Socialization in Gated Communities

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Socialization in Gated Communities

Introduction

What is a gated community? I started thinking deeply about this aspect, and the more I thought about it, the need to explore it increased. As the name suggests, a gated community is a restrictive area, and only inhabitants can have access, but, in the recent past, communities are adopting unrestricted communities. When growing up, I always thought rich people naturally live in secluded places; places where common people (those without money and power) would not even be allowed to access. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate, types of social interactions prevalent in the target case study and how people fructify communication. A literature review will accompany my ethnographic fieldwork observation to offer an evidence-based standpoint on a gated community's historical and anthropological aspects.

Ethnographical Field site

Gated communities are on the rise, Boonjubun (2019), my family also lives in one, but I have never understood why the fuss about living in these communities. I have never felt different, performed differently, or even appeared different from people who do not live in gated communities. But it is not all that simple. This essay will discuss what I have observed and prove how many perspectives about gated communities are mare misconceptions. My area of study entails my neighborhood. Having lived in a gated community in my country for over a decade, I have enough experience on what happens concerning the interaction of people, communication, and even stratification of people into social classes in gated communities. The community comprises over 250 houses, and all of them have been fully occupied for the last five years, apparently, by the same people because I have never seem new entrants joining the community for the last 5 years. People do not seem to move, nor do we experience many people looking to join the community. However, this does not mean the community members know each other; some have busy or odd working schedules making it complicated to meet them. Nonetheless, the place is not as busy as it sounds. As Salah and Ayad (2018) noticed in research on Why people choose gated communities, it is all about aesthetics that comes with living in a community of few people with better security and utility.

Field Observation

I observed very many activities in my gated community at no specific time because the activities seemed to be recurrent. One was a garbage collector guy who comes every evening. I noted a delivery guy; actually, there were many from different companies delivering foods, mails, shopping, and other consumable goods needed by community members. Other parties such as gardeners, housekeeping, and security were more frequent, and one could easily assume they live within. The study area is furnished with one large entrance from one side; people proceed to their individual...