Community Development
Aiden Lloyd
Why community?
• Integrated life is a balancing of individual freedoms,
mutuality* and obligations
• Explained by Ferdinand Tonnies - Gesellschaft (deliberative
will) and Gemeinschaft* (essential will)
• Emphasis gets shaped up by various factors - historical
events, religion, institutions, culture etc
• Could categorise Europe as sub-divisions of Catholic;
Protestant; Ex-Communist; Anglo-Saxon - these may
explain diverse emphasis - e.g. acting in communion,
individual responsibility, common good, rational self
expression
• These factors help to explain why different approaches to
social change developed across Europe (and wider)
Community - what is it?
• No agreed definition – most often associated
with place but can also be community of
interest i.e. defined by common circumstance
(poor or unemployed) or ethnic identity
(Roma)
• Especially true in modern times. We are all
members of different communities – a
community of community workers, may also
be gay, Black, a woman or migrant etc.
Community - a good thing?
• Can be good or bad – not always positive, can be
reactive e.g. racism or anti-immigration
• 1930s depression brought about lots of social
mobilisation – lot of this channelled into
frameworks constructed by fascist, national
socialist organisations – need to prevent a repeat!
• So, collective action needs to be wrapped in a
coat of principles – social justice, equality,
participation etc – that would be true of the
forms of social organising that we are discussing
this week
Community development - origins
Cooperative movement, decolonisation and nation building
processes - self help model – communities provided ideas and
labour, state provided funding ‘..a partnership of the people
and government for the common good..’ UN Geneva 1959
• Onset of social work in post industrial UK society – began to
develop collective ways to meet individual needs – Calouste
Gulbenkian Foundation study 1968 - described the emergence
of community work as collective action for social change,
composed of a task and a process
• A particular influence was lessons brought back from
missionary/development work - liberation theology (that love
has a material dimension) – Freire: developing critical
consciousness then able to challenge their inherited
subordination
Community Development - definition
'Community development is a developmental activity
composed of both task and process. The task is the
achievement of social change linked to equality and social
justice, and the process is the application of the principles
of participation, empowerment and collective decisionmaking in a structured and coordinated way.’
• A balance of knowledge, skills and values
• Community worker is expected to lead out a
developmental process – develop an analysis to inform
action, this triggers 2 things
1.
2.
Able to develop objectives and strategies to move from the
real to the ideal
Can then initiate a process of analysis and the application of
the praxis: action – reflection – better informed action
Distinguished by principles and
characteristics
• Commitment to social justice, equality, inclusion
• Task and a process – need a material gain, but process of collective
action is what differentiates community development
• Participative – a learning and sharing paradigm, does not hoard
knowledge. Might be slower process but it ends up being better
targeted, durable and sustainable
• Empowering – liberating,
challenges false consciousness. Also about passing on skills through
mentoring – many community workers began as participants
• Inherent tension - shakes up the landscape because it is critical and
oppositional by nature –
• Not offending anybody? Not being effective!
Development
• CD has changed or been adapted to meet different
contexts, different needs ...or to deliver different policies
for the state (return to this)
• Originally self help, quite conservative, no reflection of
structural nature of inequalities (some return to this with
Asset Based Community Development)
• EU Poverty Programmes were catalyst for more political
analysis – idea of rupture in social solidarity – social
exclusion –forced a focus on power, distribution,
participation and decision making – not sustained
• Strong indications that state wants to incorporate the
community sector to deliver its welfare services – diverting
it from focusing on power differentials and redistribution
Case study
• CD operates at 2 levels – neighbourhood and
policy level – not exclusive
• Ireland espoused transformation/social inclusion
- space between revolutionary struggle and
‘developmental realism’ or evolutionary change
• Social partnership was policy interface
mechanism – CD infrastructure developed at this
level – assumption that conditions for change
were in place
What transpired?
• Community sector not regarded as equal partner
– small concessions – no power
• Despite huge growth inequality worsened
• Judged against big indicators – income, health,
education, life chances etc – there were no gains
• Was the ideal wrong? Not possible? Was
implementation/organisation the problem? Or
was it that needed to be part of a wider
movement for change?
• Social movement gaining some momentum in
Ireland, as elsewhere
Lessons
• Community development gives expression to needs of
marginalised, addresses a democratic deficit – some
success but needs to be seen as part of series of social
change mechanisms – provides evidence to policy
makers, brings issues to media, part of broader social
movement for change etc
• State forcing NGO sector towards a service delivery
role in Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence - CD moves
people closer to services, lot of instrumental use by
service delivery agencies but does not alter the root
causes of inequality
Challenges
• Cannot separate community development from
the context it operates in. European project is in
crisis - departed from the Delours’ vision – strong
neo-liberal forces at play –primacy of market –
reduction of democracy and welfare state
• How can we be creators of our own destiny if we
cannot have a say? – need to drive out the
participatory democracy argument
• Need to have a say in the funding mechanisms,
develop an economic dimension to our work or
create our own funding sources