Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development

Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development PDF Author: Peter Westoby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136272844
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This book proposes that community development has been increasingly influenced and co-opted by a modernist, soulless, rational philosophy - reducing it to a shallow technique for ‘solving community problems’. In contrast, this dialogical approach re-maps the ground of community development practice within a frame of ideas such as dialogue, hospitality and depth. For the first time community development practitioners are provided with an accessible understanding of dialogue and its relevance to their practice, exploring the contributions of internationally significant thinkers such as P. Freire, M. Buber, D. Bohm and H.G Gadamer, J. Derrida, G. Esteva and R. Sennett. What makes the book distinctive is that: first, it identifies a dialogical tradition of community development and considers how such a tradition shapes practice within contemporary contexts and concerns – economic, social, political, cultural and ecological. Second, the book contrasts such an approach with technical and instrumental approaches to development that fail to take complex systems seriously. Third, the approach links theory to practice through a combination of storytelling and theory-reflection – ensuring that readers are drawn into a practice-theory that they feel increasingly confident has been 'tried and tested' in the world over the past 25 years.

Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development

Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development PDF Author: Peter Westoby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136272844
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book proposes that community development has been increasingly influenced and co-opted by a modernist, soulless, rational philosophy - reducing it to a shallow technique for ‘solving community problems’. In contrast, this dialogical approach re-maps the ground of community development practice within a frame of ideas such as dialogue, hospitality and depth. For the first time community development practitioners are provided with an accessible understanding of dialogue and its relevance to their practice, exploring the contributions of internationally significant thinkers such as P. Freire, M. Buber, D. Bohm and H.G Gadamer, J. Derrida, G. Esteva and R. Sennett. What makes the book distinctive is that: first, it identifies a dialogical tradition of community development and considers how such a tradition shapes practice within contemporary contexts and concerns – economic, social, political, cultural and ecological. Second, the book contrasts such an approach with technical and instrumental approaches to development that fail to take complex systems seriously. Third, the approach links theory to practice through a combination of storytelling and theory-reflection – ensuring that readers are drawn into a practice-theory that they feel increasingly confident has been 'tried and tested' in the world over the past 25 years.

Dialogic Organization Development

Dialogic Organization Development PDF Author: Gervase R. Bushe
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1626564051
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
A Dynamic New Approach to Organizational Change Dialogic Organization Development is a compelling alternative to the classical action research approach to planned change. Organizations are seen as fluid, socially constructed realities that are continuously created through conversations and images. Leaders and consultants can help foster change by encouraging disruptions to taken-for-granted ways of thinking and acting and the use of generative images to stimulate new organizational conversations and narratives. This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to Dialogic Organization Development with chapters by a global team of leading scholar-practitioners addressing both theoretical foundations and specific practices.

Dialogical Community Development

Dialogical Community Development PDF Author: Peter Westoby
Publisher: Millipede Books
ISBN: 9780975765838
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Community development has been increasingly influenced and co-opted by a modernist, soulless, rational philosophy, which has reduced it to a shallow technique for 'solving community problems' and threatens the very legitimacy of community development as an instrument of society's renewal and fulfilment. Dialogical Community Development is a courageous, ground-breaking attempt to re-draw the parameters and re-map the ground of community development practice. By re-imagining community as dialogue and hospitality, the authors create an alternative vision of community development practice: a deep, soulful exercise that demands a re-examination of personal values, and a respect for and solidarity with the groups within the community. In a series of conversations on transformative community processes, challenges for practitioners, and practical care for the multiple dimensions of community life, the authors set out the details of this vision. Highly recommended for students, scholars, policy makers, activists, and anyone who is interested in bringing more life and collaborative movement into their ways of engaging with community.

Community Development in Action

Community Development in Action PDF Author: Margaret Ledwith
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1847428754
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In a world in which social divisions are widening not lessening, it is essential for community development, or any other practice committed to social justice and sustainability, to understand how power works at every level, from grassroots projects to movements for change. This exciting and practical book is filled to the brim with useful ideas for busy practitioners. Building on the work of Paulo Freire, theories are presented in interesting and straightforward ways to provide an everyday reference for practice. Contained in these pages is all you need to give your practice a critical edge!

Theorising the Practice of Community Development

Theorising the Practice of Community Development PDF Author: Peter Westoby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131701099X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Based on 25 years of community development practice, six of which have been lived in South Africa, Peter Westoby’s ground-breaking monograph moves away from dominant normative accounts of community development to provide an appreciative and critical analysis of concrete examples of community development theory and practice. By examining community development stories as experienced on the ground, Westoby is able to show how the poor are organising themselves using various forms of community development as well as demonstrating how the state and non-state actors are attempting to organise, engage or accompany the poor through community development. The book also breaks new ground in theorising the practice of community development, drawing inductively from the stories analysed. The diversity of South African contexts and the proliferation of different kinds of community practice, make this a hugely difficult task. Despite this, Westoby argues it is one worth undertaking given the seriousness of the challenges facing the poor and progressive social change agents within South Africa. In this undertaking, Westoby draws upon a unique analytical framework to help illuminate current community development policy and programme challenges, along with practice dilemmas and wisdom.

Social Work and Community Development

Social Work and Community Development PDF Author: Deborah Lynch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137308397
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
At a time of growing social, economic and environmental challenge, this book offers a fresh and engaging perspective on the connections between social work and community development and on how social workers can use a community development approach to practice in critical, creative and sustainable ways.

Soul, Community and Social Change

Soul, Community and Social Change PDF Author: Peter Westoby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134807120
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
At a time when inequalities are growing globally, when the pace of socio-economic transitions is rapid, and when traditional ties of community are under threat of dissolving, 'soul' offers a new way of thinking imaginatively about how people might respond both individually and collectively in social change work. In exploring ideas such as soul, soulful, 'soul of the world' and soul-force, Peter Westoby invites readers to disrupt their taken-for-granted assumptions about community practice and to foreground ethics, quality, being and the aesthetic. Drawing on work of people such as James Hillman, Thomas Moore and 'Bifo' Beradi, he insists on the need to bring more depth into practice, eschewing contemporary trends of soulless analysis, measuring, and technique. Written in dialogue with eight practitioner-scholars from around the world, the book suggests a fresh terrain for community work and social change theorising. Illustrated by images of Australian cartoonist-prophet Michael Leunig, the book also promises to unlock new imaginative spaces for dreaming. A soul perspective will resonate with people searching for both a robust socio-political response to the world and an imaginative, poetic and mindful centring of self, 'other' and the planet to their practice.

The Relational Fabric of Community

The Relational Fabric of Community PDF Author: Kenneth C. Bessant
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137560428
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Theoretical and philosophical work on community has yielded multifold definitions and analytical frameworks. Kenneth C. Bessant reflects on the inherent complexity and diversity of this deeply intersubjective aspect of lived social experience. He explores the relational underpinnings of early and more contemporary approaches to the study of community, with a particular emphasis on their core assumptions, concepts, and tenets. Each of these perspectives offers a relatively distinct interpretation of community, while also revealing the intrinsically relational fabric of its perpetual emergence, dynamism, and transformation. The ‘being-with’ of relational social existence is the fundamental basis upon which all conceptions of community are built, and this is the epicenter around which the book revolves. Community is born of, exists within, and brings forth social relations. It is a living expression of relational willing, thinking, and acting.

Ethics, Equity and Community Development

Ethics, Equity and Community Development PDF Author: Banks, Sarah
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447345126
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book offers a unique focus on the everyday ethics of community development practice in the context of local and global struggles for equity and social justice. Contributors from around the world (from India to the Netherlands and USA) grapple with ethical dilemmas and tensions, including how to: respect and learn from Indigenous values and philosophies; challenge environmental destruction; gain consent in divided communities; maintain or breach professional boundaries; and develop new paradigms for transformative community organising, sustainable development and ethically-sensitive practice. Offering theoretical frameworks, philosophical perspectives and practical case examples (from sex worker collectives to tree action groups and Australian Indigenous communities) this book is essential reading for community-based practitioners, students and academics.

Community Capacity and Resilience in Latin America

Community Capacity and Resilience in Latin America PDF Author: Paul R. Lachapelle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351619543
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Community Capacity and Resilience in Latin America addresses the role of communities in building their capacity to increase resiliency and carry out rural development strategies in Latin America. Resiliency in a community sense is associated with an ability to address stress and respond to shock while obtaining participatory engagement in community assessment, planning and outcome. Although the political contexts for community development have changed dramatically in a number of Latin American countries in recent years, there are growing opportunities and examples of communities working together to address common problems and improve collective quality of life. This book links scholarship that highlights community development praxis using new frameworks to understand the potential for community capacity and resiliency. By rejecting old linear models of development, based on technology transfer and diffusion of technology, many communities in Latin America have built capacity of their capital assets to become more resilient and adapt positively to change. This book is an essential resource for academics and practitioners of rural development, demonstrating that there is much we can learn from the skills of self-diagnosis and building on existing assets to enhance community capitals. Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.