EVENT: Community Development Society Conference

19-22 July 2015

Lexington, Kentucky, USA

The theme of the 2015 CDS Conference is Creativity and Culture: Community Development Approaches for Strengthening Health, Environment, Economic Vibrancy, Social Justice and Democracy.

The deadline for submissions is the 31st January 2015.

For more information, and to submit an abstract online, go to the CDS website.

International task force to map community development training programmes and national networks

At its October 2014 meeting, the international Board of the IACD agreed to set up a task group, chaired by Vice President, Stewart Murdoch, to map, country by country community development training programmes and national networks that support development practitioners.

This will be funded as a legacy from the Community is the answer conference, held in Glasgow in June 2014.

Research interns will be appointed in December, to undertake the research mapping, which we hope to complete by July 2015. 

Read more on the IACD website.

Community development standards: Phase 2: the revised draft

The Federation for Community Development Learning (FCDL) are holding meetings on the occupational standards for community work on 13th November (in London) and 28th November (Leeds).

FCDL is working with partners across the UK to review the Community Development National Occupational Standards (CDNOS). The standards describe what a person needs to do, know and understand to carry out good quality community development practice, and they can be used in many ways. The first phase of the review went well, and there is a draft set of revised CDNOS ready for consultation.

Are the revised CD standards easier to use and understand and a more powerful tool for supporting communities?     

Anybody who is involved in community development practice, in any setting or role, is welcome to come along, find out more, and share your views.

Details of the Leeds event will be announced soon on the FCDL website.

Details of the London event are as follows:

Thursday 13th November
10.00am - 1.00pm (with registration from 9.30 am)

London Metropolitan University,
London Metropolitan University, GC1-08, Graduate Centre, North Campus, 166-220 Holloway Road, N7 8DB

You can book a place at the London event here, by emailing Matt Scott: scottm3@staff.londonmet.ac.uk

Thinkery on the Commons - resources now available

We've just put up a new page with information and resources from Commons Sense: A Thinkery on the Commons, which was held in Dublin during June.

Commons Podcasts

Recordings from Commons Sense: A Thinkery on the Commons.

To download the recordings as mp3 files, right-click "Listen" and select "save link as".

Órla O’Donovan in conversation with Gustavo Esteva
Listen - Part 1
Listen - Part 2

Bríd Smith discusses "The water is ours, damn it! Water Commoning in Bolivia"
Listen

Frank Naughton discusses "No commons without a community"
Listen

Caoimhe Butterly discusses "From Imagination to Action: Building a Commons Movement from the Ground Up. An interview with Julie Ristau and Alexa Bradley", and "The commons: a brief life journey"
Listen

John Jopling discusses "Commons against and beyond capitalism" by Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis.
Listen

 

Commons Videos

Órla O'Donovan, Community Development Journal, in conversation with Gustavo Esteva, Mexican commoner, activist and post-development theorist.

Bríd Smith, People Before Profit, discusses The water is ours, damn it! Water Commoning in Bolivia by Alexander Dwinell & Marcela Olivera

Frank Naughton, Kimmage DSC, discusses No commons without a community by Maria Mies

Caoimhe Butterly, International Solidarity Movement, discusses From Imagination to Action: Building a Commons Movement from the Ground Up. An interview with Julie Ristau and Alexa Bradley by Tom O'Connell, and The commons: a brief life journey by Massimo De Angelis.

John Jopling, Gloughjordan Ecovillage, discusses Commons against and beyond capitalism by Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis.

Commons Sense: A Thinkery on the Commons

11 June 2014, Dublin

Organised jointly by the Community Development Journal and Kimmage Development Studies Centre, the Thinkery on the Commons was a day of exploration and conversation about the commons. The Special Supplement Commons Senses: New thinking about an old idea (which remains freely available) was used to spark discussion.

A Thinkery is an active process where people explore issues in a convivial and critical manner or, as Ivan Illich put it, "a free club for the search of surprise, a place where people go who want to have help redefining their questions rather than completing the answers they have (already) gotten." It is an approach to learning that reflects the spirit of collective participation that is central to the commons movement.

Resources

Podcasts

Video

CDJ Symposium Programme

CDJ Symposium Papers

Please be aware that most of these papers are in draft format. Permission from the author needs to be sought if you wish to quote or refer to any of the papers.

Community development as ‘knowledge intersections’ in contemporary New Zealand.
Jenny Aimers and Peter Walker

Fieldwork in CO: Privileging Process of Political Engagement.
Janki Andharia

Organising in the New Marketplace: Contradictions and Opportunities for Community Development Organisations in the Ashes of Neoliberalism.
Ingrid Birkett

Communities of Practice, Communities of Compliance or Communities of Resistance? Regional Networks in the Adult and Community Education Sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Marion Bowl

Local government performance, community development and political behaviour in South Africa.
Imraan Buccus

Reimagining community development, social diversity and the new metropolis.
Barry Chekoway

Structure and Agency: a debate for community development?
Stuart Connor

Addressing the needs of orphans and vulnerable children: Strengthening ongoing community actions in Nyanza province, Kenya.
Dipankar Datta

Leadership in Community Development Projects as Co-operate Management.
Ulrich Deller

Diverse food economies or multi-variant capitalism: the community dynamic shaping contemporary-food systems.
Jane Dixon

‘We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For’: Community Development, Collective Identity and Agency in the Age of Obama.
Akwugo Emejulu

“Strengthening women’s participation in local governance: lessons and strategies”.
Janine Hicks

Bottom up facilitation to improve water management in Vietnam.
Kumiko Takanashi, Dao To Quyen, Nguyen Thi Le Hoa, Nguyen Thi Le Hoa and Masamine Jimba

“We can’t work together if we hate each other”: the challenges of community development in a post-conflict context.
Vaughn John

Towards unsettling community development.
Sue Kenny

LED and partnerships: critical reflections from South Africa.
Lochner Marais

Communities: Globalisation and the Politics of Fear.
Angus McCabe and Mandy Wilson

What became of The Local State? Neo-liberalism, community development and local government.
Martin Mowbray

Managing democracy: localism in crisis. From dissent to incorporation, dilution and fragmentation.
Matthew Scott

Towards a strategic model for developing participatory governance.
Pat Shannon and Peter Walker

Community development in contemporary ethnic-pluriform neighbourhoods.
Peer Smets

Community development – building on contradiction.
Hilde Van Vlaenderen

 

 

CDJ Symposium

EVENT: Microfinance: The Better Alternative Conference

30th-31st October 2014

Kingscliff, Australia

Northern Rivers Community Gateway are organising a conference focusing on the benefits of microfinance through financial and social inclusion, economic mobility, working with indigenous communities, developing sustainable community programmes and more.

To take advantage of the early bird rate, register before 31 August here.

"'Race', Ethnicity and Community Development" - expressions of interest requested

This is for a proposed book, to be edited by Gary Craig and others, on ‘race’, ethnicity and community development for the series Rethinking Community Development, to be published by The Policy Press, a leading UK social and public policy publisher.

At this stage, the title has been accepted as part of the series, and we are seeking short expressions of interest (100 words) to contribute chapters. Once the chapter outlines have been agreed, then a full proposal will be submitted to The Policy Press for review and final acceptance.

The chapters, which can be drawn from anywhere across the world, will be no more than 6000 words long and should address some aspect of how community development works within a context defined by different ethnic groups, cultures and/or religions.

Although many countries have had a mix of ethnic groups within their borders for thousands of years, one of the major social and economic trends of the post Second World War period has been the increasing globalisation of migration. This has led to many countries now having countries in which there is a mix of minority populations alongside a settled majority, all generally defined in terms of their ‘race’ or ethnicity. There has been no publication to date which has addressed the role that community development might play in addressing work across ethnic boundaries.

Contributions might include work of the following kinds:

1. Work within specific minorities (e.g. capacity building or empowerment work)

2. Work with specific types of migrant: (e.g. with refugees, economic migrants or particularly excluded groups such as Gypsies)

3. Work with migrants within specific ‘industrial sectors (e.g. migrant domestic workers)

4. Work between minorities/migrant and majority communities

5. Work in situations of conflict (e.g. interethnic work)

6. Work to assert the rights of First Nations people.

If you are interested in contributing to this publication, please send a note with your organisational affiliation and a summary of the proposed content of the chapter – at this stage no more than 100 words – to gary.craig@durham.ac.uk as soon as possible. He will acknowledge your interest and let you know as soon as possible if he thinks it will fit the proposed publicatio.

50th Anniversary Call for papers

Please note: this is an archived page. Resources generated from this event are available here.

 

Call for participation for the 50th anniversary conference

Why Community Development? 
Continuity and Innovation

1^st-3^rd July 2015, University of Edinburgh

This call invites you to participate in our 50^th Anniversary Conference: Why Community Development? Continuity and Innovation, to be held from 1-3^rd July 2015, at the University of Edinburgh.

Conference focus

During the last half century, the CDJ has published critically focused articles which challenge received wisdom, report and discuss innovative practices, and relate issues of community development to questions of social justice, diversity and environmental sustainability. Published 4 times a year, it is read in more than 80 countries, and is the leading international journal in its field.

At our 50^th Anniversary Conference, we seek to bring together scholars, policy makers and practice-based participants and activists with a common interest in the issues of social justice, equality and community.

Together, we will examine the relevance of community development as a means to realise social justice goals within a global world and globalised society. Amongst myriad community practices, CD stands out not only because of the historical and intellectual depth of its tradition, but also for its critical relationship to established power and hence its potential to go beyond addressing immediate social problems to a genuinely transformative and liberating praxis. We acknowledge that CD is a contested practice, and it is this inherent tension that demands practitioners and theorists of CD to be reflexive, and to acknowledge and hold competing tensions and claims. It also enables the space to be created for radical alternatives that name and challenge socially oppressive behaviours and structures.

Through the contributions to this conference, we aim to explore:

1. how CD retains its enduring relevance and importance in different contexts;
2. the key issues for the future that CD will need to address if it is to retain this relevance;
3. the range of meanings and strategies for community development in different contexts; and
4. the future role of the Community Development Journal in supporting CD internationally.

We invite proposals in the form of: paper presentations, panel proposals, workshops/interactive sessions, posters/exhibits, or colloquia. We particularly welcome presentations using visual media such as participatory video and photovoice.

Contributions should address one or more of the following themes:

1.    International / global practice

The concern that many local problems cannot be solved locally but require national, international and global alliances challenges community development practice to reach out and make connections as never before.  In recent years the heightened awareness of the spread of conflicts across continents, uprooting of indigenous cultures and environmental degradation underlines the urgency of this approach.

2.    Community practice

An emphasis on skills and acquiring of standards has polarised debates around the merits and demerits of professionalisation as an enabling or inhibiting force.  However the theme of skills and can ground community development work in important building blocks of practice and focus on what community development actually does.

3.    Reflective / educative / critical tradition – democratic citizenship

For many, community development is rooted in an educative tradition whereby communities transform citizenship and assert their democratic rights through praxis. The recuperation of this strand of community work offers the opportunity of a reconnection with a long-standing socially progressive force, but is challenged by neoliberal instrumental understandings of CD.

4.     Contested models – consensus, pluralism, radical

A pluralist approach as distinct from a single authorised community development model is consistent with CD values of openness and diversity, but also stimulates a rich and passionate intellectual debate. The contested nature of community development and clash of models is a testimony to the democratic strength of the wider movement, never wholly at ease with itself nor prepared to follow blindly, the diktats of ideologues, past and present.

5.    Migration, human rights and equality issues

Discourses on migration have placed the principles of equality and human rights under new scrutiny.  The ability of CD practice to navigate increasingly complex terrain of legislation and social policy amidst growing xenophobic populism in parts of the media and political class is often compromised.  A consideration of dilemmas and examples of successful countervailing actions is required to enable the project of rights and equality to retain momentum.

The preferred format of the conference is participatory group work and we therefore encourage participants to use short presentations and participatory methods to present their ideas and experiences in ways which will stimulate group discussion.

Once submissions have been accepted, we will group them thematically. We will invite members of each group to meet online ahead of the conference, and to find ways to work collaboratively during their sessions. At the event, we will provide a facilitator in each group, and at the beginning of each day we will ask a leading thinker to discuss one of the key themes. Professor Marj Mayo will kick start our thinking on the first day.

The deadline for initial proposals for papers, workshops etc. is 12^th September 2014.

To submit a Conference Proposal:

Please submit proposals to cdjconference@gmail.com

Proposals should indicate which theme they relate to, and include a 300 word abstract or description of the session.

"A chance to reassess the relation between the commons and community development": Kevin Harris on 'Commons Sense'

Kevin Harris has written an enthusiastic response to the recent Special Supplement on the commons:

"The collection helped me appreciate how so many of the arguments and warnings about threats to the commons were offered by Ivan Illich years ago. It also gives us all a chance to reassess the relation between the commons and community development: could we have the latter without the former?"

You can read more on his blog.

Free Special Supplement: "Commons Sense: New thinking about an old idea"

We're delighted to announce that articles from the Community Development Journal Special Supplement on "the commons" are freely available for anyone to read on a permanent basis. With contributions from internationally influential scholar-activists, the supplement contains a series of critical reflections on the current blossoming of new interest in this old idea.

The special issue can be found in full on the Oxford University Press website.

Introduction
Mary McDermott

Learning from The Wealth of the Commons: a review essay
Mae Shaw

The commons, the Battle of the Book and the cracked enclosures of academic publishing
Órla O'Donovan

An Urban Commons? Notes from South Africa
Richard Pithouse

The water is ours damn it! Water commoning in Bolivia
Alexander Dwinell and Marcela Olivera

Playing, praying and preying: cultural clash and paradox in the traditional music commonage
Fintan Vallely

The commons: a brief life journey
Massimo De Angelis

Green politics and the republican commons
Derek Wall

Commons against and beyond capitalism
George Caffentzis and Silvia Federici

No commons without a community
Maria Mies

Community and commons: The role of community development support in sustaining the commons
Frank Van Laerhoven and Clare Barnes

From imagination to action: building a commons movement from the ground up: an interview with Julie Ristau and Alexa Bradley
Tom O'Connell

Commoning in the new society
Gustavo Esteva

EVENT: Community Development Society Annual Conference

20-23 July 2014

Dubuque, Iowa, USA

Scholarships are available for the Community Development Society (CDS) annual international conference.

The CDS Endowment was established as a sustainable fund to help members in a variety of ways, from attending the organisation's annual international conferences to enhancing the quality and diversity of their programs to supporting student research.

The CDS Endowment Fund will distribute up to four scholarships in 2014 to CDS members and student members to support academic efforts, research projects, or presentations.

Applications close on 30th April.

More information can be found on the CDS website.