Despite the polysemy and ambiguity that characterize its conceptual content, community as a modern utopia of a fluid and fragmented society expresses the unquenchable desire of the subject to belong somewhere, and the passion of modern man to participate in the social game of omnipresent collective divisions and distinctions.

The community promises a refuge of safety and solidarity in a fragmented world that does not provide adequate hopes and expectations for the future. It is no coincidence that the discussion on community intervention practices traverses a range of application fields of social and humanitarian sciences, such as community work, community psychiatry, community mental health, community development, community planning, and community art, in which the community becomes the launching pad for new experiments and applications that seek to respond to problems generated by the society of late capitalism through a collective community spirit.

This is the revival, in different social and cultural contexts, of a long tradition of community activism that promises an alternative model for organizing social relations with participatory democracy and autonomy.

This edition incorporates into the original text part of the discussions regarding the gradual loss of collective identity. Thus, in the second chapter of the book, the section The Fluid Community in the Era of Late Modernity has been added, which condenses reflections from the last decade on the fragile communities of contemporary society. Additionally, in the book’s Afterword, there is a critique of the sustainable development model and a shift towards the degrowth and relocalization movement.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]