The Community Development - Report Example

Community Development has lost its activist role; it is now more about amelioration than change. As new paradigms and discourses emerge in the study of community development, there are claims that its activist role is only true as a concept but slowly fading in real life practice. To thresh out some of the contradictory claims about this practice, it is best to look into the evolving concepts of community development. First, this paper explores how the basic-needs-concept ushered the activist nature of community development; second, how effective is grassroots activism as a strategy for social change as realized through case studies. Third and last, this study addresses how community development practice can effectively translate to practical strategies and this paper ends with a short conclusion, respectively. From Basic Needs Concept to Activist Nature of Community Development To understand how community development began to internalize the activist role it is now expected to have, it is best to inquire first into the historical roots of the concepts of this practice before any attempt to define it is to be made. As it is right now, community development must not be considered as a static practice. Similiar with all other human artifacts, the practice of community development have a history; hence, one’s understanding of the nature of community development must also be sensitive to those historical changes. With this, the ideologies of Max Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche during their time may be helpful in our exploration. Weber (1864-1920) said, “Definition can be attempted, if at all, only at the conclusion of the study.” On the other hand, Nietzsche (1844-1900) maintained that “only that which has no history can be defined.” To understand then how activism gets integrated in the community development tradition, we look to its history. Early theoreticicians acknowledged that the early origins of the concept of community develoment that contemplates the basic-needs provisionining – which require more aid or higher public spending – may be traced among the British who used this practice to establish basic education and social welfare in some of its colonial areas (Mosher, 1989). Earlier than this, the British Colonial Office in the early 1930s already expressed support to an evolved form of community development when a “populist movement” which stressed local farming practices and indigenous forms of knowledge was initiated. However, it was in the 1970s when large international organizations, (e.g., World Bank, International Labor Organization, UNEP, UNICEF) bilateral aid agencies (e.g., USAID, CIDA), nongovernmental organizations, and independent development institutes became more involved with community developement that the impetus for the alternative approach to the practice started (Chenery et al., 1974). These institutions implemented the community development aim of basic-needs provisioning that targeted the poorer and severely underserviced areas. Experts observed that approaches in the ideation and implementation of basic needs and the methods proposed for fulfilling the basic-needs requirements differed significantly among these groups. Eventually, the basic-needs concepts evolved into two school of thoughts: 1) one which is based on the universal and objective interpretation of needs; and, 2) a more subjective and historically-contingent interpretation of needs based in the context of particular social systems (Ledere 1980). Seeing that the basic-needs provisioning is not sufficient enough to meet the requirements of community development, there are emerging concepts that a more direct, targeted approches be undertaken for poverty alleviation, rather than the indirect approach of reliance on economic growth and trickle-down mechanisms to benefit the poor. Until more recently, new school of thoughts of the basic-needs approach proposed that popular participation must be increased. Hence, the evolved basic needs approach requires that organizations involved in development projects must ensure the attainment by the poor of the means to become more organized and self-reliant. For experts, the community members’ active involvement with a development project is assumed to contribute to the enhanced efficiency and effectiveness of investment and to promote processes of democratization and empowerment (Frances, Cleaver, Institutions, Agency and the Limitations of Participatory Approaches to Development, 2001). Moreover, most community development efforts have sought autonomy of power froms states, and Fuentes and Frank (1989) note that many of these movements are not really new. Such so-called “new social movements” have attempted to fill the void where the state has been unable or unwilling to act. For people who have lost faith in the ability of mainstream institutions to improve their well-being or defend their rights, popular movements seem to offer a viable bottom-up alternative. From these evolved theoretical frameworks, community development, thus, can be defined in the simplest term possible as a practice that encompasses the processes and tasks needed to achieve the vision of empowering the community to have effective control and responsibilities for the destinies of their community. Thus, the empowerment of the community members is the result of the community development’s activist nature. For Friedman (1992: 72), poverty and inequalities may be alleviated if only some of the following community development principles which adhere to the tenets of activism permit the poor to: 1) control their own lives, including the natural and human resources around in their environment; 2) strengthen their inherent capability to strategise means that will allow themselves become masters of their own destinies; 3) refuse to compromise on issues related to the social and cultural identity of societies; 4) place special emphasis on and attention to utilizing and developing the indigenous efforts that are promotive of self-reliance; 5) separate from development processes all aid which is tied to the foreign policies of donor states; 6) recognize the importance of non-governmental development organization working with the poor and to have indigenous evolution as relevant vehicles for change in the development process, and that suppot should be primarily provided to them; and 7) acknowledge that all development efforts must have as equal partners women who have until now borne the burden of the anti-development processes. Studies on Grassroots Activisms in Community Development A recent United Nations case study of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) in the Middle East by Asef Bayat (2000) showed that the size, efficiency and commitment to the cause of the poor, these nongovernmental groups are seen as an effective vehicle for grassroots participation in community development. In countries where the state has been non-existent, such as Lebanon during the civil war, and Palestine, the significant role played by NGOs in the provision of social welfare, certain social and economic rights, and self-sustenance are highlighted. However, it is said that failure of community participation through active mobilization in general stemmed from cultural and structural reasons in such region. The development qualities and abilities of NGOs are also to blame as among other problems that make activisim not conducive in Middle East. Inspite of these conditions, a new form of activism seems to have emerge out of the socioeconomic conditions of the Middle East. According to Bayat (2000), this grassroot non-movement may be termed as “quiet encroachment of the ordinary”. His quiet encroachment activism concept illustrates a condition whereby there is a non-collective direct actions of individuals and families to acquire basic necessities, such as land, shelter, urban collective consumptions, informal jobs, business opportunities in a quiet, unassuming manner. This outgrowth of non-collective activism in development coincides with the relative decline in the more traditional, class-based form of movements, such as trade unionism, cooperative movements, and peasant organizations. Meanwhile, the salient features of this emergent activism is characterized by direct action, individual, informal or institutional than by demand-making movements of earlier years. This was ushered incidentally by the shift from the needs and demands framework due to economic informalisation and urbanisation. The result then is that “pressure from below” together with their middle-class champions will inevitably create realities that authorities will sooner or later adjust their policies. Had grassroots actions been totally absent, the study concluded that the poor in the Middle East would be worse off given the gradual retreat of states from their traditional social responsibilities. On the other hand, in a 2007 study on approaches to preventing and combating violence against women, Lori Michau notes that there are many challenges in mobilising communities to embark on a community project which aims to prevent domestic violence. In her analysis of the challenges and opportunities that the proposed approaches to addressing the issue of domestic violence, she indicates that change is dependent on how involved members of the community take up the call of activism themselves. Impliedly, change to happen is dependent on how activism is properly carried out and promoted among the community members. While monitoring and controlling the process in all aspects may be difficult, social change will take a life of its own community when development organizers recognize that such process will not be straightforward. In addition, implementing a comprehensive community empowerment project by the development activists may not be able to do so independently. Translating Community development practice to practical strategies It is said that grassroots activisms in community development do have limitations in terms of internal constraints on how much can realistically be meet, and one that is relative to constraints dictated by the state. In other words, it should not be mistaken to leave social development tasks from below. More so, giving up on the state is a bigger mistake because it carries a critical role in distribution matters on the wider scale. Hence, it would be a grand illusion to imagine changes and improvements in people’s lives without the state’s pressure or direct action. Morever, the principle of establishing a more holistic approaches in community development, as what many activists subscribe to, is hard to translate into practical strategies. In her study on the prevention of domestic violence, Michau (2007) state that activists and practitioners recognize that their aim is geared on modifying the socio-cultural patterns of conduct of men and women and to eliminate prejudices, customs, and other practices centered on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotyped roles for men and women’. Yet, these activists map strategies to implement stand-alone campains, workshops with specific sectors or the prodction of a campaign collaterals, such as poster or radio progamme. Since challenging a deeply-seated value system is complex, a ‘do what you can’ strategy is undertaken to make such manageable on the assumption that doing something is better than doing nothing (Asef Bayat, 2000). Community development is both about amelioration and change: my reason for agreeing With the basic-needs tradition and alternative theories on community development discussed earlier and how this practice have evolved and adapted with the changes and demands in the community, it would help to reflect on how this practice could become more effective, systematic, and comprehensive. It is observed and realized that the activist role of community development may be present only in some situations that it is required to enact change, such as when there is an aim to modify and improve some social and cultural patterns as in the issues on inequalities and poverty. In these cases, the community’s participation and empowerment will be very much made alive since the particular change required is not necessarily that of the collective members of the community but individually where food, health or shelter may came next before the larger extent of the society, such as gender inequality, domestic violence, and atrocities of war. Furthermore, community development that is geared toward alleviating poverty or ones that people need to acquire basic necessities, such as land, shelter, urban collective consumptions, informal jobs, business opportunities for the poor, may only imbue the activist tradition as the project is being implemented and the community members who are participants soon learn to be self-reliant. However, once the objectives set were achieved, the activist role of community development may be lost when the organizers leave the community members on their own to manage and strategize the programming for their social welfare projects. Unless when community members abandon their narrow approach of just aiming for one’s survival in their view of programme implementation and they develop a more expansive vision of social change will the activist nature of development will remain. Hence, the participants now will have to move from being the beneficiaries to being activists themselves, from delivering messages to integrating ideas, from sharing information to sparking critical thinking. In the final analysis, activism may only be encouraged when there is hope and excitement regarding alternatives to alleviating poverty and inequalities, together with a sense that everyone has her or his part to play in solving the problem. References Used Bayat, A. 2000,‘Social Movements, Activism and Social Development in the Middle East’, Programme Paper, number 3, retrieved 17 August 2009, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development online. Brohman, J. 1996, ‘Participation and Power’, Popular Development: Rethinking the Theory and Practice of Development, Oxford England, pp. 251-64 Cleaver, F 2001, 'Institutions, Agency and the Limitations of Participatory Approaches to Development', in B Cooke & U Kothari (eds), Participation: the new tyranny, Zed Books, London, pp. 36-45 Friednam, M. 1989, ‘Feminism and modern friendship: Dislocating the community’, Ethics, 6 (2) spring. Michau, L. 2007, ‘Approaching old problems in new ways: community mobilisation as a primary prevention strategy to combat violence against women’, Gender and Development, vol 15, No. 1, retrieved 17 August 2009 from http://www.raisingvoices.org/files/LM.GaDarticle07.pdf Patel, S & Mitlin, D 2002, 'Sharing Experiences and Changing Lives', Community Development Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 125-36, retrieved 17 August 2009, Oxford Journals online. Prokopyev. Conceptualizing electoral revolutions: challenges and promises. Retrieved 17 August 2009, from http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:e8SuC31JRTsJ:www.ceu.hu/polsci/ADC/papers/OleksiyProkopyev.doc+weber+define+revolution+primary+source&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=ph Read More

Experts observed that approaches in the ideation and implementation of basic needs and the methods proposed for fulfilling the basic-needs requirements differed significantly among these groups. Eventually, the basic-needs concepts evolved into two schools of thought: 1) one which is based on the universal and objective interpretation of needs; and, 2) a more subjective and historically contingent interpretation of needs based in the context of particular social systems (Ledere 1980).Seeing that the basic-needs provisioning is not sufficient enough to meet the requirements of community development, there are emerging concepts that a more direct, targeted approach be undertaken for poverty alleviation, rather than the indirect approach of reliance on economic growth and trickle-down mechanisms to benefit the poor.

Until more recently, the new school of thought of the basic-needs approach proposed that popular participation must be increased. Hence, the evolved basic needs approach requires that organizations involved in development projects must ensure the attainment by the poor of the means to become more organized and self-reliant. For experts, the community members’ active involvement with a development project is assumed to contribute to the enhanced efficiency and effectiveness of investment and to promote processes of democratization and empowerment (Frances, Cleaver, Institutions, Agency and the Limitations of Participatory Approach to Development, 2001).

Moreover, most community development efforts have sought autonomy of power from states, and Fuentes and Frank (1989) note that many of these movements are not really new. Such so-called “new social movements” have attempted to fill the void where the state has been unable or unwilling to act. For people who have lost faith in the ability of mainstream institutions to improve their well-being or defend their rights, popular movements seem to offer a viable bottom-up alternative. From these evolved theoretical frameworks, community development, thus, can be defined in the simplest term possible as a practice that encompasses the processes and tasks needed to achieve the vision of empowering the community to have effective control and responsibilities for the destinies of their community.

Thus, the empowerment of the community members is the result of the community development’s activist nature. For Friedman (1992: 72), poverty and inequalities may be alleviated if only some of the following community development principles which adhere to the tenets of activism permit the poor to: 1) control their own lives, including the natural and human resources around in their environment; 2) strengthen their inherent capability to strategise means that will allow themselves become masters of their own destinies; 3) refuse to compromise on issues related to the social and cultural identity of societies; 4) place special emphasis on and attention to utilizing and developing the indigenous efforts that are promotive of self-reliance; 5) separate from development processes all aid which is tied to the foreign policies of donor states; 6) recognize the importance of non-governmental development organization working with the poor and to have indigenous evolution as relevant vehicles for change in the development process, and that support should be primarily provided to them; and 7) acknowledge that all development efforts must have as equal partners women who have until now borne the burden of the anti-development processes.

A recent United Nations case study of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in the Middle East by Asef Bayat (2000) showed that the size, efficiency, and commitment to the cause of the poor, these nongovernmental groups are seen as an effective vehicle for grassroots participation in community development. In countries where the state has been non-existent, such as Lebanon during the civil war, and Palestine, the significant role played by NGOs in the provision of social welfare, certain social and economic rights, and self-sustenance are highlighted.

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