Grassroots Community Organizations Research Articles

Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams: Creating a Living Newspaper Today

In November 2000, the living newspaper drama Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams premiered to packed houses at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. This documentary play concerns the history and survival of Carver, a historically African- American working-class community bordering VCU which was being threatened by the university’s planned expansion. Performed by a Carver-based theater group with a twenty-seven-year history, in collaboration with TheatreVCU, Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams was the outcome of a two-year collaboration between a grass-roots community organization and the university. As playwright and co-director of the two-year Carver Living Newspaper Project, I present the development of the project, its outcomes, and the challenges we faced along the way in creating the play.

Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams: Creating a Living Newspaper Today

In November 2000, the living newspaper drama Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams premiered to packed houses at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. This documentary play concerns the history and survival of Carver, a historically African- American working-class community bordering VCU which was being threatened by the university’s planned expansion. Performed by a Carver-based theater group with a twenty-seven-year history, in collaboration with TheatreVCU, Sheep Hill Memories, Carver Dreams was the outcome of a two-year collaboration between a grass-roots community organization and the university. As playwright and co-director of the two-year Carver Living Newspaper Project, I present the development of the project, its outcomes, and the challenges we faced along the way in creating the play.

Two Models of Residential Conservation: communal life in an Australian box-ironbark forest

Grassroots community organisations offer simple ways of maintaining natural heritage values. Given the degradation of landscapes supporting fauna in many parts of the world, such organisations promise direct benefits for local communities and ecological biodiversity. Also, global warming, resulting in part from the removal of forest, will abate with the restoration of trees. The Bend of Islands (Victoria, Australia) boasts two organisations dedicated to the communal conservation of a landscape of remnant box-ironbark (eucalypt) forest. This woodland heritage is managed by residents to preserve its ecological values.The Round the Bend Conservation Co-operative (RBCC) is a land settlement co-operative. Members are committed to maintaining the local bushland in as natural a state as possible using minimal-impact environmental practices. The Bend of Islands Conservation Association (BICA) was established several years after the co-operative, but with the same environmental purpose. It covers a broader area, incorporating over 130 private land titles. This article describes the history and practices of RBCC and BICA and indicates their potential as models for the development of conservation principles and practices by other communities in similar landscapes.

Two Models of Residential Conservation: communal life in an Australian box-ironbark forest

Grassroots community organisations offer simple ways of maintaining natural heritage values. Given the degradation of landscapes supporting fauna in many parts of the world, such organisations promise direct benefits for local communities and ecological biodiversity. Also, global warming, resulting in part from the removal of forest, will abate with the restoration of trees. The Bend of Islands (Victoria, Australia) boasts two organisations dedicated to the communal conservation of a landscape of remnant box-ironbark (eucalypt) forest. This woodland heritage is managed by residents to preserve its ecological values.The Round the Bend Conservation Co-operative (RBCC) is a land settlement co-operative. Members are committed to maintaining the local bushland in as natural a state as possible using minimal-impact environmental practices. The Bend of Islands Conservation Association (BICA) was established several years after the co-operative, but with the same environmental purpose. It covers a broader area, incorporating over 130 private land titles. This article describes the history and practices of RBCC and BICA and indicates their potential as models for the development of conservation principles and practices by other communities in similar landscapes.

The Politics of Knowledge in Theory and Practice

ABSTRACT The authors, former graduate students at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, discuss their work with a grassroots community organization (the Homeless Action Committee) engaged in direct action organizing around issues of homelessness, poverty and economic development in Ann Arbor between 1989 and 1994. They find that the group developed an innovative approach to collective intellectual work as an integral part of its political activity. The work of the Homeless Action Committee is put forward as a model for progressive intellectuals seeking engagement with the theory and practice of Freirean pedagogy, emphasizing critical consciousness and political action challenging oppression.

Prosecuting Violence/Reconstructing Community

For two centuries, the private violence of American history has paraded into courts for public trial. Often dramatized by the spectacle of rape and murder, the public trials of private violence increasingly are seen to decide the fates of both the accused and the victim of crime. The fate of community, whether the community of the victim, the accused, or the public, seems at first blush untouched by such trials. Like victims and their families, however, communities struck by violence suffer profound loss. That loss is expressed in the destruction of public discourse, reason, and citizenship. This public ruin is not simply the result of interpretive and material violence; rather it is a consequence as well of the force of law and legal agents. The forum of law's violence is the criminal justice system. The agents of its advocacy are prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers. Their acts and ethics work to shape the prosecution of violence. When that prosecution confronts race, law and community each faces trial and, inevitably, the despoiling of public interracial dialogue. Indeed, the prosecution of racial violence typically silences the reasoned public deliberation and exchange necessary to construct interracial community. The norms and narratives of community and criminal justice heard at the trials of private racial violence by no means ordain this result. Reflecting the institutional and regulatory complexity of multiple prosecutorial roles and burdens, those norms and narratives grant both freedom and constraint in the prosecution of racially motivated violence. Guided by the lessons of law reform movements and the teachings of grassroots community organizations, the challenge for prosecutors in race cases is to overcome the burden of silencing tradition and to explore the discretionary freedom of reconstructing interracial community.

The Institutional Architecture of Extractive Reserves in Rondônia, Brazil

This paper examines the evolution and development of institutions involved in the establishment of extractive reserves. It focuses on the different actors, organizations and projects concerned with extractive reserves in Rondônia in western Amazonia, Brazil. Extractive reserves are widely seen as a means of integrating forest conservation and local socio‐economic development. As such, they have gained the support of the international environmental movement, multilateral and state development organizations, and grassroots community and producer organizations. These institutions represent a vast array of diverse interests which range from conservation of biodiversity, economic and social cohesion, and regional and national development. Whilst the various actors and institutions claim mutual and complementary interests, they form shifting alliances and coalitions in order to further their interests. This paper maps these institutions and interests and describes how alliances have been formed and broken, and how this has contributed to the currently observed implementation of extractive reserves. The paper argues that extractive reserves are constrained by the dissonance or misfit in discourses and underlying worldviews, reflected by the aims and objectives, of the institutions which promote, oppose and lose and benefit from their implementation. This misfit is overcome, in part, by alliances formed between the different institutions, and in part by the creation of new institutions and projects.

Grassroots organizations in hong kong: Influence on the democratization process and public policy

This article examines the emergence and development of grassroots community organizations in Hong Kong from the late 1960s to the present. It analyzes their contribution to the democratization movement, and how they in turn have been supported by the development of representative government. The article then considers the relationship between grassroots community organizations and the pro-democracy political parties: their mutual support, tensions, etc. Difficulties and challenges facing grassroots community organizations in the 1990s are discussed. An attempt has also been made to study the impact of the community’s values on the development of grassroots groups. As published literature on the subject is limited, the author relies heavily on interviews with the leading grassroots activists.

Constructing a Tree for Community Leaders: Contexts and Processes in Collaborative Inquiry

AbstractThis paper presents collaborative research between a university‐based team and a grass roots community organization on the south side of Chicago. The purpose of the work is to document the nature of community leadership as expressed by members of the host organization. Using a semistructured interview, 77 community members nominated by the host organization were asked about various aspects of their community work. Qualitative analyses of interview text generated a set of 56 codes concerning different aspects of community leadership as reported by grassroots leaders. These codes were subsequently grouped together into five conceptually linked dimensions of community leadership. A“ leadership tree” that simultaneously analyzes and visually displays each of these five dimensions of community leadership was created. Implications of the methodology used to create the leadership tree are discussed for the salience of qualitative methods in community research.

Philanthropy and Community Building

Grassroots community organizations have made encouraging gains in revitalizing some of our nation's low-income neighborhoods. But to sustain their activities, they need more effective and comprehensive support from foundations, local government, and other nonprofit organizations.

Contending models of learning and teaching in the Ministry

It is crucial for adult educators analytically to reflect on their educational practice within the social reality which is the setting. This paper investigates a training process undertaken by staff of the Community Adult Educator Programme in Natal, South Africa. The educators came equipped with the tools for facilitating learning based on dialogue, critical thinking and problem solving, an approach which had been nurtured in experiences of working with democratic grassroots community organizations. They faced the challenge of applying their practice in the context of a ministry which operates within a closed discourse based on charismatic prophecies and unquestioned dogma. The paper presents the training course for ministry staff as a case study of conflicting methodologies and questions whether it is possible to change the attitudes of people who subscribe to ‘education for domestication’ and who work in a context that is hostile to dialogue and ambiguity.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRINCIPLES IN THE REGENERATION OF MEDICAL EDUCATION

Summary Models are being tested in seven of the United States whereby grassroots community organizations become coalition partners with professional health schools and local health agencies. The goal of the project is to improve community health through empowerment concepts rather than by an expanded service model. Medical faculties need to develop practice by which their students can learn issues of human development within underserved communities.

Reaching low-income women at risk of AIDS: a case history of a drop-in center for women in the South Bronx, New York City.

The Women's Drop-In Center, sponsored by a church with an active social ministry, offered education and support to African-American and Latina women at risk of HIV infection in a low-income community in New York City. Peer educators were trained to provide information, counseling and referrals on substance abuse, sexuality, HIV infection and related issues. The drop-in center offered a safe space for participants to discuss common concerns, learn about community resources and support each others' efforts to protect their health. Based on an evaluation that included quantitative and qualitative measures of changes in participating individuals and organizations, it is suggested that grass-roots community organizations can play an important role in AIDS prevention but they may need additional resources to sustain the intensive interventions that are likely to lead to lasting changes in neighborhoods with other significant social problems.

Save our cumberland mountains

AbstractToday, in the eighteen counties of east Tennessee in Appalachia, more than thirteen hundred families belong to a unique grass–roots community organization called Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM). For twenty years, SOCM has worked to improve the quality of life of its members and their communities by finding solutions to specific local problems. This chapter recounts how a membership–based group situated in the coalfields of Appalachia now raises $250,000 each year to support its work.

Transition, the state and relations of political power in South Africa

ABSTRACT This article addresses the changing relations of political power between the South African Government and the African National Congress in the specific period of 1990. It specifies how these relations are reconstituting the political terrain at the central level. It argues that, at the central level, there is a relative but crucial disempowerment of the ANC. This has a negative effect on the ANC's position in negotiations, and results in a relatively mild challenge to largely intact state power. Because of an important disjuncture between the ANC and powerful grassroots community and workers organisations, important sources of power are not being brought to bear on the ANC's negotiations with the Government. The successful challenge to entrenched white state power depends on the convergence of negotiation processes and community and workers’ power.

News Notes

The September/October 1979 issue of Social Policy is a special issue devoted to Neighborhood Organization. Most of the articles are based on the work of formally organized grassroots community organizations. A listing of 40 such groups presently in existence is included in the issue.