Current resonances of the community: community argentine theater as a space of recreation of ties of belonging

Abstract

This article reflects on the kind of community recreated by the community theater groups of Argentina during the first two decades of the XXI century. The phenomenon is analyzed as a way of community through some of the classical formulations of Sociology, especially, the conceptual polarity community/society, as well as other contemporary versions of these concepts. This path shows that the community theater groups create spaces that compensate the individualistic and impersonal logic of modern rationality. As this phenomenon has reached a significant presence and acknowledgment among public policies, the present article will analyze the relationship between these groups and the State, especially in those programs and experiences involving co-management, where the duality State/Civil Society is challenged. In this context, this work discusses the definition of “community” which is constantly reviewed at governmental and organizational scale. From such perspective, we interpret the community theater groups as part of a complex network of social relationships between the public and the private spaces, where community theater groups become social and political actors and take some government functions as part of a process of derivation from formal ways to informal ways of government.