Procesos y trabajo comunitario

Community development theories and approaches provide the philosophical and practice framework of Neighbourhood Houses (Humpage, 2005; Ife, 2016; Lonsdale, 1993; Ollis et al., 2016; Sandercock & Attilli, 2009; Townsend, 2009; West, 1995). The

82 theoretical building blocks that underpin the social justice approaches and intentions of community development are derived from some of the foundational critical theories of the 20th Century.

At the level of both theory and practice, community development is a contested field (Ife, 2016; Kenny & Connors, 2017; M. Shaw, 2008). Tensions and debates exist between its social justice philosophical position and the approaches of funding bodies and external stakeholders. With the decline of the welfare state, community

development organisations often provide the social and welfare services that the state no longer provides (Ife, 2016).Policy directions over the past three decades have increasingly adopted business-based language and ideas, requiring community development practitioners to navigate conflicting and contradictory expectations (Kenny, 2002). The encroachment and influence of neoliberalism and new

managerialism into policy environments has shifted energy and focus away from the needs of people and communities towards fulfilling ever increasing bureaucratic

requirements (Burkett, 2011). A genealogy of community development’s theoretical and policy-driven influences suggests that community development has been resilient in the face of changing and challenging political and economic landscapes (Boulet, 2017). Ledwith (2011) describes community development as dynamic and responsive to “current thought, political contexts and lived experience” (p.14).

Within community development contemporary philosophical debates often focus on the differing ontological and epistemological frameworks of modernism and

postmodernism, structuralism and poststructuralism (Burkett, 2001, 2011; Ife, 2012, 2016; Kenny, 2002; M. Shaw, 2008).Ife (2016) and Ledwith (2011) suggest that both structural and post-structural perspectives provide the necessary critical and nuanced

83 frameworks for analysing the dynamics and relations of power and empowerment in communities.

Modernist perspectives are associated with the major tenets of Enlightenment thought: humanism, which positioned human beings as the dominant species, motivated by and acting from reason and rationality, and individual free will; logocentrism, the belief that there is a fixed, certain and logical order; and positivism, the belief in scientific

objectivity, and conviction of the certainty and accuracy of scientific knowledge (Crotty, 1998; Fook, 2016; Ife, 2016). Enlightenment ideas were the building blocks for the meta-narratives of modernity which explained the human and natural world as an ordered rational system that could be scientifically studied and explained in terms of cause and effect (Ife, 2016). This androcentric world view emphasised top-down expertise and hierarchical approaches to power and knowledge, and fostered universalising and essentialising practices. Examples of such practices are imputing the same motivations and experiences for all men and all women through their

interactions with their world, and defining or categorising the essential characteristics of what constitutes a “man” or a “woman”. Everything was categorised and classified according to hierarchies and either/or binary logics: either you were a man or not a man – man/woman – powerful or not powerful – powerful/powerless. Such

designations were mutually exclusive essentialised categories with no capacity for accommodating difference and diversity (Braidotti, 1994; Fook, 2016). Difference from the norm, maleness, was considered to be other and inferior. The concern with unity and certainty prompted a search for universal causes and solutions to social problems, and underpinned research approaches and education systems (Ife, 2016).

Structural critiques and analyses of power, such as Marxist and Marxist-derived analyses, emerged in the modernist era. While these were important radical social

84 critiques they reiterated the universalist and essentialist approaches of modernism in seeking the one Truth, or right solution to the social problems seen to be caused by initially class, and later gender, race, colonialism, and other forms of oppression. However, they focussed attention on the causes and effects of oppression and disadvantage, and attributed powerlessness as a function of the way society was structured (Ife, 2016; Ledwith, 2011). Although community development is associated with structural and other critical theoretical traditions, it is typically practised within environments shaped and influenced by dominant ideological and theoretical traditions such as liberalism. Classical liberal traditions tend towards victim-blaming and attribute social problems to individual pathologies (Ledwith, 2011). The political theory of

classical liberalism expounded a vision to “maximise the liberty of individuals” through “open, meritocratic, competitive and tolerant societies in which free-thinking,

enterprising individuals compete and achieve success” (Kenny, 2011, p.88). This vision is enabled by small government, that is, limiting the level of government intervention into people’s affairs and the operation of society, and by promoting the civil rights of individuals, for example, freedom of expression. Kenny (2011) proposes that the similarities between aspects of classical liberalism and community development, are “the commitment to tolerance, freedom of thought and action” (p.88). However, the significant point of divergence between the two comes from the emphasis on

individualism, competition and merit-based hierarchical systems typical of liberalism, and the inclusive, co-operative, and collectivist traditions of community development. Neoliberalism is the contemporary manifestation of economic liberalism at the expense of social or classical liberalism. Neoliberalism entered the economic and political landscape in Australia during the 1980s with a primary ideological focus on the

importance of economics as the principal lever of social systems. It promotes the value of competition, and assumes that individuals are motivated predominantly by economic self-interest (Kenny, 2011).

85 The ideas expressed in structural critiques were a counterpoint to the focus on

individual pathologies and individual solutions. These critiques favoured collectivist and community-based approaches as a way to organise for social change, an approach which Young (I. M. Young, 1986)describedas a departure from the dominance of liberalism.

Structural critiques particularly those associated with Marxism underlie the radical philosophy of community development (Kenny & Connors, 2017). The ideas of Gramsci and Freire were influenced by Marxist ideas. Ledwith (2011) attributes the works of Gramsci5, Freire6, and Alinsky7 as particularly important influences on the theory and practice of community development. She credits Gramsci’s analysis of hegemony for providing an understanding of the ways in which dominant ideas and practices are accepted as normal, and for providing feminists and community development workers with a theoretical framework to understand power and domination. Freire’s work linked the personal and the political through a critical pedagogy located within the real life circumstances of people. Alinsky laid out strategies for community actionand

organisation (Lane, 2013). Their works spoke to the social justice aims of community development and resonated with its grounding within the lived realities of people in communities (Ledwith, 2011).

Freire’s (1972) consideration of the political nature of education extended from and augmented Gramsci’s conception of the educational nature of politics (Ledwith, 2009). Freire expounded on the importance of literacy education for the poor, based upon his work with peasants in Brazil, asserting that:

5

Prison notebooks (1971)

6_{Pedagogy of the oppressed (1970)} 7_{Reveille for radicals (1969)}

86 One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action

programme which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people … The starting point for organizing the programme content of educational or political action must be the present, existential, concrete situation, reflecting the aspirations of the people. (p.68)

Central to Freire’s critical pedagogy was a belief in the power of grassroots education to raise political awareness. Literacy education for the poor became the means of consciousness raising enabling them to “become active and reflective about their reality” (Craig & Mayo, 1995, p.6). Freire used a problematisingand questioning approach to learning, based on a dialogical interaction between teachers and students in which the expert knowledge of the teacher, and the lived experience of the students came together in a mutual teaching/learning relationship. His work underlies the philosophical approach of the popular education movement supporting its political intent to raise people’s awareness of their lived circumstances of oppression. The learning practices of Neighbourhood Houses incorporated aspects of Freire’s

pedagogical approach by acknowledging grassroots concerns and drawing on the lived experience of community members.

Feminists critiqued Freire for basing his conceptions of a more humane world on overcoming the oppression experienced by men, and for excluding the specific lived experiences of women (Ledwith, 2011). However, hooks’ (1993) view of Freire’s work differed. She credited his work with affirming her reality as a black woman resisting and struggling against racism, at a time when the particular struggles of black women were not recognised by white feminists. Subsequently, Freire’s work has been revisited and reframed to include the particulars of women’s oppression (Ledwith, 2011; Weiler, 2001).

87 Second-wave feminism articulated a vision for a world in which women were no longer inferiorised and dominated by men and the patriarchy, and this vision deeply influenced community development (Ife, 2016; Kenny & Connors, 2017; Ledwith, 2011). The many strands of feminist theory and perspectives analysing women’s oppression drew

attention to the inequalities women experience in their daily lives, in both public and private domains, although analyses of the specific nature of women’s oppression, and the solutions, diverge widely (Tong, 2009). Liberal feminists wanted to achieve equal rights and equality with men by reforming the system – removing the legal constraints and discriminatory attitudes preventing women’s equal access and opportunities (Tong, 2009; Weedon, 1994). Radical feminists claimed that sexism was the fundamental oppression (Tong, 2009). Divergent strands of radical feminist thought focussed on either rejecting defined gender roles and identities and the limitations of being

‘feminine’, or in affirming and valuing the culturally ascribed aspects of femininity and roles of women (Tong, 2009). Socialist feminists refuted the strict class-based analysis of socialists in favour of one which interlinked material and gender-based inequality. In the early years of the second wave women’s movement, the assumptions of white feminists of a universal sisterhood of women whose lived experiences were shared and understood by all, effectively left the concerns of black women, women of colour, poor women and other minority women invisible (Ledwith, 2011). They challenged the dominance of white feminist perspectives and highlighted issues of racism and ethnocentrism in the second wave women’s movement. They argued that black women’s lived experience of racism, and their particular economic concerns, had not been taken into account (Davis, 1990; hooks, 2014). Third-wave feminism is

“concerned with difference, inclusiveness, and issues of gender, race, and class” (English, 2012, p.88). Crenshaw’s (1991) widely respected and accepted theory of intersectionality identified multiple and intersecting aspects of women’s oppression,

88 rather than attributing women’s experiences of oppression to a single source

(Carasthasis, 2014; Davis, 1990; hooks, 2014; Ramazanoglu, 1986).

A broad range of feminist concerns and approacheshas influenced the contemporary theoretical and values frameworks of community development. However, Ledwith (2011) maintains that there is still work to do in order to develop a truly anti-racist community development practice, advocating for “critical whiteness” (Ledwith, 2011, p.178) challenging the invisibility and continued privilege of whiteness as a source of power. She argues that white privilege is an unfamiliar concept to most white people, and has “still not been embraced into the theoretical base of community development” (p.178).

Lonsdale (1993) wrote that the social change and liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s, inspired by radical critiques and analyses of sexism, racism, classism, and other social concerns prominent at the time, fuelled a sense of optimism among

citizens that social change was possible. Community development expanded in this era of radicalism as an alternative response to welfarism and charity in alleviating poverty and oppression (Ledwith, 2011).It was this optimism and political awareness that inspired the development of Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria. Importantly, these analyses provided the Neighbourhood House movement with a broad theoretical framework for conceptualising empowerment and transformation within communities.

Empowerment has traditionally been conceptualised within the binary logics of modernism – empowered/disempowered, powerful/powerless, dominant/dominated. Community empowerment and individual empowerment have typically been

characterised as separate, rather than interconnected and iterative, processes (Ledwith, 2011; Cahill, 2007). Individual empowerment has been conceptualised as

89 predominantly intrapersonal, and emphasises psychological aspects of empowerment, such as increased self-confidence (Ledwith, 2011). Community empowerment is associated with collective activity and acts of resistance which challenge inequitable and dominant power relations (Ledwith, 2011; Yuval-Davis, 1994). Concepts of individual empowerment often dissociate it from broader structures of power,

associating it with improved sense of self, and considering it as a largely psychological phenomenon. In contrast, community empowerment is described in agentic terms as communities taking collective action to transform their lives, materially, culturally and politically(Ife, 2016; Kenny & Connors, 2017; Ledwith, 2011).

Challenging the inequities of structural systems of power is considered to be an important aspect of empowerment (Ife, 2016; Kenny & Connors, 2017; Ledwith, 2011; Riger, 1993). A general tenet of structuralist and modernist analyses has been that empowerment can be achieved only when the structural ‘causes’ of disadvantage – race, gender, and class inequality are overcome (Ife, 2016; Mowbray, 2000). In these analyses empowerment has been closely connected to collectives and movements which challenge and resist systems and structures of oppression.

Contemporary community development scholars (Ife, 2016; Kenny & Connors, 2017; Ledwith, 2011) affirm the strong focus on community empowerment and its association with transformation and social change. They argue that personal or individual

empowerment is transformative only when it is linked to collective social change processes. This view acknowledges the interconnection between individual and

collective or community empowerment, however, it appears to be an approach in which community and individual are positioned in dichotomous relation to one another (I. M. Young, 1986), and which considers that structures of power must be completely

90 reliance on structural analysis can lead to structural determinism and a politics of despair, making attempts to completely dismantle the structural causes of

disadvantage seem overwhelming and hopeless.

Young (1986) offers an alternative to the oppositional dichotomy present in community discourses between individual and community, weaving the two together:

Unlike reactionary appeals to community which consistently assert the

subordination of individual aims and values to the collective,most radical theorists assert that community itself consists in the respect for and fulfilment of individual aims and capacities. The neat distinction between individualism and community thus generates a dialectic in which each is a condition for the other. (p.8)

A contemporary and more nuanced approach to understanding power and

empowerment is offered by post-structural conceptions of power. Cameron and Gibson (2004) and Davies and Gannon (2011) claim that poststructuralism disrupts modernist certainties of social and theoretical concepts, which resonates with Young’s troubling of the individual/community dualism. Feminist poststructuralism deconstructs oppositional dualisms such as male/female, and powerful/powerless, and the gendered binary thinking that positions women as lesser than men (Davies & Gannon, 2011). Cahill (2007) conceptualises empowerment as both an individual and a group process in which each are interconnected and indivisible from the other.

Poststructuralism proposes that concepts such as power and empowerment are discursively constructed, and historically and culturally situated (Flyvbjerg, 2001; Gore, 2003; Ife, 2016).Gore (2003)argues that this means empowerment can no longer be considered to have a fixed or universally applicable meaning; its meanings are

91 associated with the changing contexts and particular discourses within which it is embedded. According to Ife (2016):

… empowerment becomes a process of challenging and changing discourse. It emphasises people’s subjective understandings and the construction of their world views, and points to the need for the deconstruction of these understandings and the establishment of alternative vocabularies for empowerment. (p.62)

Poststructuralism exposes the limitations and assumptions of structuralist approaches which view power from a top-down perspective (Foucault, 1980; Ife, 2016). Mullaly (2011) explains that power is not the possession of any one group:

Whereas power was traditionally viewed as something that the dominant group possessed and subordinate groups lacked, (postmodern thought)…has helped us to see that power is not an absolute entity concentrated among a powerful few. (p.237) (brackets in original).

Foucault (Foucault, 1982, 1980) analysed power from below rather than from the top. He argued that power exists everywhere, in all relations, whether of production,

kinship, or sexuality, and that power is not an entity possessed by powerful groups, but rather that power exists in relation, when enacted. This view challenges the structuralist critique of powerlessness and its causes. Gore (2003) claims that Foucault directs attention to the “microdynamics of the operation of power as it is exercised in particular sites” (p.336). Paying attention to the microdynamics of power acknowledges the transformative and empowering impacts of small changes in the private and personal lives of individuals and their social relations (Rowan & Shore, 2009).

92 A feminist and post-structural conception of power provides the theoretical lens for this study to explore the dynamics of power and resistance, and to locate this in the micro sites of human activity: within the family, among friendship networks, in the

neighbourhood (Healy, 2000).