Monday, 05 January 2015

Community development: we are where we always were

I just caught up with this paper last year by Gary Craig - who is always worth reading and hearing – offering a short history of community development in England. I’m glad I took the time. As the paper brings us up to date he notes (emphasis added):

‘There is a bipartisan view of community in Westminster which, paralleling the attacks on those who are not within the declining bubble of being hard-working decent people, sees community through the lens… of conformity, conditionality and moral prescription. Unfortunately most of the key organisations which might have contested this territory and the definitions it represents have either had to close or have been neutralised…

‘Remember that community development is not a neutral intervention but an ideologically contested one… Continue to ask yourself, whose side are you on? And if you are unsure, check back to the core values of community development, values which are about social justice and equality, respect and democratic control.’

 

5 Jan 2015 17:15:01

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Not seeing the neighbours around Here’s a curious survey finding: Almost 71 per cent of Kiwis cite ‘not seeing their neighbours around’ as the reason for not knowing them better. This comes from this article in Scoop, which I just caught up with, referring to a survey conducted by Neighbourly.co.nz, an online networking service. It echoes the theme of ‘occupation of the neighbourhood’ that I bang on about from time to time. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything more about the survey on their site, but I assume that this phrase was one of a number of answer options, and perhaps the responses might have been ranked. It would be handy to know what the other options were. I also learned (here) that 78.6 per cent of respondents claim to have at least one neighbour ‘from whom they could borrow a cup of sugar’. This serves to remind me that one day I’d really like to include a survey question somewhere asking if anyone has ever borrowed a cup of sugar, anywhere. Where did this strange assumed tradition come from? And why is it perpetuated in surveys? Asking about holding neighbours' door keys might be more useful, I suggest.
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Exchanging a favour and a few words I was drafting some text this afternoon about neighbourhood communication, for a project bid, when I was interrupted by a tap at the door. It was a neighbour, looking to return an outdoor ladder I had lent him a few days ago. It’s an ancient, heavy lump of a thing, possibly from the iron age, so we lugged it round together, which meant we had a couple of minutes to catch up briefly on domestic and personal news. In terms of the quotidian practice of neighbourly borrowing and lending, it was obviously unremarkable; but it illustrates nicely how ‘exchange of favours’ is not a watertight category, because it lubricates the exchange of information and other benefits that contribute to the valuable accretion of allowable knowledge, and hence a shared expectation of support that could be mobilised in time of need. (And yes, I am aware that mixing oil and water, as in the metaphor above, is questionable, but somehow I could not resist).

Kevin Harris

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