Harmony for science and humanities within the 'community'

The subject of the rapprochement of science and the humanities - in the service of a “creative economy” - has again raised its head with a speech from the Australian Academy for the Humanities to the National Press Club, carried on the ABC on February 2, 2005. It was suggested in that speech that more multi-disciplinary teams are needed in the research arena.

Indeed. And what those teams need is a decent subject to research.

May I suggest - quietly - that there is a “singleton” discipline that could make a major contribution to the creative economy if some of its research problems could be focused upon and worked upon: That discipline is community development.

Communities are places where the sciences and the humanities meet naturally; and “creative communities” are the stuff of economic booms. Becoming a creative community is a license to print money for the community, entails an intertwining of the scientific with the artistic, and presumably is good for the GDP.

There is, however, a fly in the ointment. We fumble for how to “develop” any community, let alone a creative one.

The notion of community development - at its simplest, and in its new, non-paternalistic form - is that of establishing networks within communities that facilitate communication, engender trust, and allow transactions to take place which increase the capacity of the community financially, materially and socially. The result ought to be a “resilient” community.

So far, so good. Yet is it that simple?

Research question one: How are networks best established in a community? When are they fully established?

Research question two: What is the best means of “facilitating communications”? Are new technologies (mobile phone, SMS), better than the “chat over the garden fence”?

Research question three: Which transactions “increase social capital”? What linkages make the community as a whole more resilient? More creative?

May I suggest - again, quietly - that there are things that lie at the heart of community that can help with each of these research questions, that involve both the arts and the sciences, and that can, and should, be studied in a multi-disciplinary manner. Those things are stories. Stories are at the very heart of communities. Stories are the means by which we exchange information. Stories carry community knowledge.

Research question four: How do we define “community knowledge”? How do we measure its sum total? How do we track its flow? What is a given community’s “knowledge capacity”?

Stories are an art-form. Story-telling is an art. Yet in our Australian community we also tell stories about science, about our scientific prowess. And there is - or ought to be - a science of stories. I think that’s a good definition of what community development ought to be: The science of stories. Community stories. Community knowledge.

You see, there are two kinds of knowledge. One kind - known by behavioural scientists as “explicit” knowledge, can be written down, codified in manuals and documents. Think of it as particulate “facts”. The other kind is known as “tacit” knowledge: It’s the knowledge you didn’t know you had until you needed to have it. Like how to ride a bike: Or how to be a good father.

Stories carry and transmit both kinds of knowledge. Community stories define, maintain and refresh community knowledge. There is a science to the art here: An intermingling of the disciplines. Here, you might seek a rapprochement.

If the essence of community really is in the stories they tell, then anthropologists are exactly the right people to help us understand our own communities. For too many years, in post-colonial mode, they have studied “the other” - it is now time to come home, and help study and develop our own communities. Similarly, our artists reflect us to ourselves - the stories they tell may tell us much about the nature of “community”. Think “The Lucky Country”.

We need people wanting to study “community” with both the rigour of the “hard” sciences, and the immersive techniques of the “soft” sciences. We need to understand more about what makes a “community”, what makes people feel a part of a “community”, what maintains a “community”. The answer to each of these puzzles will - I think - involve community knowledge, and community stories.

Here - in the difficult terrain of “community” - lies the possibility of a necessary melding of the arts and the sciences, on a number of levels. Send the funding, I say. Watch out for my grant application, under the title “The Science of Stories”.