Canadian Journal of Sociology Online July-August 2005

John G. Bruhn The Sociology of Community Connections.

Springer, 2005, 303 pp. $US 119.00 hardcover (0-306-48615-6) Few areas in Sociology have received as much recent attention as community studies and the associated efforts to assess trends in and the effects of social capital. John Bruhns work, The Sociology of Community Connections is a meticulously prepared text that addresses how communities are established and maintained through individual social connections. Supported with rich accounts of current research, Bruhn examines the conditions under which community connections are remade and destroyed as a result of external threats, rapid social and technological change, and the processes of modernity. Bruhn posits that social relationships have fundamentally changed and that weak ties are becoming increasingly prevalent under conditions that frustrate the maintenance of strong and tenable social relationships. Deriving many hypotheses from the work of Robert Putnam, Bruhn argues that not only are weak ties becoming more salient, but also there is increased turnover in weak ties that result in fleeting and fragmented relationships. Fleeting and fragmented relationships are thought to restrain ones social investment in community, thereby limiting the social capital available to all group members. Under these conditions it is expected that generalized trust in social institutions and fellow citizens may wane, thereby further threatening community. The majority of chapters are dedicated to investigating community formation and challenges to community among the poor and homeless, within communities that have experienced natural and technological disasters, religious communities, immigrant communities, communities that either choose to exclude themselves or are excluded from the wider society, on-line communities, solitary communities, and the impact that community connections have on social support and health outcomes. While these chapters differ widely in the substantive literatures they address, each is tasked with explaining how social ties lead to community formation and the particular challenges that each community faces in maintaining its social organization. Bruhn recognizes the need to address the uniqueness of community in these different social contexts and the readers efforts are rewarded with an appreciation for the importance of social context when accounting for the particular challenges faced by each community. This need stems in part from an assumption that social groups are becoming increasingly isolated as reflected in fewer inter-group social connections. This work reminds one of the important contributions made by community studies and provides a valuable corrective to more macro-oriented assessments of community social capital. Bruhn is most convincing when demonstrating that community matters in the lives of individuals and to the health of societies. Where evidence exists, it is also shown that new forms of community, such as on-line communities, can both contribute to and curtail social connections within different groups and among different individuals. Despite these and other qualified conclusions, the implicit assumption exists that contemporary social organization has overwhelmed community and increasing numbers of us languish in fragmented and ephemeral relationships. Bruhn astutely eschews the community lost argument in favour of assessing both the beneficial and detrimental impacts of societal change on social connections. However, it may be equally important

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to re-evaluate the role of ephemeral relationships in individuals lives. Lynn Lofland certainly argues that ones social world is comprised of many different short-lived relationships and that these relationships make an important contribution to ones life and sense of community. Demographic changes that have more individuals delaying marriage, investing time in education, and living alone may also contribute to brief and fragmented patterns of social engagement. For specific groups and within certain stages of the life-course, a need, or preference may exist for purposefully oriented short-lived relationships. These types of social relationships require further consideration and investigation. Absent from Bruhns work is a critical assessment of the very usefulness of social capital as a concept that is operationalized in discrepant ways at individual, family, community, and even national levels of analysis. No attempt is made to wrestle with these murky debates or to acknowledge mounting arguments that the concept loses much of its explanatory power the farther it veers from a network based approach. This is peculiar since Bruhn insightfully argues that the investigation of ephemerally weak social relationships and community ties in the absence of propinquity depend more highly on networked approaches contemporary support of Barry Wellmans answer to the community question and Mark Granovetters assertion that weak ties matter. Providing greater methodological background regarding, for instance, Putnams use of social capital compared to networked approaches to the concept would improve the uninitiated readers understanding and meaning of the findings presented. The text would be more complete and useful for the purposes of instruction had these methodological issues been addressed. Readers will find much more of interest in Bruhns work including an insightful discussion of how early social connections in an infants life shape future attachments and how social connections contribute to a sense of place and community belonging. Early within the text is a very useful introduction to conceptions of community traced from the early ideas of Ferdinand Tnnies, classical European thinkers, and the later contributions made by human ecology, community power studies, and network analysis. Bruhns text should be seriously considered in any graduate or advanced undergraduate course interested in investigating how social connections to community contribute to individual well-being and civil society and how our community connections are being impacted by social, economic, and technological change. Glenn Stalker, PhD Assistant Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies Faculty of Applied Health Sciences Brock University glenn.stalker@utoronto.ca
My current research utilizes a life-course perspective to the study of work and leisure involvements to assess the impact that these patterns of activity have on social engagement and community involvement. Interest is taken in how individuals negotiate their time-use and the impact that adaptations and transitions have on perceived stress and wellbeing. http://www.cjsonline.ca/reviews/soccommunity.html July 2005 Canadian Journal of Sociology Online