Partnership, the Big Society and community organizing: between romanticizing, problematizing and politicizing community

The Application of Salutogenesis in Communities and Neighborhoods

“…It is regarded as a way of strengthening communities, through the transfer of power from the state to local people through community action (Bunyan, 2013). Of particular interest to community organizing is social power.…”

Embodied Austerity: Narratives of Early Austerity from a Homelessness and Resettlement Service

“…Our worst nightmare is that Supporting People takes a major hit -and the people that need these types of services will no longer get it. (Annie, manager, 2011) The implications of budget retraction appeared as a breach in the norms of relations between the State, Local Authorities and subsequently the community and voluntary sector (Buckingham 2012, Bunyan 2012. The community and voluntary sector had been framed since New Labour as an amenable and a largely compliant body of organisations, and best able to meet the needs of people locally McNeil 2011, Bunyan 2012).…”

Regenerating the City: People, Politics, Power and the Public Sphere

“…For example, partnership as a formal policy mechanism, rather than how it is often understood simply as a means through which organisations work cooperatively to ensure better and more efficient use of scarce resources (Morse and McNamara 2006) required the private, public and third sectors to work together and provided the legitimacy for the spread of private-sector practices into the public and voluntary sectors, in the process significantly restructuring internal and external relations in and between these different sectors (Bunyan 2013). In a similar way, managerialism, according to Newman and Clarke (2009): …provides a coordinating logic through which multiple forms of power and authority are combined and articulated, enabling business rationalities to be aligned with alternative rationalities of state bureaucracies, 'third sector' organisations, social movements or community groups….Communitybased organisations have to acquire skills of financial management and 'good governance' in order to be eligible to bid for contracts…'lay' publics serving as participants or representatives in governing bodies not only have to learn new languages but have to translate their own perspectives and interests into them (109).…”

“…This moves beyond individualised, problematised and romanticised narratives of poor communities (Bunyan 2013) and recognises the importance of engaging others in solidarity to contest the public sphere and to realise the possibility of talking back to power (Shaw 2007).…”