Critical issues: Circles of kinship, friendship, position, and power: Examining the community in community-based literacy research

Literacy research conducted in communities of practice outside classrooms a nd schools has proliferated in the last decade with little attention given to what it means to talk about literacy in "the community." This article ex plores issues surrounding community-based literacy research and suggests th at, although well intentioned literacy researchers risk overdetermining, es sentializing, and romanticizing what it means to engage in community-based literacy if we do not define and question what is meant by community. The n eed to define and complicate community as a construct is important, because communities are becoming more complex, and sometimes less communal, with t he diversify and rapid change of new times and fast capitalism (Hall, 1995; Lankshear, 1997; Luke & Luke, 1999, in press). This piece examines various definitions of community that have framed community-based literacy studies to date and argues for concerted efforts to define and complicate perspect ives on community in future research.