Although our class discussions have heightened my awareness about what is considered real or imagined in the world, the idea around imagined communities are similar to the conversations from my SOC 331 class with Stacey Riemer.
In both classes, we are trying to ultimately define what community is and its ideal characteristics. Although I agree with Appadurai’s definition of “locality,” looking at scale puts community in a different perspective. With the introduction of the internet, cyberactivism emerged as a new form of activism. Communities can be defined by their impact, and I think that concept will continue to challenge the effectiveness of a small, local community versus a large, global community. With smaller communities, the scale is smaller and locality is not as challenging. Impact is more personal and feels more feasible. Larger communities attempt to bridge the gap of locality, but the impact that the community is making still has to be local and more individual.
In general, social justice is striving for an imaginary utopia, where communities are healthy and supported,and people are no longer struck by a social problem or inequality. Although we probably will never reach a day where no person is broke or no child is diagnosed with a preventable disease, we will continue to work towards an imaginary utopia by building imaginary communities.