Educational Research on Community Building Practices: From Evaluation to Witnessing

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on educational research of community building practices. Research on community building practices is often conceptualised as an evaluation of what works to build a good community. Such research is based on the idea that we can define what the good community is and subsequently build such communities through practices that are seen as interventions. This is highly problematic in an age where we live with increasing differences in which it is no longer clear what the foundation of normative ideals of community could be. We therefore develop a new concept of educational research of community building practices. This is done against the background of our own empirical research into a community building practice in Brussels: the Zinneke Parade. We define our research into Zinneke Parade as a form of witnessing in which the experience of community itself is put at stake. Such educational research on community building manifests a concern for a democratic understanding of citizenship and helps to develop an educational approach to community building.