Community welfare organisations in Australia: Activism or industry?

Abstract

This paper reports on an investigation of the work undertaken by community groups in Australia. Specifically, it highlights the role of community welfare organisations in socio-political contexts undergoing change. Different operating rationalities, corresponding to shifting political and economic imperatives, are examined. An overview of the development of the community welfare sector since 1970 reveals tendencies towards bifurcation and convergence as strategic responses to different socio-political conjunctures. Analysis of the contemporary preoccupation with the rationale of the market indicates a rehearsal of the bifurcation tendencies that characterised the sector in the 1970s. Yet shifts in the organisational relations between the state and the community welfare sector and the appearance of new strategic responses to the operating logics of the market also suggest that it is time for the development of different discursive frameworks in which to think about work in the community welfare sector.

Key Words:

• Community welfare organisations
• economic rationalism
• socio-political change