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6
THE SHORT GUIDE TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
examine in Chapter 3, there were many silver linings, including the spontaneous appearance of mutual aid groups and a heightened sense of neighbourliness. Many discerned a renewed sense of community and increased voluntary action, which reinforced people’s appreciation of local spaces and networks (Wyler, 2020). This has highlighted the importance of community-led infrastructure to co-ordinate people’s efforts and maintain links with local statutory services and voluntary sector agencies (Wilson et al, 2020). All these changes and achievements make community development as important as ever, as a means to protect what has been gained but also to tackle continuing injustice, protect local services and improve local conditions. Many definitions stress the need to work with the assets, strengths, knowledge, resourcefulness and experience that communities already have, rather than starting from the deficit model that policy makers tend to assume. At the same time, we should not underestimate the struggles facing people, especially in ‘left-behind’ areas, and their ongoing need for practical support and solidarity.
Defining community development? Community development is not a phrase that necessarily travels well. A mapping study by the IACD (2015) found a plethora of terms that seemed to cover a core understanding and noted significant differences in practice between countries on different continents. In the global South, community development retains its colonial associations, often devoid of the political content that characterises popular education movements there, for example, in Latin America (Pearce et al, 2010). However, the term maintains its currency in the US and in a number of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, such as Australia and Canada. A quick review of definitions developed over the years by scholars, practitioners and institutions concerned with community development yields a number of common themes around social change, social justice, collective action, equality, mutual respect, enabling participation and changing power relationships. One US text echoes the analysis of the Community Development Projects
