Deliberations In Community Development

Community development has become the new buzz in the social and health sciences. Although community development has been an important subject for deliberation and study for several decades, within the past ten years or so it has become politically correct and even fashionable to include mention of community development in government parlance, economic planning, social work, public health debates and liberal arts discourse. Whereas most texts on community development make only brief reference to the importance of theory, thereafter quickly dispensing with it, in this book, the approach taken to community development positions itself against that trend. The issues raised in the chapters of this book offer us alternative ways of looking at the familiar. This book inform us that community development is a complex conundrum of definitions, ideas, ideologies, interests, data, participants and locations.

Community development has become the new buzz in the social and health sciences. Although community development has been an important subject for deliberation and study for several decades, within the past ten years or so it has become politically correct and even fashionable to include mention of community development in government parlance, economic planning, social work, public health debates and liberal arts discourse. Whereas most texts on community development make only brief reference to the importance of theory, thereafter quickly dispensing with it, in this book, the approach taken to community development positions itself against that trend. The issues raised in the chapters of this book offer us alternative ways of looking at the familiar. This book inform us that community development is a complex conundrum of definitions, ideas, ideologies, interests, data, participants and locations.

Since its establishment in 1966, the Community Development Journal has maintained its position as the leading international journal for practitioners, academics and policy-makers across the world. To celebrate its fortieth anniversary, the CDJ's Editorial Board commissioned three highly experienced members, two of them former editors, to bring together a representative sample of the best writing from the Journal. The thirty chapters in this volume, including an entirely new introductory contextual essay, are drawn from every corner of the world, demonstrating the richness and diversity of community development theory and practice. Despite this diversity, the changing foci of community development and the varying contexts in which it is practised, the chapters all reflect the commitment of community development theorists and practitioners to engage critically with the key values of social justice -- equality, fairness, participatory development and respect for difference. This book will become a key text for those concerned with implementing these values in practice.

Deliberation is the process by which a group of people, each with equal voice, can - via a process of discussion and debate - reach an agreement. Deliberation and Development attempts to do two things. First, it rethinks the role of deliberation in development and shows that it has potential well beyond a narrow focus on participatory projects. Deliberation, if properly instituted, has the potential to have a transformative effect on many if not all aspects of development, and especially in addressing problems of collective action, coordination, and entrenched inequality. This has broad implications both at the global and local level. Second, the book demonstrates that taking deliberation seriously calls for a different approach to both research and policy design and requires a much greater emphasis on the processes by which decisions are made, rather than an exclusive focus on the outcomes. Deliberation and Development contributes to a broader literature to understand the role of communicative processes in development.

This 50th anniversary publication provides a comprehensive history of community development. Beginning in 1970 with the advent of the Community Development Society and its journal shortly thereafter, Community Development, the editors have placed the chapters in major themed areas or issues pertinent to both research and practice of community development. The evolution of community development as an area of scholarship and application, and the subsequent founding of the discipline, is vital to capture. At the 50-year mark, it is particularly relevant to revisit issues that reoccur throughout the last five decades and look at approaches to addressing them. These include issues and themes around equity and inclusion, collective impact, leadership and policy development, as well as resilience and sustainability. Community change over time has much to teach us, and this set will provide a foundation for fostering understanding of the history of community development and its focus on community change. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Community Development.

This book describes how a program of values deliberations–-sustained group reflections on local values, aspirations, beliefs and experiences, blending with discussions of how to understand and to realize human rights--led to individual and collective empowerment in communities in rural Senegal. The study explains what happens during the deliberations and shows how they bring about a larger process that results in improved capabilities in areas such as education, health, child protection, and gender equality. It shows how participants, particularly women, enhance their agency, including their individual and collective capacities to play public roles and kindle community action. It thus provides important insights on how values deliberations help to revise adverse gender norms.