More on the “Problems” of Community

In responding to the commentaries, I focus on two concepts: the importance of the sites of activism and what is meant by community. These are concepts in which one might expect the possibility of some convergence not just between activists, but also between activists and at least some researchers. The commentaries usefully highlight the ways in which the varied goals of activists make it difficult to build the kind of theoretical arguments with which we, as academics, are often most comfortable. But more than just a matter of disciplinary (dis)comfort, the seeming disjunctures in our conversations may point to very different explanatory and interpretive frameworks that operate in different realms.