Feeling connected to one’s community has been associated with increased self-rated health and well-being. Connectivity has also been linked to health behaviours such as smoking and obesity, which have been related to overall health status. Physical activity is related to overall health status as it protects against many chronic diseases. Unfortunately, less than 50% of Canadian adults are meeting the physical activity requirements set out by Canada’s Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Living. Thus, this study determines whether sense of connectedness is associated with current participation in leisure-time physical activity and intention to start or increase engagement in physical activity. Cross-sectional data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) cycle 3.1 was used to analyze the association between sense of community belonging and physical activity among Canadians aged 25 to 64. A series of logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. People reporting a stronger sense of connectedness had greater odds of being physically active with income, education and sex often moderating the relationship. It appeared that the relative odds of being physically active were greatest among people who felt very strongly connected to their communities and in the highest socioeconomic groups. Further, feeling more that very weakly connected to the community increased the odds of intending to start or increase physical activity among inactive females and decreased the odds of intending to increase physical activity among moderately active males. This study provides preliminary results regarding how important social factors may alter population level physical activity. The results from this study inform our understanding of barriers and facilitators associated with physical activity and how policies and conditions which affect community connectedness may be used to enhance physical activity.

Belonging is a basic and fundamental human need (Baumeister, & Leary, 1995) that is associated with psychosocial health (Cohen, 2004). Unfortunately, community belonging is a challenge for those with a bisexual identity. Binegativity, minority stress, and the invisibility of bisexual-identities may interfere with attempts to develop a sense of community belonging (Bradford, 2004). Little systematic research has examined bisexual-identified people’s perceptions and experiences of belonging to a community. This project addressed the question, “What are bisexual individuals’ experiences of community belonging/social exclusion?” Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 12 bisexual-identified persons. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006). Findings indicated that bisexual-identified persons encountered stigma and at times concealed their sexuality in order to create community belonging. However, risking authenticity, rather than concealing identity, seemed to help participants deal with stigma and develop more meaningful community belonging. Bisexual-identified persons who risk disclosing their identity and develop a sense of authenticity may increase their opportunities for community belonging. These findings are discussed in relation to their implications for counseling bisexual-identified persons and educating the communities in which they live.

Feeling connected to one’s community has been associated with increased self-rated health and well-being. Connectivity has also been linked to health behaviours such as smoking and obesity, which have been related to overall health status. Physical activity is related to overall health status as it protects against many chronic diseases. Unfortunately, less than 50% of Canadian adults are meeting the physical activity requirements set out by Canada’s Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Living. Thus, this study determines whether sense of connectedness is associated with current participation in leisure-time physical activity and intention to start or increase engagement in physical activity. Cross-sectional data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) cycle 3.1 was used to analyze the association between sense of community belonging and physical activity among Canadians aged 25 to 64. A series of logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. People reporting a stronger sense of connectedness had greater odds of being physically active with income, education and sex often moderating the relationship. It appeared that the relative odds of being physically active were greatest among people who felt very strongly connected to their communities and in the highest socioeconomic groups. Further, feeling more that very weakly connected to the community increased the odds of intending to start or increase physical activity among inactive females and decreased the odds of intending to increase physical activity among moderately active males. This study provides preliminary results regarding how important social factors may alter population level physical activity. The results from this study inform our understanding of barriers and facilitators associated with physical activity and how policies and conditions which affect community connectedness may be used to enhance physical activity.

This thesis argues that local ‘neighbourhoods’ of shared understanding are not conceived solely through reference to an imaginary ‘other’ but, instead, may inhere in and be rejuvenated by a tension between internally generated and contradictory ways of understanding collectivity. Among commercial fishermen of the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria (Australia), I show that social facts are generated by agents-acting-in-settings, and that aspects of fishermen’s collective practice and representation are informed by such local contingencies as ‘who you are, what you are up to, and with whom’. The neighbourhood, I argue, is realised in performance, during everyday encounters in occupational contexts such as ‘on the lake’ or ‘down at the Co-op’. But fishermen also imagine togetherness, in different contexts, through the construction of conceptual boundaries, by identifying themselves as, for instance, ‘a fourth generation lake fisherman’. These two modes of conceiving how one belongs to a community – through performance or via recourse to structural ideals, produce remarkably different ways of viewing the world, relating to other people, and relating to one’s surrounds. On the one hand, a community constituted by social interaction relies on action in the present and a view towards ongoing future interactions between community members. This mode of belonging is dynamic and is characterised by movement, towards others and towards the future.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of two local institutions within the community of Fallin which explores how twenty-four men understand, maintain and reproduce community and belonging. Throughout, the thesis suggests that the past acts as a stable reference point for the men to deal with social change. The Bowling Club and the Pub are suggested as being sanctuaries for this type of collective remembering to take place as they still reflect a mode of life associated with the past. It is argued that imagined histories were recollected, recreated and maintained through the power of storytelling and sharing experiences to the younger generations or outsiders (Blenkinsopp, 2012; Homans, 1974). This thesis suggests that perceived threats from outsiders only serve to further galvanise the central values of their community (Cohen, 1985; Homans, 1974). Chapter Two provides a review of the literature and theoretical concepts which sets out the academic foundations of this thesis. The work of Bourdieu shapes the theoretical, methodological and reflexive nature of this project. Chapter Three introduces the ethnographic method which gives this study an in-depth account of the narratives and identities of the men in this project. Chapter Four outlines the reflexive nature of the author’s relationship with the community, the Bowling Club and The Goth and how this affects the interpretations presented in this thesis. Chapter Five provides the reader with descriptive and demographic data of the community of Fallin and the research sites. Chapters Six and Seven analyse the data and directly answer the research question through interpreting interview data and using field notes. Concluding in Chapter Eight, this thesis suggests that the version of community that the men helped to reproduce and maintain is strongly associated with a historical working-class mode of life. This thesis suggests that these local institutions reproduce historical notions of community and belonging through outside forces and incomers challenging this traditional mode of life. Of particular interest is how the younger men in the study often adopt this shared habitus and learn how to be a man through regular interactions in The Goth and the Bowling Club.