Contesting community development: grounding definitions in practice contexts

ABSTRACT

Community development has many meanings. The strength of this conceptual openness is that it creates space for communities and their knowledges, values and interests. Its weakness is that, without general agreement on the nature of community development, the concept is applied inconsistently and becomes a “buzzword” which is high on application, yet low on meaning. This paper presents an analysis of community development as an essentially contested concept, highlighting descriptive and normative aspects of meanings and the role of context. It concludes with a range of actions that may assist in working through tensions between general definitions and conceptual openness.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society – Participation
• Aid – Development policies, Capacity development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Colleen Carlon

Colleen Carlon is a Lecturer in the School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Bunbury, Australia.