Sense of community and social life in the fishing neighbourhood of Gurunagar, Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Today, urbanities are less involved in local communities which have resulted in a claim that the significance and the role of space and neighbourhood layout in the creation of local communities have been exaggerated. Community research has developed a few indices for evaluating the sense of community and social life, but has not focused on the significance of a sense of community in neighbourhoods. Sense of community and social life are two key concepts related to social cohesion, which have been the subject of wide ranging studies in several disciplines including sociology, psychology and built environment. Social life studies have been mostly conducted in the built environment discipline focusing on city centers or periphery areas; while sense of community studies were mostly the target of sociologists and psychologists focusing on neighbourhoods. As a result, the role of the built environment on the sense of community and social life of neighbourhood is considered as a missing gap in the most of the literatures. As clearly shown by the topic, this paper explores the sense of community and social life of Gurunagar fishing neighbourhood and investigates how particular fishing community plays a vital role in their own territoryin terms of physical, social, economic and environmental aspects and highlights its magnitude in achieving as a successful neighbourhood. Also, this research was conducted through observations, photographic surveys, spatial analysis, interviews and discussions with those who live in the selected case study area.