Critical Bibliographic Essay Garrett Montgomery 3/25 ... - Oncourse

Critical Bibliographic Essay
Garrett Montgomery
3/25/2011
W240
A community system is wild and diverse, comprised of many features and people that
create the culture and identity of the place. Communities, cultures, and societies alike are an
intertwined web that are connected by different nodes and are continually evolving and growing.
They work together and fight each other in a full world system. That is defined as “a social
system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimization and
coherence. Its life is made up of the conflicting forces which hold it together by tension, and tear
it apart as each group seeks eternally to remold it to its advantage.” (Wallerstein, 1975) In a
capitalist world, the most powerful single node is one that can control and remold the social
system into what it needs it to be. This world is comprised of billions of nodes of cultural
identity, which can make up larger cultures or breakdown into smaller sub-cultures. This single
node cannot see and perceive what each culture needs to survive. Life within a culture is largely
self-contained, and that the dynamics of its development are largely internal. (Wallerstein, 1975)
A community is self-sustaining and holds onto that through community involvement. However
in recent decades there have been marked declines in civic engagement and social capital.
Attendance and membership from churches to country clubs are on a massive decline and a
world system that does not value small community may be to blame. (Putman, 1996) Real
communities are faltering and truly cannot survive without outside forces interacting with them
continually. The capitalist system may integrate the world economy into a single market; it does

not make the world society homogenous in said market. (Nash, 1981) There is a definite need for
community involvement and structure outside of the world capitalist system to help a community
retain its once self-sustaining attributes. In what ways and how can a community form a othercentered
economy and still adhere to the world system at large?
World systems dependent economies are seemingly everywhere, and most notably in the
United States. The US is a fully globalized economy that makes trade with almost every nation
in the world. (Foreign Trade Data, 2010) Thus, the smaller communities within the US are
dependent the same as the whole. The dependency towards goods and services provided by these
outside sources leaves a crucial weakness in the system. In case of a global crisis, these
necessary items are not available to the community. This apparent lack of subsistence is a
sticking point to the capitalist economy. And it begs the question; do we have any real wealth?
Some communities are working hard to retain self-reliance in their communities they are
involved in. Organizations such as Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard (HUB) in Bloomington, Indiana
are taking strides in that direction by involving community members at all socio-economic levels
to help out the most vulnerable populations in the city. The organization is taking a holistic
approach grass roots approach to reach out to community members and help them become more
secure with their food. The approach includes a food pantry, community gardens, nutrition
education programs, and many more opportunities to help increase civic engagement as well as
subsistence within the community and its individuals. The organization does not just give out
food like many other food banks, but teaches the patrons to become more self-reliant and gain
confidence through workshops and nutritional guidance. These workshops give the patrons a
tangible skill that can be used to help them in the future. Community gardens are a major step
forward in restoring subsistence in a community. The HUB uses the gardens to not only provide

food for the pantry, but use them as a learning tool for the community members. Once again
tangible skills are learned, but also lifestyle choices can be affected. Studies have shown that
community gardeners eat more fresh vegetables than non-gardeners. (Armstrong, 2000) The
patrons are healthier, but also do not need to be dependent on the global economy to bring food
to them. Also, community gardens have generated strong local community involvement with the
inclusion of music, theatre, and storytelling at the sites. (Armstrong, 2000) Increases in social
capital are a result.
Community gardens are a large part of what is called new urbanism and new ruralism.
These concepts stem from the need to have community connectivity to itself as well as the
ecological surroundings. New Ruralism is the preservation and enhancement of rural areas as
places that are indispensable to the economic, environmental, and cultural vitality of cities and
metropolitan regions. (Stratton, 2009) The goal is to prevent sprawl by incorporating the rural
with the urban and use the symbolic relationship between urban and rural areas. The two cannot
survive without each other. Similarly they both suffer from blights; such as sprawl and
industrialized farming that both operating with little regard to the natural conditions of the
landscape and are oblivious to the ecological and cultural uniqueness of a place. (Kraus, 2006)
This uniqueness that is lost by sprawl and industrialized farming needs to be attained again to
give a community identity. The grapes and wines of the world are identified by their place,
Burgundy, Champagne, etc. How come Indiana does not refer to their tomatoes as the Indiana
tomato? The sense of identity and pride through geography where rural lands and connected
within urban influence, allows focus to be on the land as a very valuable commodity.
The start of new ruralism starts with policy that the communities adopt to regulate the
area. The holistic approach far outreaches educating individuals, but reaches the community at

large to make the difference. New Ruralism needs “Smart Code” which integrates land
development, ordinances, and zoning regulations all into one to promote walkable streets and
conservation of open areas, as well as many other conservation designs. (Stratton, 2009) New
Ruralists reconnect with the earth itself and in the process gain a larger sense of community and
self-sustainability. Open lands are preserved as use by wildlife, grazing animals, and medium
sized farming. No longer are the cities sprawling in need of food from the ever growing
industrialized farm, but the people needing the food are neighbors with those who provide it.
Cash crops are not the homogenized norm in the fields, but whatever the community needs and
purchases at the local market are what the farmer provides. The simple supply and demand
functions work not only on a global scale, but on a local scale as well.
Microenterprise and Microdevelopment are economic models used in small developing
countries that do not have much in the means of economic vitality. In Microenterprise small
loans from 50- 5,000 dollars are given to an individual to engage in a self-sustaining business
that operates in the sectors of the small economy. (Karides, 2010) When stepping back a small
town or city may not be much different than a small developing nation. There are major
dependencies on larger economies and outside sources, and very little self-reliance. Can a
community in the US help itself become more self-reliant by giving incentive to its own
members to create and become self-sustaining? In these small situations, if a group of people
borrow money, then others cannot borrow until the money is repaid. The created sense of
responsibility is implicated upon the borrowers by the community and will help ensure loans are
paid back. The sense of accountability given to the dollars in hand help take away from the
imaginary value of the dollar, and give it real value. (Bennholdt-Thomsen, 1999) Renewed sense
of responsibility with money and with the community will help garner subsistence in the

community. The new businesses created and ideas shared can help build up everything needed in
a community.
Community subsistence would hopefully help alleviate the stranglehold the world
economy has on almost all of its inhabitants. In an economy that is solely based on trust that a
piece of paper holds value, holding something that has real value can be lost. However, when
money is greatly needed, can it be trusted to hold its value through unpredictability? With rising
costs of travel and the world’s drunkenness on oil coming to an end, will we have what is needed
in order to survive? This cannot be known, but working with and around the system to create
something better and more sustainable in a smaller community is a way to ensure that if that
imaginary trust were to shatter, there is something solid holding the community up.

Works Cited
Foreign Trade Data. (2010). Retrieved March 22, 2011, from US Census Bureau:
http://www.census.gov/foreign-­‐trade
Armstrong, D. (2000). A Survey of Community Gardens in Upstate New York: Implications for Health
Promotion and Community Development. Health and Place, 319-­‐327.
Bennholdt-­‐Thomsen, V. (1999). The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalized Economy. London:
Zed Books.
Karides, M. (2010). Theorizing the Rise of Microenterprise Development in Caribbean Context. American
Socialogical Association, 192-­‐216.
Kraus, S. (2006). A Call For New Ruralism. Berkeley : Sustainable Agriculture Education.
Nash, J. (1981). Ethnographic Aspects of the Wrold Capitalist System. Annual Reviews, 393-­‐423.
Putman, R. (1996). Bowling Alone: Civic Disengagement in America. The American Prospect, 34-­‐48.
Stratton, E. (2009). New Urbanism. Athens: Land Use Clinic: University of Georgia.
Wallerstein, I. (1975). The Modern World System. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European
World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York.