expected to benefit from the collectives’ alignment due to the ease of shared knowledge through the shared membership:

“.. people involved in the [cause community] will be involved with the [government]’s initiative as well, so yeah in some ways it will overlap. Which is a good thing because you can have the same people on the committee for both initiatives ..” (3f)

Alignments between collectives involved boundary processes similar to those described in individual based alignments. The foundation was in common values or purpose and often included multiple membership. Collective level alignments were more likely to have a stronger focus on the mutual benefit for the communities involved.

5: 2.3.4 Active non-alignment

In contrast to alignments were when community members actively sought to demonstrate difference or incompatibility with another community. Such processes will be described as active

non-alignments. In the data, the most prominent examples of active non-alignment were when some members were associated with forestry or real estate development.

An active non-alignment between Forestry and Green constituent communities affected the activities and acceptance of other establishing constituent communities. The mistrust stemming from the different value base of each community, led to active non-alignment with new constituent communities when a founding member was seen as being aligned with one or the other set of values. In the example below, the speaker belonged to the forestry community as well as an establishing cause community.

“It wasn’t easy because there was this mistrust in the community sometimes too. Like you’d get people – there was this bloke at [rural town] wouldn’t [associate with the cause activities] because I was on the board. And .. yeah it happened to other board members as well.” (1b) In the absence of obvious values held by an establishing constituent community, onlookers first saw the founding members’ membership within other constituent communities and anticipated

alignment of values. Judgement was then made, which in the preceding cases led to active non- alignment, even though the new community’s purpose, values and existence was unrelated to a forestry or green agenda.

Similar issues arose with developers. As a cause community was perceived as being aligned with a developer, other constituent communities actively non-aligned, preferring not to be associated with a community that held contrasting values. The strength of sentiment by some was apparent in their description of developers as “the main street mafia” (2d). One response by a cause community was to actively non-align with the developers. This was done in regular communication and media.

“.. this is where it is, behind [developer]. So that in itself is a problem because people think it’s part of [developer] .. which has put a lot of people off. Although I had to work fairly hard at saying ‘we are not [developer], we are not [developer], we are not [developer]. Just ‘cos it’s in the same building, just because [developer] built it. Nothing to do with [developer].” (2d)

One cause community considered people’s reaction to differing values and discussed alignments and non-alignments.

“.. and there were accusations that, oh, you know, that [developer], well I shouldn’t mention names but you know, particular people you know, that they possibly shouldn’t be involved and another should.” (2g)

While in the above quote there was a hesitancy to discuss potential conflict, others were less hesitant in directly addressing where the active non-alignment lay.

“.. So it’s old people with pig-headed ideas that are really out-dated that were causing trouble. They were the ‘anti’ group I suppose you’d call them.” (2h)

Active non-alignment, as with alignment, was founded in the values and meaning associated with constituent communities. Where there had been previous conflict, mistrust developed affecting membership of new constituent communities. Even perceived alignments caused others to actively non-align with cause community activities. In response, the cause community actively non-aligned with constituent communities with contentious value sets.

In summary, membership to constituent communities was founded in the values and ideals associated with each community. Recognising these was thus an important part of the boundary processes for new constituent communities. Any potential alignment between communities affected the overall rural community fabric as the new community was actively avoided or targeted in an attempt to renegotiate alignments. Mistrust and/or conflict can occur amongst community members within or between constituent communities, brought about by the new communities’ alignments, real or perceived. This can have a strong personal impact for members as well as a collective impact and response. Accordingly, communities were active in identifying the impact of various alignments and at times sought to non-align as a protective response. Perceived or real alignment of a constituent community with a developer or forestry interests was a source of conflict.