Community Development Journal

On April 10th and 11th, 2025, Deakin University and the Community Development Journal supported an event bringing together community development practitioners to discuss emerging and urgent issues in CD practice. Event report by Sue Kenny, photos by Michael Chew. The event, titled ‘Community Development in a Turbulent World: Four Challenges' was one of a series of events marking the 60th anniversary of the Community Development Journal (CDJ). In early 2024…

Purnaa Muthu dives into Sayantan Datta's work on community, identity and belonging for transgender people in Indian science institutions. Many aspire to join science institutions in India for higher education: on the one hand, they promise tangible upward mobility, and purported economic stability and professional recognition; on the other, they embody a deeper cultural aspirationality. Belonging in these spaces signifies (and signals to others) a certain respectability.  The question of…

The Community Development Journal is seeking to appoint up to five new Editorial Board members to join us from March 2025.

By Nsizwazonke E Yende Our paper explored the politics and ambiguities associated with ward committees in enhancing community development through democratic participation. We adopted and used Gidden’s theory of structuration as a theoretical lens to interpret the findings from the literature. The theory looks at the context and the relationship between individuals and society. We explored ward committees because they are local structures (operating at the grassroots level) made up…

By Ruth Pearce I am very excited to see the publication of the most recent issue of the Community Development Journal (CDJ), which focuses on queer and trans lives and collectivity in India. The issue, titled Queer and Trans Community Building in Post-NALSA and Post-377 India, is edited by Pushpesh Kumar, Sayantan Datta, and Neha Mishra. Across the editorial and seven articles, it explores pathways and barriers to community organising across a range…

On Monday 26th February 2024, Nataliya Drozd (Dobrochyn Centre) and Oleksandr Pidhorniy (Chernihiv Centre for Human Rights) spoke in conversation with peacebuilding expert Professor Sinéad Gormally (School of Education, University of Glasgow) at an event jointly organised by Community Development Journal and the University of Glasgow.   We heard first-hand about the challenges of facilitating recovery during an active war, and making sure that recovery is participatory and driven by…