Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s adherence to existential phenomenology, the article advances a political understanding and interpretation of community organizing. Arendt, it is maintained, offers valuable insight into political phenomena which are constitutive of community organizing. Four aspects, in particular, are highlighted—what I refer to as the four “A”s of association, action, appearance and authenticity—understood in existentialist, phenomenological, ontological and ultimately political terms, as primary ways of being-together-politically. The first part of the article examines Arendt’s existential phenomenological approach in shaping her understanding of the political. This provides the theoretical basis for examining in the second part of the article, phenomena which are constitutive of community organizing, highlighting how association, action, appearance and authenticity form distinctive political characteristics of community organizing as an approach. At different points, brief reference is made to the work of London Citizens, the largest broad-based organization in the UK, in order to illustrate the connections between Arendtian thought and community-based organizing.

借鉴汉娜·阿伦特对存在主义现象学的坚持，这篇文章推进了对社区组织的政治理解和解释。人们坚持认为，阿伦特对构成社区组织的政治现象提供了宝贵的见解。特别强调了四个方面——我称之为关联、行动、外观和真实性的四个“A”——在存在主义、现象学、本体论和最终的政治术语中被理解为政治上共同存在的主要方式. 文章的第一部分考察了阿伦特在塑造她对政治的理解方面的存在主义现象学方法。这为本文第二部分考察构成社区组织的现象提供了理论基础，突出了作为一种方法，联想、行动、表象和真实性如何形成社区组织的鲜明政治特征。在不同方面，简要参考了英国最大的基础广泛的组织 London Citizens 的工作，以说明阿伦特思想与社区组织之间的联系。