This text is part of the special report The State of Quebec 2022
The gang, the clique, the band, the group, the troop, the club, the front, the nation, the union, the league, the party, the network, the alliance, the collective, the district, the community. There is no shortage of words to designate these spaces, identities, representations and these geographical, ethnic, political and sociological relationships which unite and mobilize as much as they fragment and divide our societies.
Communities very broadly define our relationships with others and in relation to others. In this sense, the very notion of community is complex and sometimes seems a little vague. Used in different disciplines, it has aroused renewed interest in recent years, both from those who take advantage of networks of solidarity and spaces where we look alike and come together as among those who see it as a factor of polarization, contrary to the universalist project of the Enlightenment. Others see it as a solution as well as a dead end in the face of corporate withdrawal movements and the rise of populism and nationalism in several countries. Enough to project many expectations or aversion into it, create more or less constituted groups and risk associating with them people who are struggling to navigate.
The pandemic we are experiencing has certainly shed a different light on the motivations and mechanisms underlying our links with others. All over the world, health instructions for physical distancing have aimed to restrict the exchanges in the presence in order to limit the spread of the virus. The borders quickly closed, and each and everyone has withdrawn as much as possible to their home. Nevertheless, communities have not stopped taking action in recent months, whether online and on instant messaging applications, through solidarity initiatives to come to the aid of the most vulnerable populations, or even when t is time to get vaccinated, according to an order of priority between generations, people at risk and isolated or remote communities.
In Quebec, the prism of the community is everywhere
It was she who rejoiced on the evening of June 24, 2021 when the Montreal Canadiens reached the Stanley Cup final, a first since 1993. It was the community that mobilized in Sherbrooke in August to repatriate relatives held in Afghanistan after the takeover of power by the Taliban. It is the women and their allies who, in July, organize themselves into collectives to denounce the fourteenth feminicide committed in Quebec since the beginning of 2021 and line the walls with collages denouncing violence against women. It is also the communities that mourned the hundreds of Indigenous children whose bodies were found in the summer of 2021 on the outskirts of former residential schools and who have started searches across the country and the province.
It is again they who bring down statues of characters linked to colonialism in Montreal and elsewhere in the world in August 2020, as part of social mobilizations against police violence and systemic racism. The community is also demonstrating against the introduction of the vaccine passport in Gatineau, Quebec or Matane. The communities are the nurses who denounce the presence of demonstrators in front of hospitals and health establishments. It is also the parents who are mobilizing in all regions of Quebec to obtain child care spaces, or the people who put up election signs in cities as soon as the federal elections in September 2021 and the municipal elections are announced. November.
50 authors gathered
As part of this edition of The state of Quebec, we brought together members of the university community, a former mayor, a former judge at the Court of Quebec, actresses and actors from the community world, the director of the daily The duty, the chief scientist of Quebec, doctors and a patient, a pollster, the president of the Superior Council of Education and her team, an ethics advisor, the consultant in diversity, equity and inclusion of the City of Quebec, a social entrepreneur, the director of the Regroupement des centers d’amitié autochtones du Québec, a director and a foundation director, the president of the Commission des Partenaires du marché du travail, the director general of the City of Percé, representatives from the Association of Public Libraries of Quebec and an artist.
They talk to us about communities. How does the commitment of Quebecers materialize? How do these citizens qualify their sense of belonging to their neighborhood, their family, their group of friends or their workplace? Where and how do the communities come together and how can we get them to have more dialogue? How can they, through the strong links they generate between their members and the momentum they inspire, mobilize the population in the face of the great challenges that await us?
25 unpublished articles
By approaching the notion of community from different perspectives, the 25 unpublished articles of The State of Quebec 2022 offer a theoretical and practical overview of ways to strengthen the social fabric, the economy and democracy. But also to preserve our collective memory, to make cities live differently, to strive for more equality, to engage in dialogue, to get involved, to question ourselves, even to be indignant.
We hope that these reflections will make you see all the strength and the potential of the bonds created with the other and will allow you to answer the question which animated our work: is the future first of all community?