Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
WEEK 4 READING 3 - The Process of community development - Coggle Diagram
WEEK 4 READING 3 - The Process of community development
There are two kind of journeys:
Where the aim is to arrive at a destination
The journey of discovery (where you are unsure where you will end up)
It is the journey itself that is important, rather than the arrival.
Community development is essentially about the journey - THE PROCESS:
The worker will not really know where a community development process will
lead so is not certain of the outcome
A worker who is clear at the beginning about the outcomes they hope to achieve is effectively disempowering the community, as this takes away from the community the control of the process and the determination of the direction of development.
Community development is about setting out on a journey of discovery, and about valuing and trusting the process. This requires the community worker to abandon the idea of knowing where they are heading, and instead being prepared to have faith in the process and the wisdom and expertise of the community itself
INTEGRITY OF THE PROCESS:
it is important to ensure that the process itself has integrity and does not contradict the ecological and social justice principles discussed in earlier chapters. It is not sufficient simply to seek the goal of sustainability and social justice; it is just as important that the process itself reflect those principles
There are many temptations to cut corners about matters of process. To engage in good process can often be time-consuming, and it is tempting to try to bring matters to a conclusion without, for example, consulting all those who are likely to be affected by a decision, or allowing everyone concerned the opportunity to participate meaningfully
The process must be owned by the community itself:
The community development process cannot be imposed from outside, and cannot be dictated by a community worker, a local council or a government department.
It has to be the process of the community itself, which is owned, controlled and sustained by the people themselves.
This is not always easy to achieve, as people are accustomed to having processes imposed, and to responding to ‘guidelines’. But there can be no such imposed process in community development.
Each community is different; it has its unique cultural, geographical, social, political and demographic characteristics, its own leaders, its own problems and its own aspirations.
What works in one community will not necessarily work in another, and any attempt to impose something that worked in one community onto another not only runs the risk of failure but also disempowers the people of that community, because it is not their own process.
'MEANS TO AN END':
We should reject this seperation of means and ends because...
Ends can (and do) become means, and means can (and do) become ends.
The choice of means is not necessarily a technical, value-free decision. The justification of a means solely on the grounds of its efficiency and effectiveness in meeting an end can result in means that are unacceptable.
Ends and means are morally connected; means cannot corrupt the end and therefore it is important to reach an uncorrupt, non-violent end through corrupt or violent means.
Choice of means cannot be value-free, but rather needs to be determined in the same way as choice of ends; to imagine otherwise is to create the possibility of oppressive practices.
This book argues that the seperation separation of means and ends is unacceptable:
It is in conflict with the ecological and social justice principles outlined in chapters 2 and 3.
The process of community development cannot be seen simply as a means to an end, but is an important end in itself, so the process and the outcome, or the means and the end, have become combined
PROCESS PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
Consciousness-raising
Participatory Democracy
Cooperation
The Pace of Development
Peace and Non-violence
Consensus
CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING:
The idea is that because of the often unquestioned legitimacy of oppressive structures and discourses, people have come to accept oppression as somehow normal or inevitable, and will often not even be able to acknowledge or label their own oppression; the experience of oppression is therefore unconscious.
Hence there is a need to raise levels of consciousness, to allow people the opportunity to explore their own situations and the oppressive structures and discourses that frame their lives, in such a way that they can act to bring about change.
ASPECTS:
Linking the personal and the political
Establishing a dialogical relationship
Sharing experiences of oppression
It opens up possibilities for action
The process of consciousness-raising can happen in a variety of ways, and does not have to be a formal, labelled activity. Rather, it represents a way of working that pervades much of what a community development worker does.
While it can be focused on a major activity, such as the film-making or drama described above, it can also be undertaken casually as part of day-to-day practice
DEMOCRACY:
Democracy basically means 'rule of the people'. In this instance we are focussed on how that rule will be exercised.
In all but the smallest and simplest societies it is impractical to expect all the people to be able to be actively involved in all the decisions that have to be made. Hence, some way has to be found to delegate decision-making while retaining the democratic ideal, and this leads to the notion of representative democracy.
PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: (good)
Where people participate directly in decision-making.
Even at local government level, where participatory models may be feasible, the representative model predominates, and there has been little serious effort to develop participatory alternatives.
KEY CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Decentralisation -
decentralised decision-making structures
2. Accountability -
downwards or outwards accountability to the people directly concerned, so that they are responsible for ensuring the decisions are carried out.
3. Education -
people need to be well-informed about the issue at stake and the likely consequences of particular decisions.
4. Obligation -
one cannot force people to participate but a climate can be created in which people feel a strong moral obligation or duty to participate.
DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY:
This is one way to strengthen participatory democracy
It seeks to establish mechanisms that enable citizens to participate in the deliberative process, so that they can be part of actually forming the plan and developing the proposal.
It involves government community consultation before rather than after the plan has been developed, and seeks to draw on the wisdom and experience of the community.
It values the community’s expertise, seeks a role for the community in defining the parameters of the issue, and does not place the government in a position of being the expert with superior knowledge and wisdom
PROBLEMS OF PARTICIPATION:
Tokenism -
people are consulted or informed about a decision but really have little or no power to affect it.
Co-optation -
Participants in a process can find themselves co-opted by other forces and becoming part of the power structure that at first they thought they were opposing.
ENCOURAGING PARTICIPATION:
It's important to understand that participation is not ‘natural’, nor is it necessarily inevitable. People will participate in community processes, under the right conditions.
These conditions include:
People will participate if they feel the issue or activity is important.
People must feel that their action will make a difference (in the community and individually).
People must be enabled to participate, and be supported in their participation.
Structures and processes must not be alienating.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: (not good)
Where the role of the people is to select (usually through elections) those who are then entrusted to make the decisions on their behalf.
Some form of representative democracy is an inevitable consequence of large, complex, centralised societies, such as modern Western societies, and this has led to its being accepted as the normal form of democracy and seldom questioned.
Key issue: it involves an effective transfer of power to an elite (those elected) and a consequent disempowerment of the people in whose interests democracy is supposed to work
Key issue: It encourages such strategies as corporatism, where decisions
are made by leaders rather than as a result of democratic processes
COOPERATION:
Many of the dominant institutions of modern society are based on the principle of competition.
The dominance of competition in modern society has led to the commonly held view that it is both natural and desirable, but the view that cooperation is at least as natural to human beings as competition has been argued by a number of writers.
Challenging the competitive ethic, and basing social and economic structures on principles of cooperation, is an important component of community development.
THE PACE OF DEVELOPMENT:
The C.D process cannot be rushed - for the process to be a good one, it is necessary to allow it to proceed at its natural pace, and to rush the process is to compromise it.
The process is the
community’s
, not the
worker’s
- hence it has to go at the community’s pace, which may not be the pace the worker would want.
This does not mean to say that some things cannot be achieved in the short term; some processes can be implemented quite quickly. But these are only part of the whole, and the community worker must always be aware that the process needs to take its own time and work itself out in its own way.
The analogy of a growing plant can be used to highlight this:
One cannot really make a plant grow any faster, although some growth can be achieved through the provision of extra nutrients.
Similarly, a community development worker can help to create the right conditions for development and help to secure resources, but beyond that the pace of growth and development is really beyond their control.
CHALLENGES:
It can be challenging for a community worker used to a world of deadlines, efficiency and outcomes, where good process is devalued and simply seen as a means to an end.
It can also be frustrating for a worker who has seen similar processes through before, and who can envisage the likely outcome in advance, but has to sit with a long and (for the worker) tedious process.
But there is really no alternative.
Sometimes, the constraints of the external world demand that processes be compromised in order to meet deadlines, and the community (not just the worker) needs to make a decision to that effect.
However, it is important always to be seeking to allow the process to take as long as it needs to, and for development to occur at the pace with which the community itself is comfortable. The motto It takes as long as it takes’ is an important one for a community worker to bear in mind
PEACE AND NON-VIOLENCE:
Although peace is a goal that would receive almost universal endorsement, it has proven extremely hard to achieve at both global and national levels, even if it is understood in terms of its most limited meaning, namely as absence of war.
Similarly, violence would be almost universally condemned, yet levels of violence continue to give cause for concern.
If such universally desired objectives as peace and non-violence cannot be achieved, two possible conclusions can be reached. One is that the structural constraints and vested interests opposing them are strong and entrenched, and the other is that the methods adopted for pursuing these goals are inadequate and inappropriate
CONSENSUS (vs CONFLICT):
It is naive for a community worker to assume that conflict can always be avoided. The capacity to deal with (and move beyond) conflict is an essential part of community work.
A consensus perspective is far more consistent with the approach to community development.
The consensus approach:
Works towards agreement, and aims at reaching a solution the whole group or community will own as theirs.
It is an inevitable consequence of non-violence and inclusiveness.
Consensus means more than simply agreeing to accept the will of the majority, which can leave up to 49 per cent of the community dissatisfied.
It also means more than mere compromise, which can leave everyone dissatisfied.
Rather, it implies that the group or community commits itself to a process that seeks to find a solution or course of action everyone can accept and own, and where people agree that what has been decided is in the best interests of all.
It requires that that everyone be able to contribute effectively to the decision and that they be part of the ‘talking through’ of the decision, so that they are able to accept the outcome and feel a sense of ownership of it.
COMMUNITY-BUILDING:
All community development should aim at community-building
It involves building social capital, strengthening the social interactions within the community, bringing people together, and helping them to communicate with each other in a way that can lead to genuine dialogue, understanding and social action.
Community-building is necessary if the establishment of viable and sustainable community-level structures and processes are to be achieved.
People may feel uncomfortable about being brought together simply in order to interact with each other; they are generally much more comfortable about being brought together for a specific purpose.
Good community development will bring people together and will ensure that all community activities can enhance community-building, by seeking to involve people as much as possible, to increase their mutual dependence for the accomplishment of tasks and to provide opportunities for both formal and informal interaction.
Group process, inclusiveness, building trust and developing a common sense of purpose are all critically important in community-building