**1. Introduction**

One of the leading concerns in community psychology has been to capture the feelings that people have about the communities of which they are part. Following Sarason cited in [1], it is this area of work that has come to be associated with the term "sense of community" (SOC). The concept of SOC is necessarily a multidimensional one, covering various facets of people's opinions about their communities. There are a number of further complexities to the question, not the least of them being the problem of how people define their communities in the first place. For example, in England, research has suggested that people often refer to their immediate localities when asked to say where they live and where they feel they belong, while at the same time they think in terms of a series of overlapping maps of different sizes, each significant in

different ways. Furthermore, there is a need to come to terms with the fact that while many people may define their communities in territorial or locality terms, others do so in terms of common identity with a social, religious, or ethnic group [1].

Sense of community has been described as "the sense that one was part of a readily available, mutually supportive network of relationships upon which one could depend and as a result of which one did not experience sustained feelings of loneliness" Sarason cited in [2].

Gusfield cited in [3], distinguished between two major uses of the term community. The first is the territorial and geographical notion of community—neighborhood, town, and city. The second is "relational," concerned with "quality of character of human relationship, without reference to location." Gusfield noted that the two usages are not mutually exclusive [3].

According to Sarason cited in [3], the basic characteristics of sense of community are: perception of similarity to others, an acknowledge interdependence with others, a willingness to maintain this inter dependence by giving or doing for others what one expects from them, the feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure.

McMillan and Chavis defined sense of community as "a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together." In this key definition, they identify four major elements required for a sense of community: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and a shared emotional connection. By their definition, all four elements must be present to define a sense of community.

Membership referred to the feeling of belonging, of being part of a collective. A major part of membership was boundaries; if one belongs to a particular community, then the implication is that there are those who do not. This concept intuitively seems to be a necessary part of any definition of community; to have a sense of community, one must first belong to a community. Emotional safety derived from membership, the sense of belonging and identification with the community of interest, personal investment in the community leading to stronger bonds, and some kind of common symbol system, which unites a community.

The second dimension was that of influence, a bidirectional concept, as for a group to be attractive, an individual must feel they have some control and influence over it, whereas, conversely, for a group to be cohesive, it also must influence its individual members. McMillan and Chavis stated that pressure of conformity from community members actually comes from the needs of individual members for consensual validation. In turn, conformity serves as a force for cohesiveness.

The third dimension, integration and fulfillment of needs, referred to the idea that for a community to maintain a positive sense of togetherness, the individual group association must be rewarding for the individual members. Some of the more obvious rewards examined in their paper are status of membership, success of the community, and the perceived competence of other members.

The last dimension is that of shared emotional connection. McMillan and Chavis suggested that this was in part based on a sense of shared history and identification with the community. The authors suggested that the more people interact, the more likely they are to form close relationships. As this interaction becomes more positive, the bond becomes stronger. Investment in the community determines the importance to individuals of the community's success and current status. Those who give time and effort to community organizations and events will be more concerned about seeing the positive effects of these events than are those who have not been involved.

#### *An Ethnographic Study on Sense of a Community: The "Awramba" Experience DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105953*

McMillan and Chavis stated that these aspects of community contribute to create each of the dimensions, which in turn work together dynamically to create and maintain an overall sense of community.

Generally, the first element is membership. Membership is the feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness. The second element is influence, a sense of mattering, of making a difference to a group and of the group mattering to its members. The third element is reinforcement: integration and fulfillment of needs. This is the feeling that members' needs will be met by the resources received through their membership in the group. The last element is shared emotional connection, the commitment and belief that members have shared and will share history, common places, time together, and similar experiences [3].

Knowing how people from diverse cultures form attachments to social groups is important, so general objective of the study is to capture an understanding of sense of community in the "Awramba" experience. Based on this general objective, this study tried to answer the following questions.


As far as the researcher knowledge, there is empirical gap in the study of sense of community on "Awramba" community. But there are two research studies conducted related to women right and the nature of group communication under Addis Ababa University, which were: Women's Decision-Making Rights in the Household [4], and a study of the Nature of Group Communication [5].

Solomon [4] found in his study on the community that, "it can be concluded that gender equality exists in most household matters in 'Awramba' community. The findings also indicate that the 'Awramba' community's culture is women friendly; it respects the equality of every member especially men and women. In this community women are relatively emancipated from cultural domination and traditional patriarchal practices. Most married women in the home life have equal rights with their male counterparts."

Tilahun [5] also found in his study on the community that, "the community exercises democratic principles in the sense that equal engagement and distribution of resources to the members. Developing brotherhood empathy, helping the misfortune and conflict reduction are basic principles of the community. A significant enhancement has also been made in empowering women. Unlike to the surrounding culture, the community could reshape the traditionally perceived role of women and men. The guiding perceived principle to ensure gender equality in the community is interpreted by assigning tasks regardless of sex, but ability".

In addition to the above, there are problems of moral value deterioration in everywhere such as in respecting elders, being honest, and the problems of conflict, which is a practical gap. So, finding the answer for how the community is dealing with this problem is another reason for conducting this study.

#### **1.1 Reasons of selecting the community for the study**

The reason that sensitized the researcher to select the "Awramba" community for the study is that the shared values social practice that has survived for the test of the

time. An indicator for this can be the following: (1) Women and children right existed in the community; elder care existed in the community, and (2) their commitment and cooperative work.

## **2. Methods of the study**

The method applied to the study of the "Awramba" community was realist ethnography. Realist ethnography is an objective account of the situation, typically written in the third-person point of view and reporting objectively on the information learned from participants at a site. In this ethnographic approach, the realist ethnographer narrates the study in a third-person dispassionate voice and reports on what is observed or heard from participants. The ethnographer remains in the background as an omniscient reporter of the "facts." The realist also reports objective data in a measured style uncontaminated by personal bias, political goals, and judgment. The researcher may provide mundane details of everyday life among the people studied. The ethnographer also uses standard categories for cultural description (e.g., family life, communication networks, work life, social networks, and status systems). The ethnographer produces the participants' views through closely edited quotations and has the final word on how the culture is to be interpreted and presented [6].

#### **2.1 Data source and study area**

Both primary and secondary data were collected for the study. The primary data were generated from in-depth interviews, while secondary data were obtained from information desk of the community established by the community.

The data sources or the target population of the study that included "Awramba" people living in the village is also the researcher source of data.

This study was conducted on "Awramba" community who are living in "Amhara" region, south "Gondor" Zone, "Fogera woreda," 72 km far from "Bahir dar" city and 7.5 km from "Wereta" on the way road to "Debretabor." The exact geographical coordinates of the community place are latitude and longitude – 11.9203453, 37.7868649 [7]. As the interviewees told the researcher, the "Awramba" community started to establish in 1971 around 66 individuals living in different "kebeles," but after the "Derg" regime came to the position, the leader of the community arrested for 6 days and the member of the community became 48 individuals. In 1987, 13 individuals of the community members migrated to southern nation nationalities and people's region (SNNPR), "Bonga," and the rest of the community members migrated to "Bonga" in 1988/89, when the community reestablished in 1999, the community members were 19 individuals (**Table 1**).

#### **2.2 Sample size and sampling techniques**

The respondents of this study were "Awramba" people living in the village. In this community, there are a total of 177 households, for this study matter a total of four samples were purposefully selected to participate in the study.

Four interviewees were participated in the study. Out of the four participants of the study, participant 1 was selected purposefully by the researcher, because she was a person assigned by the community as a tour guide, worker in the museum and information desk of the community. The rest three participants of the study were the

**Year E.C. Numbers of the "Awramba"community members Male Female Total** 196 207 403 198 214 412 211 221 432 250 213 463 232 245 480 235 245 483 240 254 494 252 262 514 253 263 516 254 265 519 257 278 535
