Community Development in an Uncertain World Vision, Analysis and Practice

THERE IS NO clear agreement on the nature of the activity described as community work. Some see it as a profession; some see it as one aspect of some other profession or occupation such as social work or youth work; some see it as anti-professional; some see it as people coming together to improve their neighbourhood; some see it in more ambitious terms, of righting social injustice and trying to make the world a better place; some see it in terms of social action and conflict; some see it in terms of solidarity, cohesion and consensus; some see it as inherently radical; some see it as inherently conservative; and so on (Butcher et al. 2007, Chile 2007b, Kenny 2010, Ledwith 2005, Craig, Popple & Shaw 2008). Not only do people's understandings of community work differ but also the terminology is similarly confused. The terms community work, community development, community organisation, community action, community capacity-building, community enterprise, community practice and community change are all commonly used, often interchangeably. Although many would claim that there are important differences between some or all of these terms, there is no agreement as to what these differences are, and no clear consensus as to the different shades of meaning that each implies.

There is similar confusion about the idea of human services being community-based. This term is used in a variety of contexts, and often has little substantive meaning beyond a vague indication that the service concerned is somewhat removed from the conventional bureaucratic mode. There is, however, considerable interest in the development of a community-based approach to the delivery of human services such as health, education, housing, justice, childcare, income security and personal welfare, and a belief that this represents an important improvement over the current mix of welfare state and private market (De Young & Princen 2012, Clark & Teachout 2012).

This book is an attempt to make sense of community work and community-based services. It is based on the premise that the main reason for much of the confusion, and the seeming inadequacy of what passes for community work ‘theory’, is that community work has often not been adequately located in its social, political and ecological context, or linked to a clearly articulated social vision, in such a way that the analysis relates to action and ‘real-life’ practice.