Community Development Journal Research Articles

Community development, the carceral state and the necessary challenge of penal abolitionism

Abstract This article introduces and explains the key concerns that have informed and inspired this Special Issue of the Community Development Journal. It sees punishment and prisons as troubling issues for community development despite the comparative lack of attention they have received in the journal to date. The article acknowledges that the specific forms that punishment, incarceration and their alternatives take have profound implications for the lives people live in communities; but that those forms of punishment, as well as resistances to them, are also shaped by collective activism and actors operating from, on, through or on behalf of communities, both real and imagined. We reflect on changing conceptions of the carceral state, positing that ‘carceral community development’ is playing an increasingly prominent role in the extension, outsourcing and normalization of punishment internationally. Against such tendencies, we consider the potential for abolitionist theory and practice to contribute to a critically self-reflexive community development that is committed to anti-carceral or de-carceral futures, and to the building of concrete forms of community in the here and now.

Ethical issues in community development: setting the scene

AbstractThis article introduces a special issue of the Community Development Journal designed to explore aspects of community development through an explicitly ethical lens. Arguing for a broad understanding of ethics as inextricably linked to practice and politics, it introduces the concept of ‘ethics work’ to capture the cognitive and emotional efforts community development workers expend to identify and handle matters of responsibilities, rights, harms, and benefits. Drawing inspiration and illustrations from contributions to the special issue, the article identifies ethical questions and concerns at three inter-related levels: micro (everyday relationships and interactions), meso (strategies for community development engagement and action), and macro (distribution of power and resources). After examining case examples of micro- and meso-ethical encounters, the article moves to consideration of macro-ethical questions linked to the political context of community development as a movement or project. The importance of interrogating the contradictory ideologies underpinning community development is stressed, ensuring the ethical lens is broad and versatile enough for practitioners to view their work reflexively with reference to postcolonial, postmodern, and posthuman perspectives. The article concludes with a call for a situated ethics of eco-social justice, seeing ethics as embedded in everyday practice while located in political and ecological contexts.

The case for a community development journal

The case for a community development journal

The Universal Right to Breathe

Mbembe focuses on the aspects of the aspects of the universal right to breath Already some people are talking about post-COVID-19 Even if, for most of us, especially those in parts of the world where health care systems have been devastated by years of organized neglect, the worst is yet to come With no hospital beds, no respirators, no mass testing, no masks nor disinfectants nor arrangements for placing those who are infected in quarantine, unfortunately, many will not pass through the eye of the needle

Strengthening urban community governance through geographical information systems and participation: An evaluation of my Google Map and service coordination

AbstractIt is increasingly common for urban planners and local policymakers to adopt interactive technologies, such as geographical information systems (GISs), to inform their decision making and to enhance performance. This paper aimed to assess the role that interactive technology can play in enhancing urban governance to meet social needs by improving local organisations’ capacities, client access, and service effectiveness and responsiveness, as well as community building. Using the previous research framework on mapping community capacity developed by Brudney et al. (Community Development Journal, 2016, 52, 354) and Çöltekin et al. (Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2009, 36, 5–17), we examined a simulated online interactive map for service provision in Hong Kong and interviewed around 20 local community organisations and 100 local residents about their user experience, their willingness to support its long‐term adoption and their challenges. Our findings reveal that local residents find the interactive map helpful, particularly in improving service access, whereas local organisations are more reluctant to adopt such technology due to high maintenance costs. The implications of our study include the need to develop incentives to encourage technology adoption, to improve the capacity of local organisations and to establish better links between community organisations and local residents to identify sustainable financing (through crowdsourcing) for GIS applications to improve urban community governance.

Communitas and Friluftsliv: equine-facilitated activities for drug users

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Community Development Journal following peer review. The version of record Sudmann, T. T. (2018). Communitas and Friluftsliv: equine-facilitated activities for drug users. Community Development Journal, 53, 556–573, is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/cdj/article/53/3/556/4994218

Enabling Capabilities: Innovation and Development in the Outer Hebrides

The existing challenges to non-profit heritage organisations are increasing in these volatile and austere climates. Particularly, existing organisational and strategic mission developments are needed to enable more resilient organisations. This paper explores the relationship between Ionad Hiort and the Glasgow School of Art’s Institute of Design Innovation (INDI) as a six-month case study for understanding how design innovation can build creative capabilities within this unique partnership. In this case, the “building” of a new type of heritage centre on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. It focuses on the concept of innovation in approaching complex situations as an alternative to existing means of problem solving. Through a series of workshops and engaging informal sessions a new strategy was built, which focused the group’s potential. The outcome being a new way to build confidence within communities and build new relationships, enabling new creative capabilities within a rural island community.

Researching the local politics and practices of radical Community Development Projects in 1970s Britain

This article introduces a themed section of the Community Development Journal that re-evaluates the British Community Development Project (CDP) of the 1970s, with particular reference to three local ‘radical’ CDPs. It sets the national Community Development Project in context, as an experimental programme of action-research in twelve ‘deprived’ areas, set up in response to the rediscovery of poverty in the late 1960s. It explains the rationale for revisiting the CDPs from the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, when the structural problems of neoliberal capitalism (especially deindustrialization and globalization), identified as emergent by the CDP teams in the 1970s, continue to impact on disadvantaged neighbourhoods in negative ways. While some commentators have criticized CDPs for focussing more on political analyses than community development practice, this article argues that the long-standing significance of CDPs lies in the way their issue-focussed research informed their radical practice in local neighbourhoods. The article introduces three following papers in the themed section, which illustrate this through case studies of local CDPs in Coventry, Newcastle and North Tyneside, largely based on research conducted during 2014–2016 as part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project, Imagine – connecting communities through research.

The Transition movement as politics and pedagogy in communities

Previous contributors to the CDJ have already critically appraised tensions within the Transition approach by examining its tacit assumptions about community (Transitioning communities: community, participation and the Transition Towns movement, Community Development Journal, 46(4), pp. 558–572.) and its political economy (The political economy of localization in the Transition movement, Community Development Journal, 50(2), pp. 213–326.). We add to this work by analysing how the movement's cultural politics frames its pedagogical approach. We analyse the Transition movement's pedagogy in the wider context of theoretical arguments about ‘post-politics’. Its pedagogy aims to mould new subjectivities that are commensurate with the energy descent plan of the movement. Central to its approach is the way in which its collective identity has been carefully crafted as distinct from the wider environmental movement in order to generate public appeal. The movement's focus on local community as a site of consensus rather than conflict, descent rather than dissent, resilience rather than resistance, are central to its curriculum. In this respect, the Transition movement builds on what can be useful and valuable in the language of ‘community’, whilst at the same time embodying, or perhaps even amplifying, its limitations and omissions.

Editorial introduction

The themed section in this fourth issue of Volume 50 of the Community Development Journal, published in its 50th year, asks what role community development could play in making the new global development framework, the sustainable development goals (SDGs), relevant and effective. It comprises five articles, which approach this question from a range of perspectives, but with a common concern: how can the SDGs – in their formulation and implementation – be made to reflect the perspectives of those who are currently most affected by poverty and marginalization? The articles in this themed section argue, from the contexts of India, Bolivia, the Philippines, Kenya and Palestine, that lessons from community development theory and practice offer important considerations for the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs. The SDGs replace the millennium development goals (MDGs) from September 2015 until 2030. The MDGs were formulated in the run up to 2000 by UN policymakers and senior advisors. While they have had some success in reducing absolute poverty, the extent to which the MDGs made a difference to those living in extreme poverty is questioned (Howard and Wheeler, 2015). The ‘post-2015’ process of formulating new global development goals attempted to address the shortcomings of the MDGs: their top-down formulation by policy elites, their failure to take into account environmental sustainability, amongst others. The language of ‘sustainable development’ was adopted, reflecting a commitment to addressing the needs of the present without compromising future generations (United Nations, 1987), and a recognition of the interconnected nature of the domains of the economy, society and the environment (Cook and Dugarova, 2014). The post-2015 process took shape as a commitment at the Rio +20 Sustainable Development Conference in 2012, culminating in the ratification in September 2015 of 17 goals and 169 targets.

Conversing on the commons: an interview with Gustavo Esteva--part 1

This is the first part of an edited transcript of an interview with Gustavo Esteva that took place during a Thinkery on the Commons held in Dublin in June 2014, a full version of the recording being available on the journal’s companion website CDJ Plus (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/cdjc/ cdj-events/commons-sense-a-thinkery-on-the-commons). A contributor to the Community Development Journal’s Special Supplement on the commons (Esteva, 2014), Gustavo Esteva is a Mexican commons activist and postdevelopment theorist who describes himself as a ‘deprofessionalized intellectual’. Advocating an understanding of the commons as first and foremost an activity, a way of people relating to each other and the natural world, rather than a thing or a natural resource, Gustavo asserts that certain kinds of contemporary ‘commoning’ are the beginnings of a new post-capitalist society. He has two key sources of inspiration: the ideas of the Austrian-born philosopher and ascetic Ivan Illich (1926‐2002), and the new way of living and governingof the MexicanZapatistas.In hisview,since the 1994uprising of indigenous people calling themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army, the Zapatistas have practiced radical democracy and redefined the good life (Esteva 1992, 2010). In this first part of the interview Gustavo explains some of the conceptual tools offered by Ivan Illich that can be of use to ‘commoners’. Additionally, he explains why he shares Illich’s rejection of the project of development, and his commitment to interculturality, the possibility of real dialogue between people with fundamentally different worldviews. Emphasizing that social relationships are fundamental to any community organizing and commoning, he elucidates the interactions with others and technologies that Illich argued characterize a ‘convivial’ society. The second part of the interview, which will be published in the next issue of the Community Development Journal(50(4)),exploresdifferenttraditionsofcommonsthinkingandactivism

Conversing on the commons: an interview with Gustavo Esteva—part 2

This is the second part of an edited transcript of an interview with Gustavo Esteva that took place during a Thinkery on the Commons held in Dublin in June 2014, a full recording of which is available on the journal’s companion website, CDJ Plus (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/cdjc/cdj-events/ commons-sense-a-thinkery-on-the-commons ). The fi rst part is published in the previous issue of theCommunity Development Journal (50(3)). One of the contributors to the Community Development Journal’s Special Supplement on the commons (Esteva, 2014), Gustavo Esteva is a Mexican commons activist, post-development theorist and ‘deprofessionalized intellectual’. Advocating an understanding of the commons as first and foremost an activity, a way of people relating to each other and the natural world, rather than a thing or a natural resource, Gustavo asserts that certain kinds of contemporary ‘commoning’ constitute the beginnings of a new post-capitalist society. He has two key sources of inspiration: the ideas of the Austrian-born philosopher and ascetic Ivan Illich (1926 –2 002), and the new way of living and governing of the Mexican Zapatistas that has emerged since the 1994 uprising of indigenous people calling themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army. In the first part of the interview Gustavo explains some of the conceptual tools offered by Ivan Illich, along with his rejection of the project of development, and his commitment to interculturality, the possibility of real dialogue between people with fundamentally different worldviews. Emphasizing that social relationships are fundamental to any community organizing and commoning, he explains the interactions with others and technologies that Illich argued characterize a ‘convivial’ society. This second part of the interview, which includes challenging questions and comments from the floor, explores different traditions of thinking, speaking and acting in the contemporary commons movement. This movement, which is flourishing in various parts of the world today, includes highly diverse

The first 50 years of the Community Development Journal

The first 50 years of the Community Development Journal

The commons, the Battle of the Book and the cracked enclosures of academic publishing

Contention about the ownership of texts and what we now know as copyright stretches back to at least the sixth century and the controversial copying of a biblical script by the Irish monk Colm Cille that resulted in the Battle of the Book. This article traces how my co- editors and I stumbled into this ongoing battle in our efforts to ensure this Supplement to the Community Development Journal on the commons would be freely available on the knowledge commons. Describing our search for cracks in the pay walls that commodify and enclose much publicly subsidised research that should be common knowledge, paradoxes in the current drive in academic publishing towards Open Access are considered, including its potential closing down of the publication of non-funded independent research.

Editorial: Welcome to CDJ Plus

This issue announces an exciting new development, the launch of CDJ Plus (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/cdjc), a website extension of the Community Development Journal (CDJ) initiated by the CDJ Editorial Board with the help of Oxford University Press. CDJ Plus will connect readers of the CDJ to the wider community development world and promote discussion and exchange of information and ideas, between researchers, educators, practitioners, activists and citizens. CDJ Plus will involve two-way communication, bringing the academically focused content of the journal to the notice of a wider audience while simultaneously providing readers of the journal with a portal into the wider community development world of policy, practice and campaigning. The articles in the Reflections section of CDJ will often provide the bridge across which this communication will flow connecting people within a wider community development ‘community of practice’. At CDJ, we have recognized the need for such an additional platform for some time in order to disseminate a growing body of free, non-subscriber content. The Board has sponsored the production of publications which are provisional ‘work in progress’ like the 2010 ‘Glasgow Papers’ involving critical reflections on community development from a Scottish perspective. We have also supported the production of significant pieces of work which are of considerable interest but not in a format suitable for publication in the main journal. An example of the latter is the North Edinburgh Community History Never Give Up, which was featured in Lynn McCabe’s Reflections article in CDJ 47–1, January 2012. We have also used the journal to help publicize and provide space to reflect on publications from community development organizations. Thus, the Appreciating Assets report by the International Association for Community Development (IACD) is critically discussed by one of its authors, Ingrid Burkitt, in a Reflections piece in CDJ 46–4, October 2011. We have always provided Internet links in CDJ articles to these publications, but now we have a permanent home on a nested OUP website where they will all be made freely and easily available. & Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2012 All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com doi:10.1093/cdj/bss006

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International Editorial Advisory Board

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