Critically engaged community capacity building and the ‘community organizing’ approach in disadvantaged contexts

Smyth, John

doi:10.1080/17508480802526629

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…As the first federal initiative of its kind whose hope rests on the arguable success of one urban community in Harlem, PNs might be an untenable promise for hundreds of communities without a sustained history of successful organizing or promise of future investment and resources. As John Smyth (2009) noted in his critique of community capacity building, PNs could serve as a way for the government to de-politicize social ills by shifting responsibilities to these highly vulnerable communities while using "warm fuzzy terms" (p. 11) associated with community capacity building as "a progressive discourse to veil a cost-cutting agenda by the state" (p. 11).…”

Section: A Promising Approach or Empty Promise?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Promise Neighborhoods

Horsford

Sampson

2014

Urban Education

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The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods (PNs) program can improve persistently low-achieving urban schools by making their "neighborhoods whole again" through community capacity building for education reform. As the "first federal initiative to put education at the center of comprehensive efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas," we frame our inquiry according to PNs' intent to build capacity in high-needs communities in ways that provide high-quality educational and systematic support for children and families. We begin with an overview of PN, followed by a discussion of community capacity for urban school reform. Next, using descriptive case study methods, we present the case of the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative to illustrate the ways in which a low-capacity community in the American West engaged in community capacity building activities to improve selected urban schools, albeit unsuccessful in its ability to secure federal grant funds. We then deliver our analysis of this local initiative according to Chaskin's framework for building community capacity and consider lessons

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Section: A Promising Approach or Empty Promise?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Promise Neighborhoods

Horsford

Sampson

2014

Urban Education

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“…Makuwira [40], meanwhile, asks critical questions such as: who determines the process for community capacity-building, and who evaluates whether capacity has been built? Smyth [41], similarly, writing in the context of education and disadvantage, critiques community capacity-building as something that delegates responsibility to communities while blaming them for their own problems. Instead, he advocates 'community organising', a more overtly political approach in which power relations are made more explicit, participation is an end in itself, and those at the periphery of decision-making processes are brought into those processes (see also [40]).…”

Section: Community Engagement For Community Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clermont Preferred Future: Stakeholder Reflections on a Community Foresight and Planning Initiative

Parsons¹,

Lederwasch

Moffat

2013

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This paper demonstrates the potential of the mining industry to contribute to social development (community building, resilience and wellbeing) and to economic transitioning post-mining. A number of factors may facilitate the realisation of this potential, in particular community engagement activities that build community resilience and capacity to adapt to changing environments. This paper reviews a community foresight initiative, named Clermont Preferred Future (CPF), which is associated with a coal mine development in the town of Clermont in Queensland, Australia. The purpose of CPF, which was adopted in 2008 and is intended to continue to 2020, is to facilitate a transition to a prosperous and sustainable future by leveraging opportunities from coal mining while reducing dependence on the industry. CPF has been cited as a successful model of engagement and community development, and was highly commended in the Community Economic Development category at the 2011 Australian National Awards for Economic Development Excellence. This review draws on the experiences of stakeholders involved in CPF, and on foresight, community engagement, and community development literature. It identifies what has worked well, what has fallen short of the project’s rhetorical aspirations, and how processes and outcomes might be improved. It also trials artwork as an engagement tool. The findings are valuable for Clermont specifically, but also for the mining industry and mining communities more broadly, as well as for other industries in the context of community engagement and strategic planning

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“…Although CCB has been given only limited attention in the tourism literature, it has, however, been extensively discussed in other areas of development, especially health (George et al, 2007;Labonte & Laverack, 2001a;2001b;Maclellan-Wright et al, 2007;Raeburn et al, 2007;Seremba & Moore, 2005;Wickramage, 2006), education (Harris, 2001;Smyth, 2009) and agriculture (Dollahite et al, 2005). Lack of community capacity, coupled with limited understanding of tourism and its impacts, has been recognized as barriers to effective tourism development in third world countries (Moscardo, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%