Various Presenters | 25 seats available
Fridays, 10:00am - 11:30am
February 15 - March 15 (5 sessions)

Community means many things. To some, it speaks of people who come from common socio-religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds, inhabit a particular place, and hold somewhat common beliefs about life. This describes your traditional community. For others, community takes shape within an organization; it can describe those within a school or institution of higher education, a business organization, a group of social or political activists, and so on. This kind of gathering takes shape because of a common purpose and, thus, may be describer as a purposeful community. When the purpose has been achieved or abandonned, members of the community often disburse and form other alliances.

In this series of five or six sessions, speakers and their audience explore the meaning of ‘community’ in the context of rural and small town Nova Scotia. Together, we will explore such questions as:

What is “community”?
What features of the “human condition” have fostered inclusion? Exclusion?
What leads people to form and stay within certain communities?
What constitues rural communities? Urban ones?

Session no. 1
Ian McK. Harris, retired geologist and amateur philosopher
Title: “Community — What it Is, Why it is That Way, and How it Came to Be”
 
From the outset, people have contrived to develop belief systems and social practices that have encouraged a strong sense of inclusion within their communities and an equally strong sense of exclusion towards those assumed to be non-members. Religions, philosophies, and economic, political and legal practices have enhanced the concept of community inclusiveness and sharpened the perception of community exclusion and a sense of ‘otherness’. Many of the finest achievements in human culture and civilized practice are natural outgrowths of community inclusiveness and the ennobling sense of well-being it fosters. Conversely, aspects of human conduct rooted in an unbalanced sense of we-against-them ‘otherness’ has generated appalling examples of savage behaviour.

       
Session no. 2
Carol Harris, professor emerita UVic and adjunct, Acadia
Title: “Betty Murray’s leadership in traditional communities of Nova Scotia”

With a special interest in women’s leadership, Carol traces early community development in Nova Scotian through the life and times of Elizabeth Murray of Tatamagouche. Murray exemplified the spirit of school and adult education that involved whole communities. The years span 1940 to 1996, and the action takes place in the one-room school of Tarbet, Colchester County; the town and surroundings of Wolfville, Kings County, where Murray worked with Acadia’s Education Department to place students (many of whom were returning war veterans) as leaders of community activities; in a mixed race school of Halifax’s north-east end; and with history plays pressented in Murray’s  home town of Tatamagouche. This last site receives major attention as Carol examines the ways in which folk theatre provided a mirror for actors and audiences to assess the stregths and weaknesses, inclusions and exclusions, of their own village society.

Session no. 3
Amanda Peters, Chief Executive Officer, Glooscap Ventures
Title: “Defining Community for First Nations: Complexities of working within the ‘Indian Act.’”
First Nation communities or Nations have been traditionally defined by the Indian Act. First Nations were gathered and placed together on ‘lands set aside for Indians’. Since then, First Nations have migrated off the reserve but still claim a strong relationship to their home community. At Glooscap First Nation, we recently completed a two year process of Comprehensive Community Planning. The topic of one of the sessions was “What does community mean to you?” The conversation was difficult and at times tense. It is a complicated concept involving legislation, culture, ethnicity, location, kinship ties and personal preference. We will explore all of these.

Session no. 4
Claudine Bonner, Associate Professor, Socioloy, Acadia
Title: “Geography, Community and Race: African Nova Scotian Experiences of Community”
 
People of African descent have been resident in Canada since the early 1600s. In spite of this, there remains a dearth of literature exploring the history of this population and its role in the forging of a Canadian identity. The Black population of Nova Scotia is largely made up of people of African descent whose ancestors fled colonial America as slaves or freemen in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to settle in Nova Scotia. The mass migration resulted in the establishment of more than 45 distinct Black communities across the province, many of which continue to exist as distinct communities, geographically separated from their non-African descended neighbours. However, much of this history has been lost, and absented from the grand narrative of Canadian history. In this conversation, taking a focus on specific communities (e.g. Africville) as case studies, we will look at the ways in which geographic and social isolation have worked to create and in some cases, maintain these distinct communities.

Session no. 5
All presenters: C. Bonner, I. Harris, C. Harris, A. Peters
Title: “Constructing a larger understanding of community”

In this final session, each former speaker will summarize his or her ideas in light of other presentations. The panel, in full recognition that many other forms of community exist, will then call upon the audience to add their observations and stories to our collective understanding of community. The session ends with a summary of ideas about “where we go from here.”