At the beginning of the twenty first century, the idea of community is again being evoked to challenge the perceived loss of local senses of identity and feelings of solidarity within post-industrial and post-imperial economies. This is a timely collection written in the temporal and political context of the British New Labour Government's ongoing reliance on the word 'community'. Academics and activists engage critically with the range of ways in which contemporary ideas of community are being used and contested, examining the current theoretical and practical challenges of building and sustaining convincing senses of community in national and trans-national contexts. Contributions are organised into three thematic sections - Locating community, Justice within and between communities and Building healthy communities - each with a key focus on understanding community from action into theory and theory into action. Introductions from the editors provide summaries of key debates that set the wider theoretical and research contexts for contributions.