Preface. Communities of resistance: demands, emancipation, and struggles

Community has not become extinct; it still exists and in recent years it has been discovered that modern society consists of a mixture of different forms of community: a sort of integration of community and society models that reproduce themselves and interact between them. There are two reasons for this condition: the process of transition from tradition to modernity, which seeks different ways of constructing the individual-society relationship, and the type of social relationship that originates in a particular context. Starting from these assumptions, the aim of this chapter is to address, from a theoretical point of view, the transformations that have seen the development of these diversified forms of community in a perspective that aims to reveal the possible explanations and interpretations of the transformations and actions. Regardless of the form a community may take, it is founded on individuals, not on the roles they play within society. It constitutes a set of experiences and thoughts, tradition and commitment, participation and willpower, which enhance the social dimension of existence and the sense of belonging to a common destiny, presenting itself as a resource and a means of resistance for the protection of the common good.