Community development interventions can generate collective identities, foster community activism and build more accountable relations between marginalized groups and duty-bearers 1. Yet, our previous research shows meaningful inclusion of the most disadvantaged groups is not sustainable unless the intersecting inequalities at the root of poverty and marginalization are understood and addressed. This article draws on participatory action research (PAR) processes conducted between 2016 and 2017 in Egypt, Ghana, India, South Africa and Uganda, which worked through local partners to engage directly with groups affected by deep inequalities and unaccountable dynamics. Collaboratively, we explored how intersecting inequalities play out in people’s everyday lives to drive poverty and marginalization and the elements necessary for participatory processes to catalyze community activism and build pathways towards accountability. In this article, we operationalize the concept of intersecting inequalities, in order to understand the complexity of ‘community’ in different contexts and the contribution of this approach to inclusive community development. Finally, we draw lessons about how to navigate the intrinsic tensions between recognizing difference and building community activism for accountability.

This Special Issue of the Community Development Journal explores how the concepts of intersectionality and intersecting inequalities can contribute to inclusive community development research and practice, particularly in contexts of acute marginalization. The motivation for our focus follows insight from the Participate research initiative, which showed that marginalization is perpetuated when development interventions do not address the consequences of intersecting inequalities (Howard et al. 2017). The Sustainable Development Goals' call to 'leave no one behind' is unlikely to be realized unless researchers, practitioners, community-based organizations and social movements develop conceptual and methodological approaches for surfacing the diverse perspectives and needs of the most stigmatized, vulnerable and excluded groups, and then incorporate this complex knowledge into appropriate action. This issue includes articles based in our recent collaborations with Participate partners in five countries, which explore how an intersectional lens was applied both to understand how inequalities are differentially experienced and perpetuated and to evolve inclusive methodologies for supporting grassroots groups, in extremely inequitable contexts, to take collective action and seek accountability. This compilation was enriched by an open call, which brought in additional perspectives on applying intersectionality to community development in the Global North and South.

This article explores the changing narratives of volunteering in development and the interplay of volunteering with global and local theories of how change happens. Firstly, we analyse the links between the evolution of mainstream development trends and changes in volunteering approaches and programmes. Secondly, we look at how changing conceptions of volunteering have repositioned international volunteering in relation to national and local contexts. Thirdly, we present the implications of shifts in understandings of knowledge creation, which happens from the ground up, on volunteering research and programming. This discussion is situated within pressure for 'results' within contemporary development discourse and practice. The article concludes that the volunteering sector is at a crossroads; organisations working in meaningful partnerships with volunteers from local to global levels must remain at the forefront -questioning mainstream trends and advocating people-centred development. This article draws on a literature review undertaken to inform the Valuing Volunteering project.

No abstract

“Community Radio – a different kind of radio, we work with our people. Together we plan, together we decide; together we implement. We work with our people” (GCRN Community Radio Anthem) 1. This practice-based article presents the experiences and reflections of two pioneer organizations which are continuously innovating with the use of community radio. We share reflections on its use as a tool for building inclusive communities that are able to seek accountability, especially for those facing intersecting inequalities deriving from identity-based as well as other social, economic and spatial drivers. These organizations are Radio Ada–based in the Greater Accra region in Ghana, founding member of the Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN) and the Soroti Justice and Peace Commission (SOCAJAPIC) in North Eastern Uganda. Both organizations see community radio as central to their participatory practice, through which they articulate and promote the right to communicate as fundamental for inclusion and accountability 2. They partnered with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the UK to explore how participatory action research processes can contribute to building sustainable social inclusion and pathways to accountability for the most marginalized (see Shaw, Howard and López Franco (2020) Article in this issue). The article is primarily based on an interview with Wilna Quarmyne, Kofi Larweh, Ben Boham Okiror and John Elyanu, founding members and leaders of Radio Ada and SOCAJAPIC, respectively, but also draws on research data and from previous stages of work with both organizations as part of the Participate initiative’s research on accountability for those most marginalized (Burns, Ikita, López Franco, Shahrokh, (2015) Citizen Participation and Accountability for Sustainable Development, IDS, Brighton; Howard, López Franco and Wheeler (2017) Participatory Monitoring and Accountability and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Learning Report of the Participate Network, Participate Network, Brighton. Find the full report at: https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/13326/Participate_LearningReport_Final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y). Other reflective moments and dialogue, resulting through rounds of feedback to drafts of this article, have also shaped the outcome. The piece is organized in four sections in an aim to explain how community radio has been a key driver of accountability for populations confronting intersecting inequalities, through combining this with different expressions of participatory performing arts 3, simplified here as processes whereby “participants instigate and realise their own creative idea. They are the directors/curators of the piece. Professional artist/s are involved if it is the participants” decision to do so’ (Tiller 2013 p11). The first section introduces the work of Radio Ada and SOCAJAPIC, explaining their approach to community radio, performing arts and social change, by each organization. Section 2 presents reflections on using radio as a means for shifting social norms in the quest for building inclusion. Section 3 speaks to the ways that community radio is being used to support multiple marginalized groups in seeking accountability. Section 4 presents some limitations and obstacles emerging for community radio stations to maintain their work towards sustained social change.

No abstract

No abstract