In the contemporary United States, the term “community” is used so pervasively it would appear to be nearly meaningless. And in fact the term is often deployed more for its performative effect of being “warmly persuasive” than for any descriptive work it accomplishes (R. Williams 1983, 76). Carrying only positive connotations—a sense of belonging, understanding, caring, cooperation, equality—“community” is deployed to mobilize support not only for a huge variety of causes but also for the speaker using the term. It functions in this way for Starbucks and McDonald’s, both of which display pamphlets in their stores proclaiming their commitment to community, as well as for the feminist scholar who seeks to legitimize her research by saying she works “in the community.” It is deployed across the political spectrum to promote everything from identity-based movements (on behalf of women, gays and lesbians, African Americans, and others), to liberal and neoliberal visions of “civil society,” to movements seeking to restore or reaffirm so-called “traditional” social values and hierarchies.

This is an excerpt from Miranda Joseph’s entry in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (p. 57).