Community Development Journal

Greene, Saara

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsi096pmid: N/A

AbstractIn the United Kingdom, the role of the active citizen is often understood in terms of the importance and value attached to community-based citizen involvement. However, the structural issues that prevent people from participating are often ignored. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty young mothers living in Greater Pilton, Edinburgh, this paper argues that the involvement of young mothers in their community must be viewed as existing along a continuum of active citizenship that highlights the factors that influence how and when young mothers participate in their communities as well as the barriers that young mothers experience regarding their inclusion in community based participation.

Dinham, Adam

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsi110pmid: N/A

AbstractThe idea of well-being has emerged as a central lens through which to understand people and places in social policy terms. At the same time, participation has become central in debates and practices about community life in general and neighbourhood renewal in particular. This article explores the relationship between well-being and participation in disadvantaged areas. Drawing on primary research in two New Deal for Communities (NDC) areas in the United Kingdom, I explore how local people's expectations of participation in NDC are disappointed and how that disappointment may pose a key risk to well-being. I propose, therefore, that experiences of participation in areas of neighbourhood renewal threaten levels of well-being in the very disadvantaged areas where it is most needed.

Andranovich, Greg; Modarres, Ali; Riposa, Gerry

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsi097pmid: N/A

AbstractAmong the changes in the field of community development is the growing importance of microfinance, both to provide access to credit and as a vehicle for empowerment. Community banks are recognized for their role in meeting these goals, although they remain controversial, as the goals of microfinance are not always agreed upon, with government officials and community members emphasizing different interests. We examine the Los Angeles Community Development Bank to glean further lessons regarding the role community banks can play in community development. Among the lessons from this experience are that politics are inescapable in the design of community banks; the economics of banking tends to undervalue community needs; and cultural factors include both professional and community-level challenges. Accounting for these factors can help community banks empower communities to meet the challenges of eliminating poverty.

Kenny, Sue

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsi098pmid: N/A

AbstractOne of the dominant themes in development programmes over the last fifteen years has been a commitment to capacity building. This paper investigates the forms of capacity building in Aceh, Indonesia, since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the province on 26 December 2004. Despite the preference of the Acehnese people for reconstruction processes based on the principles of community development, local people have been largely marginalized by both the Indonesian government and the international aid and development agencies. The paper suggests some of the reasons for this marginalization.

Yan, Miu Chung; Gao, Jian Guo

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsi109pmid: N/A

AbstractThis article briefly introduces the history and major policies of a massive community construction project launched by the People's Republic of China in the mid-1980s. Based on a literature review and field observations, the authors highlight four characteristics of this project: muddling through chaos, top-down control, regulated participation, and community as functional establishment. It is argued that the goal of the project is not to recreate, in China, a Western model of civil society, but to restructure the existing urban administrative structure so that it can adapt to new social demands. By transforming the grassroots neighbourhood organization the residents' committee into a welfare provider, this project is expected to ease the state's welfare burden while maintaining its political control.

Ingamells, Ann

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsi111pmid: N/A

AbstractAlthough Third Way community programmes produce practice opportunities that appear familiar to community development workers, they also produce a play of power that is significant in the delivery of some crucial neoliberal shifts in governance and subject constitution. This paper juxtaposes current theorizing of how power works within advanced liberal polities with stories of local practice in urban and community renewal sites. The argument is that practice stories are often positioned in relation to a narrow spectrum of power relations, and this obscures the ways we are currently governed or exercise power in relation to ourselves and each other. A narrow gaze may point to successful outcomes of an immediate kind, yet contribute to wider agendas that more broadly undermine local people and processes. The question posed by the paper is not whether to engage in renewal activities, but rather how to interrogate the power dynamics of such engagements in the stories we tell of practice.

Opare, Service

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsl002pmid: N/A

AbstractThough community-based organizations (CBOs) are small, informal organizations, indications are that they provide various services towards the development of rural communities and can be used as channels to route development information and other resources required to improve living conditions in rural communities. CBOs are, however, constrained from providing a more diverse range of services to their communities due to certain basic weaknesses. Leadership development, networking with both local and external organizations and registration with an official public agency are identified and discussed as sustainable strategies to strengthen CBOs, improve upon their service delivery standards and place them in a position to tap available opportunities to develop the communities they are located in.

Horsley, Katrice

doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsm002pmid: N/A

AbstractOral storytelling can be effective as a tool in community development. The author explores the potential of storytelling in relation to a number of community projects in the UK and elsewhere.