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Feb 16, 2022·edited Feb 16, 2022Liked by Nicola T

Connecting culture to place and then establishing the workings of a community within that culture - this is a profound work you are doing Nicola. Your insights here are experiential and thus invaluable. I completely agree to your point that there are failures while creating a sustainable succession organically from the original structure in place. I would also like to add that such failures are meant to create a space or an idea from which major proponent of change, or the next communal succession arises. And as you rightly pointed, the mass of active contributors will have a dominant player who will shape the community in a specific period. I think that is why it is hard to deny or separate the history of a place from its ancestors who once actively shaped that particular community. Both indigenous and foreign ones.

"The hallmark of a mature community is not its outward manifestations such as programs, outreach, or developments; rather, there is an ineffable quality about the people living there that marks their sense of belonging to the place." I cannot emphasize enough on how important this insight is. Cultural assimilation is a process that disintegrates entire communities in its foundational ecosystem if the community as a collective and the individual players lack the essential sense of belonging to the place.

You have given me so much to think about with this piece. I will keep coming back to this essay for reference every time I meditate on community frameworks. Thank you for this essential work!

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