Community

[kəˈmju·nɪ·t̬i]

Related terms: Co-Creation, Composition, Holobiont, Interconnections, Interspecies, Life-form, Terraformers, We

When thinking of a community, we first and foremost associate a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. In ecology, a community is defined as a group of interdependent plants or animals growing or living together, or occupying a specific habitat at the same time. These two definitions, however, contain a fundamental contradiction which needs to be resolved: within the Critical Zone, we live not only with other people in the same place, but also with groups of plants, animals, and a wide cast of other life-forms (bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc.), all together creating the conditions we live in. Life forms a community of communities – human and nonhuman – permeated by mutual dependencies, symbiosis, and interconnections.