What is community in the 21st Century?

Leslie Loy and Riana Giusti

Workshop description:

The 360º conference centers itself on the individual’s impact in the world and challenges us to understand how we are each able to participate and contribute in affecting change—whether in small pockets or on a global scale. In that light, we will seek in this workshop to better understand the relationship between individuals and community and to explore a wide scope of definitions of community by understanding how our communities—and our engagement with those communities through contemporary resources—actively reflects who we are and how we are contributing to the world.

We will explore our assumptions, by seeking to grasp the contexts of where we come from—what our sources are—and how we operate out of those sources when we involve ourselves in a community. We will explore these topics through dialogue, self-reflection activities, and will work collectively to find a way to share our work with the rest of the conference in a two-day workshop setting.

The first day we will actively exploring what community is and the second day we will explore how technology -particularly the development of online communities- are transforming our understanding of community.

Contributors' biography:

Leslie Loy is constantly questioning the relationship between action and thought. She comes to the 360º conference to share ideas and conversations, and to work with other community and issue-focused individuals towards supporting worldwide collaboration and transformation. For the last three years she has worked as the Outreach Coordinator with NetworkM/weStrive.org (a virtual network that provides resources, information, and that supports activities inspired by social and spiritual activism). In June she will take on the role of Executive Director of NetworkM/weStrive.org, while living at Camphill Soltane, a life-sharing community, where she will serve as a householder and an actively engaged community member.

A recent graduate of Reed College, and a certified Waldorf educator, she truly embraces the culture of learning and she carries this passion for learning into further understanding how communities are formed, work and how they have the ability to transform the world. Through this research, Leslie provides a unique insight into how communities, physical and virtual, are adapting their roles and changing the world as we know it.

 Riana Giusti had an epiphany in her personal life about two years ago when she finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She closely examinedher lifestyle and promptly decided to quit her research position with the University of California, Davis Nutrition Department and explore a new trajectory. She consolidated her belongings, bid farewell to her partner and moved to a small organic farm in Northern California to begin a six-month farming apprenticeship.

While living in a tent on the farm, she sustained herself on the freshest of fresh-picked morsels from the fields but she also began to recognize that while this lifestyle was sustainable agriculturally it was confusing how to maintain this type of simplicity in all aspects of her living experience. Riana began to ask how she could live a meaningful, sustainable lifestyle regardless of whether she lived on a farm or in an urban center and challenged herself to find out.

Riana now lives in Berkeley, California, reunited with her partner, and teaches standards-based nutrition and gardening courses to public elementary school students. She comes to the 360º conference to share her ideas of how the individual can strive to live a sustainable lifestyle that will help to heal the earth while still benefiting from the use of modern resources and advances. While constantly seeking a balance in all aspects of life, her questions explore how an individual can contribute his or her experience of the world and how those might benefit the greater global community.