Weekly Reflections, 21 November.

What's been on my mind.

It's that time of year when we start to reflect on the year that is ending, what we've learned, and what it means for next year. This year, there's a lot of reflecting to do, and I find myself having to do it in parts.

What's on my mind at the moment is the notion of communities - how we define them, how they form, and what they mean to us.  

When I was young - admittedly, more than a while ago - community was easy to define. The Cambridge dictionary definition reflects it- "the people living in one particular area or people who are considered as a unit because of their common interests, social group, or nationality." A neat notion of clear boundaries and relationships, and my early life reflected that - family, school, locality. Relatively stable and slow to change. However, this was before the internet and easy travel (Long-distance phone calls had to be booked days in advance). Things have changed.

Social Science identifies several characteristics of cohesive an…