Community is one of those ‘motherhood’ words with great potential for mystification of social issues. This paper examines the way the term has evolved and is currently used in Australia. Special attention is given to the contradiction between the claims to radicalism of much community work and the system preserving effect the term actually lends to programs. To illuminate the process under consideration alternative approaches are briefly considered but recognized as generally unacceptable to official social policy and practice because of the implicit threat to the current distribution of power and resources.
The role for government in generating social capital is to create the opportunities for individuals to establish relationships and shared values; that is, to facilitate the creation of networks. The site for network creation is the local community, and community strengthening is the means to do so.
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