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WEEK 4 READING 1 - PRINCIPLES and dimensions of community development -…
WEEK 4 READING 1 - PRINCIPLES and dimensions of community development
Community development can be regarded as a way of thinking, as a philosophy of practice, rather than merely as a process for building stronger communities.
BOTTOM-UP DEVELOPMENT:
Community development is based on the idea that local knowledge, wisdom, skills and understandings are necessary for the experience of human community and need to be valued above top-down wisdom and experience.
Initiatives 'from below' are not only allowed but encouraged in community development.
TOP-DOWN APPROACH/MANAGERIALISM:
Organisations are typically structured on a bureaucratic model, which assumes that superior wisdom resides at the top of the hierarchy and that it is the implementation of this superior wisdom that is the task of political, administrative and community processes.
This is reinforced by the dominance of managerialism - the view that sees good management as the secret to effective organisations.
Managerialism holds that any problems these organisations may experience can be resolved by good management, hence it's obsession with organisational restructure, the appointment of yet more managers and apparently endless rounds of planning.
The top-down perspective is very powerful and is characteristic of modernity with its search for certainty, order and predictability (even though the world we operate in is unpredictable and chaotic).
To impose an order of chaos and to impose predictability on uncertainty requires a level of control, and often coercions, that can stifle individual or group creativity and initiative.
In a top-down situation, external expertise is valued first and local expertise is only allowed to contribute either through a process of ‘consultation’ (more often than not an exercise in tokenism) or where local views are forced on the planners, managers and politicians by concerted citizen activism
VALUING WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS 'FROM BELOW':
Valuing the wisdom, knowledge and skills of community members in an essential part of bottom-up development. Too often people feel that their experience of wisdom are marginalised or denied by those who, because of their position, claim to 'know better'.
Only if the wisdom ,knowledge and skills in the community itself are lacking will people attempt to find it elsewhere.
The people of a community will know more about what is feasible and what is not, what will offend and what will not, and what is likely to work best - this local knowledge is necessary if community processes are to work or be effective.
Applying knowledge as if it is universal and context-free not only produces solutions that do not work very well, but also marginalises and devalues the knowledge, wisdom and expertise of local people.
community development perspective requires that local expertise should always be the first, and preferable, option and that external expertise should only be called on where the necessary expertise is not available locally
SELF-RELIANCE, INDEPENDENCE & INTERDEPENDENCE:
Self- reliance suggests that a community should where possible seek to rely on its own resources rather than becoming dependent on other communities or on some central authority.
Relatively independent, self-reliant communities are generally seen to be more sustainable.
It is impossible for any community to be totally independent and autonomous, but communities that lack a level of self-reliance can become economically, socially, politically, culturally and environmentally disadvantaged.
There is therefore a clear distinction to be made between the individual experience and the community experience, and the values of autonomy and self-reliance apply much more to communities than to individuals
Ideas of self-reliance and independence become reconstructed within community development as values need to applied to communities rather than to individuals:
Rather than advocating independence at an individual level, it is important to emphasise our interdependence , as in reality we are all dependent on each other in a myriad of ways, including the economic, the social, the cultural, the political and the material.
The isolated autonomous individual, despite being the basic unit of economic theory, is a myth; community development not only recognises but affirms, celebrates and encourages interdependence among people.
Fully self-reliant individuals are effectively an impossibility, but in a future characterised by uncertainty, crisis and the failure of the state, self-reliant communities become a necessity.
ECOLOGY & SUSTAINABILITY:
To declare that community development must be sustainable requires a long-term perspective - thinking about the future beyond the next few years and seeking to ensure that whatever community development takes place can be sustained in a longer time-frame.
One of the most important principles of sustainability and of the ecological approach is the
harmfulness of growth
.
Issues of sustainability and the ecological crisis are the greatest challenges facing humanity. They raise critical questions and require a radical rethinking of the nature of human activity and of the relationship between humans and the natural world
An awareness of these issues is vital for community development. It is more likely that these challenges can be adequately addressed if there are strong and viable human communities, seeking and evolving a diversity of sustainable approaches to living together while treading lightly on the earth.
SUSTAINABILITY REQUIRES:
Care with the use of physical resources, especially those that are non-renewable
The establishment of processes and structures that can be maintained, not just in the short term as a response to immediate imperatives but also in the long term.
There must be flexibility and the capacity for adaption, and a willingness to look at likely futures and challenges that they will pose.
ECOLOGICAL APPROACH:
Incorporates principles such as holism, diversity, organic change and the importance of equilibrium.
The ecological crisis has brought home the reality that we live in a finite world, with finite resources and a finite capacity to absorb the by-products of human activity, and that in such a world growth without end is an impossibility
Seeking to impose ecological change through a non-ecological process would be doomed to failure.
THE CONCEPT OF GROWTH:
Growth is a fundamental value of modern capitalism - Industries must grow, populations must grow, consumption must grow, profits must grow, incomes must grow.
The value of sustainability challenges our obsession with growth at all costs.
Despite increasing evidence that growth beyond a certain level has negative rather than positive outcomes, that more is not necessarily better and that owning and consuming more is no guarantee of increased happiness, it appears that the human worship of growth is still an ingrained habit and one that seems likely to lead to disaster as the limits to growth are reached and then exceeded.
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVENESS:
It is from diversity that we grow and develop, and that enables us to be exposed to other ideas, other world views, other culture and other practices.
How we handle diversity represents a major test of any society, nation, culture or worldview.
Diversity is exciting yet threatening - it opens up possibilities for growth and development, but also opens up possibilities of danger and the ‘shock of the new’, with the potential to undermine our security and our familiarity.
Communities should not try to be the same as each other - the differences should be positive and allow for communities to learn from each other's experiences.
By valuing and promoting diversity, community development stands against that world view of modernity and instead seeks the greater richness, though also the greater unpredictability, of difference.
CURRENT ISSUE:
Too often a society will react by seeking to eliminate diversity, or by keeping the threatening stranger at arm’s length; sometimes it will amount to active persecution.
It opens up possibilities for growth and development, but it also opens up possibilities of danger and the ‘shock of the new’, with the potential to undermine our security and our familiarity.
Diversity issues leave the majority nation or group poorer and meaner, and at the same time oppress and disadvantage the scapegoated group. The resentment, anger and suspicion thus created can last for generations.
SOLUTIONS:
If community development is to be the site for the renewal of humanity, it must not merely tolerate and accept diversity, but must actively promote and celebrate it.
It is necessary to build community development around the understanding that ‘in diversity is strength’ rather than 'in unity there is strength'.
Requires an approach that is based on inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness - an approach that welcomes the stranger as someone worthy of acceptance and as someone who can enrich rather than threaten the community, and that welcomes and encourages dialogue and mutual learning.
THE PURSUIT OF 'SAMENESS':
The view that there must be one right or best way to do things in a community - often called
best practice
.
This can lea to boring, uniformity as politicians try desperately to fit everyone and every community into the same mould; a one-size-fits-all community development.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROCESS:
Many social programs are now defined exclusively in terms of their outcomes rather than their processes - it is currently the results that are important, and how they are achieved is irrelevant.
Targets, outcomes, performance indicators etc devalue the process.
Such a perspective makes a clear distinction between means and ends, which can be dangerous as it can lead to the choice of means being only a rationale, 'objective' choice, and with value confirmed to the choice of ends.
The role of the worker is not to ensure a good outcome, but rather to ensure a good process; trust the process (which is not always an easy thing to do).
The Ghandian Tradition: linking means and ends
Emphasises the linking of means and ends and maintains that the two cannot be separated.
In this perspective, the ends does not necessarily justify the means.
This book takes a more Ghandian perspective about the process being the most important aspect.
In saying this, it does not mean that the outcomes should be ignored.
ORGANIC CHANGE:
The idea that change takes place slowly and on a number of dimensions all at once (eg. the growing of a plant, the ageing of a human, the growth on an embryo)
Organic change is a natural consequence when emphasising the process.
Steady organic change
is the norm - a number of small, incremental events on a number of fronts that together result in both qualitative and quantitative change.
RAPID CHANGE:
Organic change is different to a single-event rapid change - where a single action brings about major (and often catastrophic) outcomes.
Sudden radical change however is sometimes necessary or unavoidable. In some cases (climate change, peak oil etc), major change is required with very little time for it to be achieved, and then community development processes can easily be compromised.
RELATION TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
Community development is more consistent with notions of organic change because of its process orientation.
It is often a reaction against sudden radical change (such as a proposed freeway through a community) that can most readily motivate community-level action.
Community development insists on the importance of process in implementing change. This process involves the active, genuine and informed participation of all and is likely to proceed in incremental steps.
Good community development cannot be rushed -
'It takes as long as it takes'. When things need to be rushed beyond their ‘natural’ pace it needs to be remembered that this is done at a cost.
PARTICIPATION:
Community development processes can only operate if there is a high level of genuine participation by community members.
For participation to work, people must have a genuine opportunity for meaningful input, and this must be clearly evident.
It is necessary for a community worker to think beyond the public meeting and to recognise that there are other ways for people to participate: morning coffee sessions, story-telling groups, blogs, engagement with cultural expression (eg dance), sporting clubs and informal groups or networks.
CURRENT ISSUE:
Participation has been problematic for community development, as many community workers have found it difficult to achieve high levels of participation.
All too often ‘community processes’ involve only a small number of people.
Key problems:
The dominant discourse of
individual consumerism
, which suggests that happiness is to be found in the role of private consumer rather than in public action.
There is a tendency to see community participation as a
duty
, something that we ‘ought’ to do; something that takes us away from the preferable joys rather than something that is enjoyable and has its own rewards.
The idea of
tokenism
- People can readily see through such games and every experience of such sham participation makes it less likely that they will bother to show up next time.
The type of expected participation can
exclude people
- some people may not feel comfortable speaking in a particular environment, the meeting may be hard to get to or occur at an inconvenient time
Recognising that there are many ways to participate, and valuing all of them, results in a community that is active and engaged and moves away from the unidimensional approach to participation that characterises much traditional community work thinking.
PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY:
For the most part, democracy is equated to some form of
representative democracy
- elect our leaders every few years and then leave them to get on with the job unless we particularly object to something (in which case we may be roused to some form of protest).
In representative democracy, the role of the citizen is largely passive. we are only active when opposing something.
Participatory democracy -
people have an active role in decision-making and as a consequence, have to carry more responsibility for decisions. Hence, citizens have a much more active role in this democracy approach.
Deliberate Democracy:
It is impossible in a complex modern society for every citizen to be involved in every decision.
There is an obvious need to delegate some decision to a smaller group, and so some degree of representative democracy is inevitable, but it is also possible to increase the level of participation in decision-making, thereby creating a more participatory form of democracy.
This could be in the form of
deliberative democracy -
groups of people can be engaged in the intricacies of the policy process and hence contribute actively to the outcome.
CONSENSUS, COOPERATION, CONFLICT & COMPETITION:
Consensus approach -
values cooperation
Conflict approach -
values competition
This are often considered a binary; an either/or situation. However we must realise that both cooperation and competition are a part of life and are inevitable aspects of community and community development.
Modern societies may be seen to be motivated by competition, but they only function because of people’s ability to work together and to cooperate, whether in teams, formal organisations, families, social clubs or in simple everyday interactions with others.
Community groups need to be able to engage in conflict and be skilled in dealing with it in a productive way.
Community development strives to achieve consensus and cooperation wherever possible while seeking ways to avoid conflict.
RELATES TO DARWINISM:
Darwinism -
A world view in which human achievement is seen as attributable to competition and where conflict is not only inevitable but is actually beneficial.
Such a view is reinforced by the dominant narrative of capitalism and competition in the market, which has come to be seen as somehow ‘natural’.
Most people will prefer consensus over conflict where possible:
When a group of people meet to make a decision there is usually some attempt to reach agreement by consensus rather than having to cast a vote that will result in a majority ‘defeating’ a minority.
While conflict is a normal part of life, most people will seek to avoid it if possible
CONSENSUS-BASED COOPERATIVE APPROACH:
(Better to focus on this for community development)
Involves:
Valuing all participants whatever their views
Seeking to resist the institutional and structural violence that is associated with conflict and competition, where there are inevitably winners and losers.
DEFINITION OF NEED:
Community development can be regarded as a process whereby a community is engaged in defining its needs and then working to have those needs met.
In saying this however, the needs of a community are often defined by others (planners, researchers, managers etc). In doing so, they claim to know the needs of a community better than the community itself does.
HUMAN RIGHTS:
A community development perspective requires that the community itself in some way be involved in the process of defining its needs.
To deny members of a community a voice in defining that community’s needs is to infringe of their human rights.
THE GLOBAL AND LOCAL:
The problems that may affect communities, however ‘local’ those communities may be, will inevitably have global dimensions, and to seek to understand communities, and community development only within a local frame of reference is clearly inadequate.
Global interconnectedness, through the internet and other media, makes it possible for individuals and communities to interact with global issues in ways that were not thought of twenty years ago.
These two concepts need to be thought of and acted on together. Do not go by the phrase ' Think globally, act locally'.
COLONIALISM:
Colonialism -
represents the attempt to impose a culture or world view on any individual, group or community.
It can be a dangerous practice in community development but is still present and achieved amongst teachers, missionaries, social workers, aid workers, as well as anyone who seeks to ‘enlighten’ those assumed to need such enlightenment.
Those involved in the colonial project will often genuinely believe that they are doing the right thing, and are bringing benefits to the people with whom they are working. This makes the danger of colonialism subtle and insidious.
RELEVANCE TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
Any community development project if undertaken by someone from outside the community concerned, can fall into the trap of colonialism, even if it is apparently local and within a cultural group.
Cultural groups themselves can be stratified, and the view of an elite may not represent the view of the majority.
Postcolonial analysis can assist to reduce/prevent this issue from occurring.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND POSTMODERN:
Community development sits uncomfortably with modernity.
CD is more compatible with postmodern understanding that not only accept
difference, chaos and unpredictability
, but also welcome and encourage them.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNITY:
Certainty
Uniformity
Neat classification
Hierarchical organisation
Predictability
One reality
(These do not work well with Community Development)
MANAGERIALISM:
Managerialism -
The urge to manage and control everything and to make life predictable and certain.
It is the essence of modernity and is a reason why community development workers face difficulty in the constraints imposed on them by managers and organisational imperatives.
STRUCTURAL ISSUES & SOCIAL JUSTICE:
Any approach to community development requires a framework of social justice or human rights.
If such a framework is not present, community development can lead to practice that violates social justice principles, entrenching oppressive or unfair practices and excluding minorities, all in the name of a community being self-directing.
Community development cannot be regarded as a value-neutral or objective activity; It must rest on a value, ethical, moral or ideological base.