An orderly curriculum for a messy field? Classroom-field tensions in community organization in India

Abstract

The large-scale reverse migration from cities to villages at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and again during the second wave in 2021 highlighted the persistence of poverty in India. Civil society responses pointed to the pressure that it was under in the absence of adequate outreach by the state for meeting food, livelihood, and other insecurities of urban and rural populations. Against this backdrop, the article outlines some of the challenges facing Social Work and Community Development in addressing poverty and marginalization. An examination of the relationship between Social Work with the state, and the contemporary complex neoliberal context for practice, highlights classroom-field tensions in community organization (CD). In preparing graduates for what appears to be a messy field, an orderly curriculum, irrespective of how well thought out it may be, struggles to retain convergence between principles of CD and certain elements of contemporary practice. It emerges that education for CD needs to build systematically on critical community practice and align with an anti- oppressive framework, in order to contribute substantively to addressing poverty and marginalization.