After skipping through all these sites and working out the 2 texts about the term itself, I - for myself - finally have come to the conclusion, that the definition of community is a „matter of context and interpretation" (RAPPORT). According to the definition of FRANKENBERG (1966) - community is to be characterized in terms of: 1. common interests between people, 2. a common locality, 3. a common social system or structure, 4. members sharing relations with one another and a sentiment towards the group itself - yes, as far as I can see, metacortex is a community - at first sight. And maybe BARTH’s (1969) definition - „social groups achieve an identity by defining themselves as different from other such groups and by erecting boundaries [name? password?] between them" is also appropriate to the metacortex. But to find out what metacortex really is - a condition for defining it as a community, you really have to enter the field and go native - but for a longer period of time - a few days wouldn’t be enough (especially for somebody who hasn’t got any idea of the whole matter). What I can say for sure - because the experience told me -, that if you are not part of a certain community (in this case, the metacortex), you don’t know what the fxxx they’re talking about! But this is only a little interim report - I will go on searching!

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