The ‘community’ concept in local government community plans: defining community in regional Australia

The ‘community’ concept in local government
community plans: defining community in regional
Australia

The concept of community is synonymous with local governance. It is relied
upon to speak to populations and to define the values of a region. This paper
draws on an analysis of non-metropolitan local government community plans
(n = 71) from Queensland, Australia, to examine the ways that the community
concept is rendered by local governments. Via a critical discourse analysis of
these ‘official’ documents, we argue that the community concept functions as
a signifier of identity, place and cohesion, with these significations outlining how
citizens are positioned to contribute to the formation and maintenance of the
civic order, and how local governments are operationalised into practice. We
argue that this represents a limited interpretation of the community concept
and offer a conceptualisation of a more affective and human-centred vision of
community as communitas. Accordingly, this paper develops theoretical
insights into the ways that the discursive framing of concepts like community
inform enactments of local governance.