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19 ประจำป
2552
Community Development?
The term ‘community development’
(CD) is widely used in political and NGO
circles, often with noble intent. However, it has
different meanings for different groups, ranging
through academics, civic leaders and activists.
In industrialized nations, it now assumes that the
sense of community has been compromised and
undermined social justice and general well-be-
ing – hence its association with ‘empowerment’.
It is possible to trace CD back to the eighteenth Century idealists in France and the UK who planned
utopian communities, and to the later tragic experiments in the USA, Australia and Paraguay. The
idea may then be seen to have evolved into a well-meaning colonial approach in Africa before
becoming today’s attempt to assist local people to improve their lot. But it is hard to define.
Is CD ‘a set of values and practices which plays a special role in overcoming poverty and
disadvantage, knitting society together at the grass roots and deepening democracy’?
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Or is it, ‘the
process of developing active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect
[by] influencing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the
issues that affect their lives’?
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Either way the link to social activism makes CD a less-than-useful
interpretation of the ‘D’ in R&D. Academics might engage politically in community issues – but
they do this as individuals not on behalf of universities and it is not research. Other times, they may
engage in participatory community research, which may be understood as a research methodology.
CD has now come to include programs as diverse as urban renewal in the USA to
Grameen Bank loans to Muslim women in Bangladesh. When CD is combined with R&D to
mean ‘research for community development’, we find an assumption that communities will
be developed according to a top-down plan – even if that plan includes ‘community surveys’.
Perhaps a more appropriate model for research or for development in the South can be learned
from a review of such experiences across many countries including Thailand.
Food for Thought:
Community Development as conceived by persons or organizations outside
a community may not be in that community’s interests.
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Community Development Challenge Report.. <
communitydevelopmentchallenge.pdf.>
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